NPPF Mise en abyme

jbor jbor at bigpond.com
Wed Oct 8 21:46:24 CDT 2003


Kinbote's note to line 181:

    On another trip to the bathroom an hour and a half later,
    at sunrise, I found the light transferred to the bedroom,
    and smiled indulgently, for, according to my deductions,
    only two nights had passed since the three-thousand-nine-
    hundred-ninety-ninth time -- but no matter.

This cheeky aside refers to lines 276-277 in the poem, where Shade addresses
Sybil: "Four thousand times your pillow has been creased/ By our two heads."
But how can Kinbote's "deductions" have been made on this particular day,
before Shade had even *written* the particular verse estimating the number
of times he and Sybil had enjoyed connubial congress, let alone before
Kinbote had actually read it?

"Today" indeed.

best




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