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Re: Fwd: RE: ADA queries
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I have no idea whether this is pertinent, but a Google search
for "Ah, that line" turns up this, from an early Edith Wharton
short story "The Fulness of Life". The setting appears to be
the afterlife, but I admit I didn't skim very carefully. I've
quoted a lot of it so you can see whether the exchanges are
relevant to Van and Ada's mutual discoveries.
<begin excerpt>
They stood, hand in hand, looking down over the parapet upon the
shimmering landscape which stretched forth beneath them into
sapphirine space, and the Spirit of Life, who kept watch near the
threshold, heard now and then a floating fragment of their talk
blown backward like the stray swallows which the wind sometimes
separates from their migratory tribe.
"Did you never feel at sunset--"
"Ah, yes; but I never heard anyone else say so. Did you?"
"Do you remember that line in the third canto of the 'Inferno?'"
"Ah, that line--my favorite always. Is it possible--"
"You know the stooping Victory in the frieze of the Nike
Apteros?"
"You mean the one who is tying her sandal? Then you have
noticed, too, that all Botticelli and Mantegna are dormant in
those flying folds of her drapery?"
"After a storm in autumn have you never seen--"
"Yes, it is curious how certain flowers suggest certain painters--
the perfume of the incarnation, Leonardo; that of the rose,
Titian; the tuberose, Crivelli--"
"I never supposed that anyone else had noticed it."
"Have you never thought--"
"Oh, yes, often and often; but I never dreamed that anyone else had."
"But surely you must have felt--"
"Oh, yes, yes; and you, too--"
"How beautiful! How strange--"
Their voices rose and fell, like the murmur of two fountains
answering each other across a garden full of flowers. At length,
with a certain tender impatience, he turned to her and said:
"Love, why should we linger here? All eternity lies before us.
Let us go down into that beautiful country together and make a
home for ourselves on some blue hill above the shining river."
You can read the story at
<http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/whrt210.htm>.
Hopefully,
Jerry Friedman
--- "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
>
>
> I am working on the annotations for I.24, another chapter that turns out
> on even
> closer inspection to be full of surprises, as well as of intractable old
> teases.
>
>
>
> Can our Brazilian contingent or anyone else explain why (apart from the
> alliteration) Nabokov adds "or Brazilian" to the phrase at 147.03-04:
> "among
> upper-upper-class families (in the British or Brazilian sense)." I know
> nothing
> about the class system (as Nabokov might have been aware of it) in
> Brazil. The
> French translation drops the parenthetical aside.
>
>
>
> Any ideas on the popular novel Ah, cette Line (152.09-10)?
>
>
>
> Any pertinent help will be acknowledged.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brian Boyd
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
----- End forwarded message -----
for "Ah, that line" turns up this, from an early Edith Wharton
short story "The Fulness of Life". The setting appears to be
the afterlife, but I admit I didn't skim very carefully. I've
quoted a lot of it so you can see whether the exchanges are
relevant to Van and Ada's mutual discoveries.
<begin excerpt>
They stood, hand in hand, looking down over the parapet upon the
shimmering landscape which stretched forth beneath them into
sapphirine space, and the Spirit of Life, who kept watch near the
threshold, heard now and then a floating fragment of their talk
blown backward like the stray swallows which the wind sometimes
separates from their migratory tribe.
"Did you never feel at sunset--"
"Ah, yes; but I never heard anyone else say so. Did you?"
"Do you remember that line in the third canto of the 'Inferno?'"
"Ah, that line--my favorite always. Is it possible--"
"You know the stooping Victory in the frieze of the Nike
Apteros?"
"You mean the one who is tying her sandal? Then you have
noticed, too, that all Botticelli and Mantegna are dormant in
those flying folds of her drapery?"
"After a storm in autumn have you never seen--"
"Yes, it is curious how certain flowers suggest certain painters--
the perfume of the incarnation, Leonardo; that of the rose,
Titian; the tuberose, Crivelli--"
"I never supposed that anyone else had noticed it."
"Have you never thought--"
"Oh, yes, often and often; but I never dreamed that anyone else had."
"But surely you must have felt--"
"Oh, yes, yes; and you, too--"
"How beautiful! How strange--"
Their voices rose and fell, like the murmur of two fountains
answering each other across a garden full of flowers. At length,
with a certain tender impatience, he turned to her and said:
"Love, why should we linger here? All eternity lies before us.
Let us go down into that beautiful country together and make a
home for ourselves on some blue hill above the shining river."
You can read the story at
<http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/whrt210.htm>.
Hopefully,
Jerry Friedman
--- "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
>
>
> I am working on the annotations for I.24, another chapter that turns out
> on even
> closer inspection to be full of surprises, as well as of intractable old
> teases.
>
>
>
> Can our Brazilian contingent or anyone else explain why (apart from the
> alliteration) Nabokov adds "or Brazilian" to the phrase at 147.03-04:
> "among
> upper-upper-class families (in the British or Brazilian sense)." I know
> nothing
> about the class system (as Nabokov might have been aware of it) in
> Brazil. The
> French translation drops the parenthetical aside.
>
>
>
> Any ideas on the popular novel Ah, cette Line (152.09-10)?
>
>
>
> Any pertinent help will be acknowledged.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brian Boyd
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
----- End forwarded message -----