Joseph Aisenberg: Actually, if you were reading Alexey Sklyarenko's annotations he'd pointed out that the Arctic was a boot, I believe, explaining that the snowy hill pulls the boot off.*
Jansy Mello: Thank you again for this tip about Alexey’s “annotations”. Perhaps in Russian the word is more familiar to the reader than its English translation as “arctic”. “Spring in Fialta” is a favorite short-story among Brazilian Nabokovians (I know about at least three translations). The masterful (albeit uncomittal) lines: “were I a writer, I should allow only my heart to have imagination, and for the rest rely upon memory, that long-drawn sunset shadow of one’s personal truth”, with the sounds and cadence, “long-drawn sunset shadow...” (underlined here) are still waiting for an equally powerful version.
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*Jansy Mello: On Sunday, February 21, 2016 4:50 AM, Jansy Mello <mailto:jansy.mello@OUTLOOK.COM> wrote:
(Sunday, 10 Jan. 2016)… what does “deep snow had performed the amputation of an arctic” mean? [I only managed to collect etymological data about the word arctic itself [ ]. J. Aisenberg was so kind to reply ( 13 Jan.2016) : On the "deep amputation" quote: in context the narrator describes people running up a snowy hill followed by a groan. Isn't the meaning then that someone's leg or legs have sunk into the snow, figuratively amputating the limbs; the "arctic" in this context meaning "of or pertaining to the cold conditions which created the snowy hill?" Today I was surprised to learn what the word “an arctic” indicates from a Brazilian friend who is translating “Spring in Fialta”. It means, simply, a galoche. The definition begins with a description of “a waterproof overshoe lined with fur.”