While I was searching through Vivian Darkbloom’s index in ADA, exploring the incidences of the number “four” (as in Marina’s “katrakatra”), I stopped at this entry:
p.204. Tetrastes etc.: Latin name of the imaginary ‘Peterson’s Grouse’ from Wind River Range, Wyo.
(I wonder why did Darkbloom stress the “imaginary” aspect of the grouse, or its designation in Greek through Ada’s dainty pedantry. The pheasant is first described as a “mountain grouse” #).
In the Wikipedia there’s no explanation for the Greek “tetra” (four), but we find that Tetrastes is “a genus of birds in the grouse subfamily. It contains the following species: Hazel Grouse, Tetrastes bonasia; Chinese Grouse, Tetrastes sewerzowi Both species live in forests with at least some conifers in cool regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Following Peterson, Alan P. "Birds of the World -- current valid scientific avian names.” *
I must check in greater detail the context of Darkbloom’s comment on p.204. in a scene that also brings up Lucette’s exclusion from foursome Demon,Van,Ada and Marina:
‘I don’t know if you know,’ said Van, resuming his perch on the fat arm of his father’s chair. ‘Uncle Dan will be here with the lawyer and Lucette only after dinner.’
‘Capital,’ said Demon.
‘Marina and Ada should be down in a minute — ce sera un dîner à quatre.’
This special dinner promises several links with future events related to the tense relationship between Demon and his two children and a recurring theme about their shared birthmarks marks (attention is drawn to the hands but the marks are on their r/l insteps, too), paraphrasts, sophisticated wines and cooking, and a lot more…
Related curiosities:
1. “Presently, as Marina had promised, the two children went upstairs. ‘Why do stairs creak so desperately, when two children go upstairs,’ she thought, looking up at the balustrade along which two left hands progressed with strikingly similar flips and glides like siblings taking their first dancing lesson. ‘After all, we were twin sisters; everybody knows that.’ The same slow heave, she in front, he behind, took them over the last two steps, and the staircase was silent again. ‘Old-fashioned qualms,’ said Marina. I/5
2. “Somewhere, further back, much further back, safely transformed by her screen-corrupted mind into a stale melodrama was her three-year-long period of hectically spaced love-meetings with Demon, A Torrid Affair […tears, treachery, terror, an insane sister’s threats, helpless, no doubt, but leaving their tiger-marks on the drapery of dreams] And the shadow of retribution on the backwall (with ridiculous legal innuendos). All this was mere scenery, easily packed, labeled ‘Hell’ and freighted away; and only very infrequently some reminder would come — say, in the trickwork close-up of two left hands belonging to different sexes — doing what? Marina could no longer recall (though only four years had elapsed!) — playing à quatre mains? — no, neither took piano lessons — casting bunny-shadows on a wall? — closer, warmer, but still wrong; measuring something? But what? Climbing a tree? The polished trunk of a tree? But where, when? Someday, she mused, one’s past must be put in order. Retouched, retaken. Certain ‘wipes’ and ‘inserts’ will have to be made in the picture; certain telltale abrasions in the emulsion will have to be corrected; ‘dissolves’ in the sequence discreetly combined with the trimming out of unwanted, embarrassing ‘footage,’ and definite guarantees obtained; yes, someday — before death with its clap-stick close..”
3. “Her lovely strong legs had, maybe, grown longer [ ] The right instep and the back of her left hand bore the same small not overconspicuous but indelible and sacred birthmark, with which nature had signed his right hand and left foot. She attempted to coat her fingernails with Scheherazade’s Lacquer …” 1/38
4. Van took a clean handkerchief from a tidy pile in a drawer, an action he analogized at once by plucking a leaf from a writing pad. It is wonderful how helpful such repetitive rhythms on the part of coincidental (white, rectangular) objects can be at such chaotic moments. He wrote a short aerogram and returned to the parlor. There he found Lucette putting on her fur coa[ ]‘Good Log!’ exclaimed Van, ‘I had understood we were to meet at your uncle’s place.’[ ] Then he clattered, in Lucette’s wake, down the cataract of the narrow staircase, katrakatra (quatre à quatre). Please, children not katrakatra (Marina).[ ] Neither half-sibling was at her or his best that day. 2/5
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# - The roast hazel-hen (or rather its New World representative, locally called ‘mountain grouse’) was accompanied by preserved lingonberries (locally called ‘mountain cranberries’). An especially succulent morsel of one of those brown little fowls yielded a globule of birdshot between Demon’s red tongue and strong canine: ‘La fève de Diane,’ he remarked, placing it carefully on the edge of his plate. ‘How is the car situation, Van?’
*- I wonder about the connections bt.the pheasant in ADA and in “Pale Fire”: “Whose spurred feet have crossed/ From left to right the blank page of the road?/ Reading from left to right in winter’s code:[ ] A pheasant’s feet!/ Torquated beauty, sublimated grouse,/ Finding your China right behind my house.” (PF: in PF we seem to find a “Tetrastes sewerzowi,” the Chinese grouse and not the other, a Hazel grouse. In ADA this particular grouse is found in Wyoming…)