INDEX
The italicized numerals refer to the lines in the poem and the comments thereon. The capital letters, G, K, S (which see) stand for the three main characters in this work.
A.
Baron,
Oswin Affenpin, last Baron of Aff, a puny traitor, 286.
Acht,
Iris, celebrated actress,
d. 1888, a passionate and powerful woman, favorite of Thurgus
the Third (q.v.), 130.
She died officially by her own hand; unofficially, strangled in her
dressing room by a fellow actor, a jealous young Gothlander, now, at ninety, the
oldest, and least important, member of the Shadows (q.v.)
group.
Alfin, King, surnamed The Vague, 1873-1918, reigned from 1900; K.’s father; a kind, gentle, absent-minded monarch, mainly interested in automobiles, flying machines, motorboats and, at one time, seashells; killed in an airplane accident, 71.
Andronnikov and Niagarin, two Soviet experts in quest of a buried treasure, 130, 681, 741; see Crown Jewels.
Arnor, Romulus, poet about town and Zemblan patriot, 1914-1958, his poem quoted, 80, executed by the Extremists.
Aros, a fine town in E. Zembla, capital of Conmal’s dukedom; once the mayorship of the worthy Ferz (“chessqueen”) Bretwit, a cousin of the granduncle of Oswin Bretwit (q.v.), 149, 286.
B., Baron, involuntary father-in-law of Baron A. and imaginary old friend of the Bretwit (q.v.) family, 286.
Bera, a mountain range dividing the peninsula lengthwise; described with some of its glittering peaks, mysterious passes and picturesque slopes, 149.
Blawick, Blue Cove, a pleasant seaside resort on the Western Coast of Zembla, casino, golf course, sea food, boats for hire, 149.
Blenda, Queen, the King’s mother, 1878-1936, reigned from 1918, 71.
Boscobel, site of the Royal Summerhouse, a beautiful, piny and duny spot in W. Zembla, soft hollows imbued with the writer’s most amorous recollections; now (1959) a “nudist colony”—whatever that is, 149, 596.
Botkin, V., American scholar of Russian descent, 894; king-bot, maggot of extinct fly that once bred in mammoths and is thought to have hastened their phylogenetic end, 247; bottekinmaker, 71; bot, plop, and botelïy, big-bellied (Russ.); botkin or bodkin, a Danish stiletto.
Bregberg. See Bera.
Bretwit, Oswin, 1914-1959, diplomat and Zemblan patriot, 286. See also under Odevalla and Aros.
Campbell, Walter, b. 1890 is Glasgow; K.’s tutor, 1922-1931, an amiable gentleman with a mellow and rich mind; dead shot and champion skater; now in Iran; 130
Charles II, Charles Xavier Vseslav, last King of Zembla, surnamed The Beloved, b. 1915, reigned 1936-1958; his crest, I; his studies and his reign, 12; fearful fate of predecessors, 62; his supporters, 70; parents, 71; bedroom, 80; escape from palace, 130; and across the mountains, 149; engagement to Disa recalled, 275; parenthetical passage through Paris, 286; and through Switzerland, 408; visit to Villa Disa, 433; night in mountains recalled, 597, 662; his Russian blood, and Crown Jewels (q.v. by all means), 681; his arrival in the U.S.A., 691; letter to Disa stolen, 741; and quoted, 768; his portrait discussed, 894; his presence in library, 949; identity almost revealed, 991; Solus Rex, 1000. See also Kinbote.
Conmal, Duke of Aros, 1855-1955, K.’s uncle, the eldest half-brother of Queen Blenda (q.v.); noble paraphrast, 12; his version of Timon of Athens, 39, 130; his life and work, 962.
Crown Jewels, 130, 681; see Hiding Place.
Disa, Duchess of Payn, of Great Payn and Mone; my lovely, pale, melancholy Queen, haunting my dreams, and haunted by dreams of me, b. 1928; her album and favorite trees, 49; married 1949, 80; her letters on ethereal paper with a watermark I cannot make out, her image torturing me in my sleep, 433.
Embla, a small old town with a wooden church surrounded by sphagnum bogs at the saddest, loneliest, northmost point of the misty peninsula, 149, 433.
Emblem, meaning “blooming” in Zemblan; a beautiful bay with bluish and black, curiously striped rocks and a luxurious growth of heather on its gentle slopes, in the southmost part of W. Zembla, 433.
Falkberg, a pink cone, 71; snowhooded, 149.
Flatman, Thomas, 1637-88, English poet, scholar and miniaturist, not known to old fraud, 894.
Fleur, Countess de Fyler, an elegant lady-in-waiting, 71, 80, 433.
G, see Gradus.
Garh, a farmer’s daughter, 149, 433. Also a rosy-cheeked, goose-boy found in a country lane, north of Troth, in 1936, only now distinctly recalled by the writer.
Glitterntin, Mt., a splendid mountain in the Bera Range (q.v.); pity I may never climb it again, 149.
