In Pale Fire, Kinbote casually mentions the novel’s title in the Foreword to his edition of John Shade’s poems. In one of the sentences he mentions a flutter of black butterflies born from the poet’s decision to burn some of his cards.
“I recall seeing him from my porch, on a brilliant morning, burning a whole stack of them in the pale fire of the incinerator before which he stood with bent head like an official mourner among the wind-borne black butterflies of that backyard auto-da-fé.”
I wonder if this image is a “trite” one (I’m reading his Lectures on Literature and following his critical observations about poetic metaphors and similes). He must have liked it because its precursor is found in Flaubert, in a sentence quoted by Nabokov while he examines the fate of Emma’s bridal bouquet. (LL,Bowers,140).
“...the shrivelled paper petals, fluttering like black butterflies at the back of the stove, at last flew up the chimney.”
When I looked the French original (I was wondering about the choice of the words flutter in relation to butterflies) I found that the English translation (often modified by VN during the course of his lectures) is a bit different from Flaubert’s text : “ et les corolles de papier, racornies, se balançant le long de la plaque comme des papillons noirs, enfin s'envolèrent dans la cheminée.[ Quand on partit de Toste, au mois de mars, Mme Bovary était enceinte.]"
http://pauledel.blog.lemonde.fr/2009/10/27/bouquet-de-mariage-qui-brule/
And I found something else. The commentator notes that right after that sentence, Flaubert announces that Madame Bovary is pregnant and he observes: “les illusions de jeunesse, les passions, tout devient cendre avec flaubert,mais ce qui est important dans ce texte c'est que, en brulant son bouquet de mariage, Gustave annonce immédiatement que madame bovary est enceinte. Tout ce papier qui part "en papillons noirs" "corolles de papier raccornies".. aboutit à une gestation.; comme c’est étrange ce Flaubert qui "noircit" sans cesse, toute sa vie ,du papier,impersonnellement mais qui associe,en quelques lignes, la cendre du souvenir à la maternité.Je trouve que ces quelques lignes, si obsédantes chez flaubert,,cette image qui revient si souvent chez lui de la couronne de fleurs fanée.... tout consumé et brulé sans qu'il ait admiré le moment de la fraicheur et du mariage...” (Flaubert associates the cinders of remembrances to maternity without having first admired their initial freshness and marriage itself). What struck me was of a different order. There’s in ADA an equally abrupt announcement relative to pregnancy (in one edition it’s Van’s, in others it’s Cordula’s*). I was jolted from Pale Fire to ADA and back again, intent of what could have made such a lasting impression on V.Nabokov. In his lecture on Flaubert the reference to Emma’s pregnancy or to dead ashes is absent. VN chooses to explore “something applicable to this passage” in a letter written by Flaubert in July 22 (!) 1852: “A really good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, something you cannot change, and just as rhythmic and sonorous.”
I couldn’t reach any conclusion, though. Thoughts?
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* - “When he could not sleep, as now often happened, he retired to the sitting room and sat there annotating his authors or else he would walk up and down the open terrace, under a haze of stars, in severely restricted meditation, till the first tramcar jangled and screeched in the dawning abyss of the city.
When in early September Van Veen left Manhattan for Lute, she was pregnant.” (end of Part One of ADA) (cp. the rhythmic pattern of this VN sentence with Flaubert’s about leaving Toste)