*KQKn : Tom, the Alsatian dog, jumps from light into shadow to
appear as a "spectre of a dog" (758). Dreyer's gardener "moved off with his wheelbarrow, turning with geometrical
precision at the intersections of gravel paths, and Tom, rising lazily,
proceeded to walk after him like a clockword toy, turning when the gardener
turned [...]Two men in top hats, diplomats or undertakers, went by...Out of
nowhere came a Red Admiral butterfly, settled on the edge of the table, opened
its wings..." (769)
Much later, when the first signs of Martha's deathly pneumonia start to
appear, Blavdak Vinomori enters the picture, VN himself,
"walnut-brown, "a suntanned fellow", while leaning "against the wall
was some kind of net: a bag of pale-bluish gauze on a ring fixed to a rod of
light metal" (901). We also find a "split": "a
strange rearrangement of emotions was taking place in him (Franz). Dreyer had
divided in two. There was the dangerous irksome
Dreyer, who walked, spoke, tormented him, guffawed; and there was the second,
purely schematic, Dreyer, who had become detached from the first - a stylized
playing card, a heraldic design - and it was this that had to be
destroyed." (863).
PALE FIRE: "From far below mounted the clink and
tinkle of distant masonry work, and a sudden train passed between gardens,
and a heraldic butterfly volant en arrière, sable, a bend gules,
traversed the stone parapet, and John Shade took a fresh card."
Kinbote, note to line 408....A man, unheedful of
the butterfly —/Some neighbor’s gardener, I guess — goes by...Shade,
lines 990/999
btw: Matt, besides the trundle exchange, Google-magic revealed a link
(these are almost inevitable, considering the amount of retrievable online
information) with John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi"!!! Namely, "Cariola.
Duchess's waiting-woman...Her name is a play on the Italian carriolo meaning
"trundle-bed", where personal servants would have slept."
in a discussion at the "pynchon-l-digest" ( August 12, 2003) V2 #3482, two
other bonuses:
897: "wick" -- "A piece of material that conveys liquid by
capillary action." (American Heritage Dictionary)
Canto Four: Versipellis/ "There is always a psychopompos
around the corner, isn't there? John Shade (p. 226)/ "We have seen that the
original werewolf, howling in the wintry blast, is a kind of psychopomp, or
leader of departed souls; he is the wild ancestor of the death-dog, whose voice
under the window of a sick-chamber is even now sound of
ill-omen." from "Werewolves and Swan-maidens" by John Fiske http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/1871aug/fiskej.htm
: