Lorgnettes (or lorgnon) are eye glasses without "ear props," but with two lenses, often with a supporting stick on one side. Those in photos of VN have no ear props but are attached to a cord, but still a lorgnette. This, if memory serves, is one of the precious relics DN generously presented to the Nabokov Museum. A monocle has but one lens but usually no holder. Binoculars are what bird watchers use, although my reference to female birdwatchers was a joke.

I commend Jansy's use of the list archive. People should really consult the 12-year-old NABOKOV Archive before dashing something off that has been discussed before. It contains a gold mine of information and opinion, although admittedly somewhat burdensome to utilize effectively.

JM : Lorgnons and Lorgnettes, are these (bi)(mon)ocles different for male or female birdwatchers leavesdroppings? Confusing. But I remember being also fascinated by these serial intertextual connections, in SM, to the point of imagining that the coin VN followed intratextually in his "Lectures on Ulysses" belonged to the same travel-agency ( the coin began its tragectory in the Lectures already in VN's initial one about Dickens, where a coachman flipped it in the air...).

The lorgon myst have been recovered from the Yalta pier, if I can trust an old posting at the List with a description of Nabokov's museum in St. Petersburg: "Charme de l'exil. Un lorgnon, une boîte de Scrabble, un poème inédit, Papillon, recopié sur un livre offert à un ami, des reproductions de dessins de lépidoptères que Nabokov avait accompagnés de tendres dédicaces à son épouse Vera... C'est à peu près tout ce que le musée a réussi à récupérer auprès du fils de l'écrivain ou de collection" ( NABOKV-L Archives -- February 2004 (#39) listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0402&L=nabokv-l&T=0&P=4393

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.