"We know that all colors delight Shade, even grey,
and that one of the names assumed by Gradus is Jacques de Grey or
James de Gray. We haven't yet asked
if this color indicates 'a columbine shade'."
JM: Yes! Gradus' grayness seems to relate to
"pigeon-color" harlequinades! (what in RLSK moves
from "tumbler pigeon" onto angels?)
Cf. CK's note on page 77 where Kinbote mentions that "by an extraordinary coincidence (inherent perhaps in the
contrapuntal nature of Shade's art) our poet seems to name here (gradual, gray)
a man...." The entire entry is marked by reference to line 17 and line 29
("gray").
Shade's verse, which inspired Kinbote's note, reads
"then the gradual and dual blue" . In the French
translation (supervised by Nabokov himself) the mention to "blue" is already
part of the heading. We find "Vers 17: Et puis le bleu graduel; Vers 29:
Gris".*
Another little item to add, related to spacetime. There is
another reference to it by C.K (I had only remembered it in "Ada") besides the
one I quoted while comparing it to Father Time and Mother Time. It's to be found
on note to Line 209: "Gradual decay". Kinbote comments: "Spacetime itself is
decay. Gradus is flying west; he has touched gray-blue Copenhagen (...). Once
again I must puzzle about the insistence on Denmark (Shakespeare,
Hamlet?) by the sudden passage from spacetime, decay, Gradus and
"gray-blue" Copenhagen (Copenhavn almost echoes the word Onhava.) Why
moving West, from imaginary Onhava towards a haven of "shoppers and
commerce" is so clearly designated as pertaining to "decay"? Or is something
else at stake here? Anyway, I just found two instances that suggest that
Gradus is presented in relation to a "dual blue", a columbine-shade of
gray.
*- I just got the copy of "Feu Pale" I'd ordered, once no one
came to my help to encounter Hazel's register in French following the
light-signs. In a future posting I'll compare both. Here I
only want to confess that VN's "Feu Pale," is
overwhelmingly enjoyable, it has a music of its own. I'm glad that I had to
buy the French version, now...