J. Connolly: One
place where a trace of an erased word is still visible (but [not] noted in the
transcript below) is on page 199. It appears that VN had originally put down the
word "lyric" as a modifier for "body," but then erased it...One wonders what
adjective VN might eventually have come up with to replace "lyric."
H.Bouazza: My guess
is that Nabokov on that page wanted a word like 'lyrate' which he uses in Ada.
'Lyrate hips' - shaped like a lyre.
Tom Rymour: Could the word have
been "lyre", as in the 'a posteriori' reunion of Van and Ada shortly after
the landing of the aircraft with libellula
wings?
JM: Afer perusing for TOoL for the
first time, I discovered I wanted to take up ADA once more. So I returned
to it, too. I missed the younger Vladimir/Van.
TOoL: Her...docile
frame when turned over by hand revealed new marvels - the mobile omoplates of a
child being tubbed, the incurvation of a ballerina's spine, narrow nates of an
ambiguous irresistible charm...Mr.Hubert sat on Flora's bed and nodded his bald
head acknowledging all the offences of life, and wiped his eyes with a violet
handkerchief which turned organge - a little parlor trick - when he stuffed it
back into his heart pocked...
ADA: ...she turned over, naïvely
ready to embrace him...When he grew too loud, she shushed, shushingly breathing
into his mouth, and now her four limbs were frankly around him as if she had
been love-making for years in all our dreams — but impatient young passion
(brimming like Van’s overflowing bath ...a crotchety gray old wordman on the
edge of a hotel bed) did not survive the first few blind thrusts; it burst at
the lip of the orchid, and a bluebird uttered a warning warble...
TOoL: She observed with quiet interest the difficulty Jules
had of drawing a junior- size sheath over an organ that looked abormally stout
and...etc
ADA: the most extraordinary word in the English language was
‘husked,’ becaused it stood for opposite things, covered and uncovered, tightly
husked but easily husked, meaning they peel off quite easily, you don’t have to
tear the waistband, you brute. ‘Carefully husked brute,’ said Van tenderly. The
passage of time could only enhance his tenderness for the creature...whose
haunches had grown more lyrate, whose hair-ribbon he had
undone.
TOoL: He saw her [lyric] back her
hips between his hands.
ADA: ...while he steadied her lovely
lyre and next moment was at the suede-soft root, was gripped, was deep between
the familiar, incomparable, crimson-lined lips...and Van emitted a long groan of
deliverance, and now their four eyes were looking again into the azure brook of
Pinedale...