An idle note on a bilingual word play. In
Kinbote's note to Line 949 he where he tracks (in imagination) Gradus' journey
to New Wye, he describes his would-be assassin. On p. 277, we find:
"We
can at last describe his tie, an Easter gift from a dressy butcher, his
brother-in-law in Onhava: imitation silk, color chocolate brown, barred with
red, the end tucked into the shirt between the second and third buttons, a
Zemblan fashion of the nineteen thirties — and a father-waistcoat substitute
according to the learned."
Although
no explicit mention is made of a butterfly, astute commentators such as Dieter
Zimmer correctly identify the tie pattern & colors as those of the
ill-omened Red Admiral. What belatedly struck me today is that the Russian word
for butterfly is "bAbochka" which in Russian (as in English) is the word
for a "bow tie" which, of course, nicely resembles a butterfly. The implicit
word play is not quite ideal since Gradus' tie is clearly not a bow
tie since it is tucked into his shirt front.)