A.Stadlen quoted: "Across
the narrow yard where the rain tinkled in the dark against some battered ash
cans, windows were blandly alight and in one of the a black-trousered man with
his bare elbows raised could be seen lying supine on an untidy
bed." He then asked: Could he have his hands clasped below
his resting head? But then why not say so?
JM: References to bare elbows are
quite common in VN's novels. I've found them associated to a
movement, such as "clasping shut a necklace", three times and I always
associated this position to "wings". It is mentioned in KQK and in ADA, but
I chose a particular sentence from Bend Sinister to bring it up as an example:
...and similarly the priest had failed to perceive the futility of his
metaphysical promise in relation to those favoured ones (men of bizarre genius,
big game hunters, chess players, prodigiously robust and versatile lovers,
the radiant woman taking her necklace off after the ball) for
whom this world was a paradise in itself and who would be always one point up no
matter what happened to everyone in the melting pot of
eternity.
Perhaps here VN might have also implied "wings" and called our attention
to an unprotected window in the "living room". In this story it seems that
the young man who suffers from "referential
mania" certainly didn't fit in the category of those for whom "this world was a paradise"
Sergei Soloviev wrote:..." I don't understand why do you think that the parent who would look
after the son would sleep with him in the same bed? [...] Of course watch
him all the night and remain awake may be too difficult, this explains the
rotation.[...} they desperately love him and want him to have a better place to
sleep or because in the other room there is much more dangerous objects (she is
cooking in the room with the couch?).
JM : You are right,
Sergei, the parents might have taken shifts watching him at night because
they'd be sitting on a chair placed by the bed. The room where cooking might
take place (or, at least, which had been used when boiling water) also
sports a dangerous window for anyone intent on "flying out".And yet, in my
opinion, these precautions are preposterously planned, also
because the young man ( at least as a child) was an insomniac.
What struck me most was the lack of space for their
son in their cramped flat: it is suggestive of a lack of
enough emotional space, although not of any lack of good-will on the part
of the old couple.
Fran Assa: I think it is a mistake to
dismiss symbolic references to Freud's thought in this story. VN of course
was dismissive of Freud, but he mentioned him all the time! He obviously
was not so ignorant as to dismiss something he had not read. [...]
In one of my admittedly overly long messages,references to the stations of
the cross was edited out
JM: Fran, perhaps you only checked the
entry of my personal selection of those items I plan to discuss
in the List, instead of the original message you sent and which has
been distributed by the editors. Would Nabokov seriously employ
"symbolic references to Freud"?
VN was quite vocal against the use of "Freudian
symbolism" and I couldn't agree more with him.