I suggest that "the only riddle" is highly ironic. Its immediate reference is: How could the lemon appear in "reality," if Simpson never actually entered the painting -- that is, if Frank's confession of having painted his former friend into the frame is correct? On that interpretation, the lemon is the only inexplicable fact, the only riddle.

But VN has carefully structured the story so that we can't rest content with this rather disappointing exegesis. Far from being "the only riddle," that lemon is simply the gateway or signpost for the intricate, unresolvable riddle posed by the story as a whole. Who is delusional? Wrong question, I think. Delusions exist only against a background of unambiguous "reality," and La Veneziana offers no such thing. VN leaves us free to oscillate between possible readings of "what happened," and it's precisely this oscillation that is the point of the story, as in so much of VN's work -- it's a device to help readers experience a bizarre straddling-between, or double-consciousness, which I believe VN found precious and unparaphrasable, save in his art.

----- Original Message -----

From: jansymello

To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU

Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 8:25 AM

Subject: [NABOKV-L] [NABOKOV LIST] QUERY: Ash Wednesday, fingers and ashes: what's the riddle?

Dear List

In "The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov" (1995), La Veneziana, on page 106, a sentence convokes the reader:

"with a delicate rotary rubbing of his finger alterady familiar to the reader, he was sprinkling a pinch of ground tar..."

Twelve pages before, on page 94, indeed there is:

" the Colonel and McGore stopped...the latter pensively picking some dry gray pollenlike matter out of his nostril and scattering it with a light rolling rub of his fingers."

But something really did happen in the castle, as the narrator observes: "Left alone the gardener gave a disapproving shake of his head as he looked at the matted lawn. Then he bent down and picked up a small dark lemon bearing the imprint of five fingers..." (page 114) before, a few lines later, he addresses the reader again:

"...Thus the dry wrinkled fruit the gardener happened to find remains the only riddle of this whole tale..."

What is there before the dark lemon is found on the grass?

"Simpson...entered the painting...There was a scent of myrtle and of wax, with a very faint whiff of lemon (and)... a real, Venetian, Maureen - lowering her hand into her basket, handed him a small lemon... he accepted the yellow fruit from her hand, and, as soon as he felt its firm, roughish coolness and the dry warmth of her long fingers, an incredible bliss came to a boil within him... It was then that a sudden terror made him compress the cold little lemon. The enchantment had dissolved..." ( pages 110/111).

Query: Wherein lies the riddle?

In the literary existence of a dark lemon found on the grass?

In a casual remark about the imprint of five fingers left on its rough cool surface? (Are these fearful imprints "more real" than the described lemon?)

Who is dellusional: McGore? Simpson? The reader?

Btw: Goethe's famous lines about Italy and melancholy recollections could have been alluded here? ( "Wilhelm Meister":MIGNON) They seem to have no bearing with the "La Veneziana's" story, with the exception of the clear references to Italy, lemons and myrtle.

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