S.K-B: “old/cold” was a
rare, sad rhyming pair that also rhymed in German: “alt/kalt.” Wonder if VN had
this added nuance of “alt-itude” brooding in some recess of his fertile
mind?
AS: "Delvig* disliked mystical
poetry. He used to say: the nearer to heaven, the colder [it/one is getting]"
(Pushkin, "Table-talk," 1835).
Merriam-Webster: old
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English
eald; akin to Old High German alt old, Latin alere to
nourish, alescere to grow, altus high, deep.
Date: before 12th century
JM: Some time ago I
received a list of words for "Night" and "Eight" in various languages.
German: Acht/Nacht;
Spanish: Ocho/Noche;
French: Nuit/Huit;
Portuguese:Oito/Noite;
Italian: Notte/Otto.
I cannot remember most of the examples, but
this sample conveys the general idea.
JA: Because the asphalt was old and spotted with oil, it
looked, for a moment, as if bits and of the parking lot had suddenly come to
life. Point? Possibly Sebastian's image only seemed to coincide with V's. It's
curious the way that the overlapping can seem almost as important as the charm
and poetry of the image, which seems suspiciously susceptible to a symbolic
reading about the nature of art.
JM: An interesting remark
after you distinguished Sebastian's image (stone melting into wing)
from V's recollection (bits of the carved
entablature were turned into flaky life) to note that this overlapping
invited a symbolic reading about the nature of art. Both V. and SK had the
same vision ( so did you) and their perception was already poetic
(artistic)in itself. Or only SK's written version of the experience could
be understood as "art"?
Btw: Re-reading the message with Kinbote's
indignant words concerning Shade's play with "Le Grand
Peut-Ętre"("execrable pun, deliberately placed in this epigraphic position
to stress lack of respect for Death.") I realized that the "Great Maybe",
which I always interpreted as "God", seems to mean "Death" to Kinbote
( it makes no sense to understand his meaning as: "there is no
IF concerning death", because he is a Zemblan Catholic and the
soul flies on to heaven, or dumps in
hell)