NPPF: Commentary 5 (summary) Lines 433-434

[bekah]

(** means there's a related note(s) on the following page.)


Lines 433-434 "To the...sea Which we had visited in thirty-three"

The Shades had spent some time in Nice in '33, 9 months prior to 
Hazel's birth (line 435).  Kinbote doesn't have access to material on 
this and blames Sybil.  Nice is near Cap Turc where the Villa 
Paradiso/a (renamed for Disa) is located.953, and where Disa has 
lived for the past 5 years.  **

Disa devotedly tries to help Charles get out of Zembla where he is 
confined to the palace. First her letter to him is intercepted, 
translated and read to Charles by his captors. Its double translation 
is irregular and bawdy, embarrassing Charles. **

Charles again tells Disa that he is confined so she naturally 
attempts to get to him but is advised by the Karlists, via Curdy 
Buff, a loathsome cousin, to reconsider. She furiously awaits him in 
her Villa. **

Weeks pass and Disa, hearing rumors of assassination, again tries to 
free her man. She travels to the north country but this time finds 
out from Odon that Charles has escaped and is on his way. He also 
tells her to return home, which she does. Alone there, she is 
bemoaning her fate in a letter to Lavender (a family friend, I guess) 
when Charles appears and "advances through garlands of shade." Disa 
would know him anywhere.

Then Kinbote gets into a long memory of Charles' previous trips to 
see Disa and passing on the Zemblan saying, "A beautiful woman should 
be like a compass rose ivory with four parts of ebony." **

Kinbote compares Disa at age 25 to Shade's Sybil (from lines 261-267) 
at age 60. Through poetry, love and memory Sybil is idealized and 
therefore beautiful. Disa's loveliness is due to the simple fact that 
that's the way she is (or so sayeth Kimbote). And in Kinbote's 
opinion, if the reader can't appreciate "the strangeness of that" he 
should not read. **


Kinbote then relates some details about Charles' married life to 
Disa, who was somewhat unstable, tending to "blazes and blasts." 
Charles tried to reason with her to no avail and eventually used her 
antics as an excuse to get away from her for awhile. **

Early in their marriage, Kinbote tried a variety of methods to make 
love to Disa with disappointing and humiliating results. He told her 
he had never made love before, (with a sideways note to the reader 
about the voracity of that claim).  No luck. Finally he realized that 
the problem was that her body, particularly the frontal parts, put 
him off. **

He tries some tiger tea and is hopeful. ** He requests some unusual 
sexual practice which Disa finds unnatural and disgusting. And at 
last he tells her that he had an old riding accident and that a 
cruise and sea bathing with his pals could possibly be rehabilitate 
him.

Disa is very naive and without mentors so she turns to books where 
she discovers the "manly Zemblan customs." She hides her distress 
behind sarcasm which Charles compliments and tries to forego his 
inclinations. **

But "everywhere along the road powerful temptation stood at 
attention." Charles caved once, then more frequently, finally going 
on a bender which included Curdy Buff and the boys. Disa finds out, 
Charles promises, fails, promises fails. Disa finally moved to the 
Riviera leaving Charles to his Etonesque boys.

Kinbote reflects on the emotional content of the relationship between 
Disa and Charles; friendly indifference, bleak respect, pity, 
heartache, casual, heartless.

And then, "in the heart of his dreaming self" Charles changes.

In recurring, emotion-laden dreams Disa wore different clothes in 
different settings, but she always reflected the same shock when he 
"fatally starred the mirror" by telling her that he didn't love her.  
After that, the image of her always reminded him of his confession, 
"as with some disease or the secret aftereffects of  surgical 
operation too intimate to be mentioned." (A male operation I assume, 
for a venereal disease? the aftereffects of a vasectomy? a belated 
circumcision?)  

The plot of the dreams remained the same; he was trying to refute his 
confession. In his dreams Disa was young and innocent and Charles 
loved her deeply, passionately and purely.  He was always trying to 
make it up to her.  And if there were carnal overtones, they were 
coming from those with whom he had betrayed her,  Phrynia or 
Timandra.  Disa was perhaps being accosted by a distant  (as in 
physically far away) relative.  She finds a tell-tale object, a boot? 
in his bed. **

And although knowing Charles' feelings and in mortal Payn, Disa 
manages to be polite; to smile at the workmen; to engage in the daily 
banalities like breakfast for two in the sea cave. **  Knowing that 
"her soul was in disarray, aware that an odious, undeserved 
humiliating disaster had befallen her,"  was what hurt Charles the 
most.    Disa's "little frown" always returned, and Charles could not 
forget that.

In the dream they walked along the lakeside lawn, then down an alley 
and was she looking at him? Maybe with a faint smile, but when he 
looked she was gone and everybody was happy and he had to find her to 
tell her he adored her.  But the audience said she was not available, 
she was inaugurating a fire, married to an American businessman, a 
character in a novel, dead. **

So ends the massive memory and dream-time.

Now Charles sits with Disa, undisturbed by the past, and tells of his 
escape. She enjoys the tale except for the part about Garh; Disa 
seems to think he should have taken her in a bit of "hough-magandy" **

And then Disa doesn't want to talk about sex anymore so he talks of 
politics but she has no interest. They conduct some business, Disa 
apparently telephones for Fleur D'fyler through the trellis line. ** 
Fleur comes and recognizes the King by his voice. She curtseys and 
wants to talk to the King but doesn't dare with the servants near.

Disa and Charles are alone, sign papers and discuss the future. She 
lets him know that she is leaving and he can have the house to 
himself and sleep up to 40. He says he's going to America to teach 
young people (a hobby). She says she might visit New York. He changes 
the subject to her hair. She wants a kiss and melts in his arms. They 
part, he looks back and sees her, almost loves her for reals, and 
realizes that it's Fleur de Fyler.

Kinbote tells this whole story to Shade who wonders how he can share 
all that intimate stuff at all, much less while people may still be 
alive. Charles says not to worry, Shade's words will make everything 
"come alive."

In a great line, Shade says, "Oh sure," said Shade, "One can harness 
words like performing fleas and make them drive other fleas."

Charles ignores Shade's protests and tries to lure him with the 
promise that when the truth is revealed, the Truth will be revealed.

Bekah