Dear List,
In my last posting I wrote: "Kryptomnesically induced, or not, Virginia Knight reminded me
of Nina in Spring in Fialta.
After returning to TRLSK, I
re-discovered a Nina in the novel, now SK's dark love." -
but I made a mistake when I listed together Nina Toorovetz, Nina Rechnoy,
Helene von Graun and Mme Lecerf in TRLSK.
Helene von Graun cannot be confused with Mme Lecerf:
these two visited Blauberg at different moments during SK's stay there;
they were physically different because the hotel manager distinguished them
both and "V." could not any similarity bt the picture of H.von Graun
her friend Mme Lecerf showed to him while he was looking at her; the
Silbermann (Siller) detective got two different addresses for these two, in
Paris. There were two women at Mme Lecerf's
residence...(V failed to see H.von Graun, though)
There is a second trap, too. We can be certain
that Mme Lecerf reveals herself as Nina Rechnoy from the trap laid to her by
V. Nevertheless, we cannot be as certain that
she was SK's beloved one. She could be H.von Graun, unseen except
for her receding back, dismissed by "V", who now concentrated on
Nina/Lecerf because he was struck by the story of kissing the husband's
cousin, a boy who could write his name upside-down...
Perhaps SK was prophetically hinting at something
similar when he wrote "The Prismatic Bezel".( curiously, in 1941 VN could put
down:" William [Anne's first queer
effeminate fiancé, who afterwards jilted her] saw her home,
p.98. V is often described as being "queer", himself, cf.
p. 109 & 140) In SK's novel there is a story about a conjuror
and various contorsionist tricks, written by SK before he
even met Nina Rechnoy or Helen von Graun. As
prophetically, perhaps, as I'd been with my "kryptomnesia" since I seem to have,
at times and unwittingly, plagiarized a text I had not seen
that is at the printers....
Like Helene von Graun-Nina Rechnoy I also made a
mistake when I listed two different Starov architects. There is an architect
called I.E.Starov. (The
Cathedral of the Holy Trinity - St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra was designed by Ivan
Starov.)
Vasily Stasov was responsible for
The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity of the Izmailovsky
Life-Guards Regiment