lexey Sklyarenko: [At Marina's
funeral] D'Onsky's son, a person with only one arm, threw his remaining one
around Demon and both wept comme des fontaines. (Ada: 3.8)... Soon after his
arrival in Kishinev ...Pushkin met Alexander Ypsilanti ... a Phanariot who
served in the Russian army and lost his right arm in the Battle of Dresden
(1813). Pushkin mentions безрукий князь (one-armed prince) in a poem written in
Kishinev (c. Apr. 5, 1821) and addressed to Vasiliy Davydov ..."
JM: There's also a one-armed man in "Lolita," Bill, a
friend of the Schillers, inserted during Humbert Humbert's and
Lolita's last encounter. Through the image of deformity Nabokov
makes a reference to surrealism and
pointillism: "He nursed his glass and, nodding sagely,
replied: "Well, he cut it on a jagger, I guess. Lost his right arm in Italy."
Lovely mauve almond trees in bloom. A blown-off surrealistic arm hanging up
there in the pointillistic mauve. A flowergirl tattoo on the hand. Dolly and
band-aided Bill reappeared. It occurred to me that her ambiguous, brown and pale
beauty excited the cripple."