Dear SKB,

Fortunately VN had no such fear!

Carolyn
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Yes, but that is because of his own relationship to her, which he is  hiding from the reader. Doesn't Shade make some reference to a brother he has to protect? This "brother" would have to be Kinbote, who shares the same parents and probably got Shade into some trouble on occasion..   ck

I don't remember anything like that from Shade.  Protecting a brother shows up in one of Kinbote's similes: "... he, my sweet awkward old John, kept clawing at me and pulling me after him, back to the protection of his laurels, with the solemn fussiness
of a poor lame boy trying to get his spastic brother out of the range of the stones hurled at them by schoolchildren, once a familiar sight in all countries." [n. 1000]     jf

Dear Jerry,

That's the reference I had in mind. The "poor lame boy" is John Shade. Similarly in his poem Shade refers to "some p ure lad" made to quench with his tongue the lust of a wench (in rough approximation) - - this too is himself.

One of these days I'll go through the book again and pull all the references to brothers and twins.

Carolyn