Just one initial investigation from "Ada"
(related to "Dr Froid, one of the administerial
centaurs, who may have been an émigré brother with a passport-changed name of
the Dr Froit of Signy-Mondieu-Mondieu in the Ardennes or, more likely, the same
man, because they both came from Vienne, Isère, and were only sons (as her son
was), evolved, or rather revived, the therapistic device..."), spurred on
by Steven Norquist's note to the List for its wording reminded me of a
specific article by Freud, related to Nabokov's alterations of Freud's name.
In the referred article we learn that, while chatting with a fellow train passenger in Herzegovina
(keeping Trafoi in the back of his mind,) Sigmund Freud wanted to
mention a series of frescoes he'd recently seen in Orvietto, but the name of the
artist escaped him. Only Boltraffio and Boticelli occurred to him.
The report of the chain of associations which were simultaneously misleading him
and holding onto his repressed ideas (death and impotence) will then reveal
the mechanism of unconscious distortions (metaphor/metonimy,
displacement/condensation) behind his forgetfulness. Only after a long
probing was Freud able to recover the name: Signorelli (Lucca) and
the illustrations ("Last Judgement").*
If Nabokov has read Freud (in German, as
sometimes it is asserted) he must have been interested in the Viennese's special
articles on memory and forgetting. The Signorelli article is one of this
lot. When playing with Freud's name,
Froid or Froit, now linked to Signy ** Mondieu-Mondieu, perhaps
Nabokov had in his mind the German designation of "Our Lord" (Mon Dieu, Mon
Signeur), "Mein Gott, mein Herr" and the convoluted story of Signorelli. He
may have intended to satirize the mechanism of distortion and at the same time,
report or play with it...
......................................................................................................................................................................................................
* NB: Please, check
the listed references for precisa data, since my report relies only in
my recollection of it.
- Classics in the History of Psychology -- Freud (1901)
Chapter 1 -
Sigmund Freud (1901) Translation by A. A. Brill (1914) .... (d) I
can no longer conceive the forgetting of the name Signorelli as an accidental
occurrence
**- instead of Sigmund Freud. Cf. the hero
in Norse legends, Sigmund, who together with his sister
Signy, murdered her children and begat a son, Sinfjötli. When Sinfjötli had
grown up, he and Sigmund murdered Signy's husband Siggeir. (Rape Crisis Online
Encyclopedia / Incest /Wiki )