Gordon, see Krummholz.
Gradus, Jakob, 1915-1959; alias Jack Degree, de Grey, d’Argus, Vinogradus, Leningradus, etc.; a Jack of small trades and a killer, 12, 17; lynching the wrong people, 80; his approach synchronized with S’s work on the poem, 120, 131; his election and past tribulations, 171; the first lap of his journey, Onhava to Copenhagen, 181, 209; to Paris, and meeting with Oswin Bretwit, 286; to Geneva, and talk with little Gordon at Joe Lavender’s place near Lex, 408; calling headquarters from Geneva, 469; his name in a variant, and his wait in Geneva, 596; to Nice, and his wait there, 697; his meeting with Izumrodov in Nice and discovery of the King’s address, 741; from Paris to New York, 873; in New York, 949 1; his morning in New York, his journey to New Wye, to the campus, to Dulwich Rd., 949 2; the crowning blunder, 1000.
Griff, old mountain farmer and Zemblan patriot, 149.
Grindelwod, a fine town in E. Zembla, 71, 149.
Hiding Place, potaynik (q.v.)
Hodinski, Russian adventurer, d. 1800, also known as Hodyna, 681; resided in Zembla 1778-1800; author of a celebrated pastiche and lover of Princess (later Queen) Yaruga (q.v.), mother of Igor II, grandmother of Thurgus (q.v.).
Igor II, reigned 1800-1845, a wise and benevolent king, son of Queen Yaruga (q.v.) and father of Thurgus III (q.v.); a very private section of the picture gallery in the Palace, accessible only to the reigning monarch, but easily broken into through Bower P by an inquisitive pubescent, contained the statues of Igor’s four hundred favorite catamites, in pink marble, with inset glass eyes and various touched up details, an outstanding exhibition of verisimilitude and bad art, later presented by K. to an Asiatic potentate.
K, see Charles II and Kinbote.
Kalixhaven, a colorful seaport on the western coast, a few miles north of Blawick (q.v.), 171; many pleasant memories.
Kinbote, Charles, Dr., an intimate friend of S, his literary adviser, editor and commentator; first meeting and friendship with S, Foreword; his interest in Appalachian birds, 1; his good natured request to have S use his stories, 12; his modesty, 34; his having no library in his Timonian cave, 39; his belief in his having inspired S, 42; his house in Dulwich Road, and the windows of S’s house, 47; Prof. H. contradicted and corrected 61, 71; his anxieties and insomnias, 62; the map he made for S, 71; his sense of humor, 79, 91; his belief that the term “iridule” is S’s invention, 109; his weariness, 120; his sports activities, 130; his visit to S’s basement, 143; his trusting the reader enjoyed the note 149; boyhood and the Orient Express recalled 162; his request that the reader consult a later note, 169; his quite warning to G, 171; his remarks on critics and other sallies endorsed by S, 172; his participation in certain festivities elsewhere, his being debarred from S’s birthday party upon coming home, and his sly trick next morning, 181; his hearing about Hazel’s “poltergeist” phase, 230; poor who? 231; his futile attempts to have S get off the subject of natural history and report on the work in progress, 238; his recollection of the quays in Nice and Mentone, 240; his utmost courtesy towards his friend’s wife, 247; his limited knowledge of lepidoptera and the sable gloom of his nature marked like a dark Vanessa with gay flashes, 270; his discovery of Mrs. S’s plan to whisk S to Cedarn and his decision to go there too, 288; his attitude toward swans, 319; his affinity with Hazel, 334, 348; his walk with S to the weedy spot where the haunted barn once stood, 347; his objection to S’s flippant attitude towards celebrated contemporaries, 376; his contempt for Prof. H. (not in Index), 377; his overworked memory, 384; his meeting with Jane Provost and examination of lovely lakeside snapshots, 385; his criticism of the 403-474 lines section, 403; his secret guessed, or not guessed, by S, his telling S about Disa, and S’s reaction, 417; his debate on Prejudice with S, 470; his discussion of Suicide with himself, 493; his surprise at realizing that the French name of one melancholy tree is the same as the Zemblan one of another, 501; his disapproval of certain flippant passages in Canto Three, 502 2; his views on sin and faith, 549; his editorial integrity and spiritual misery, 550; his remarks on a certain female student and on the number and nature of meals shared with the Shades, 579; his delight and amazement at a portentous meeting of syllables in two adjacent words, 596; his aphorism on the slayer and the slain, 597; his log cabin in Cedarn and the little angler, a honey-skinned lad, naked except for a pair of torn dungarees, one trouser leg rolled up, frequently fed with nougat and nuts, but then school started or the weather changed, 609; his appearance at the H----s, 629; his severe criticism of quotational titles, from The Tempest etc., such as “pale fire,” etc., 671; his sense of humor, 680; his arrival at Mrs. O’Donnell’s country house recalled, 691; his appreciation of a quodlibet and his doubts anent its purported authorship, 727; his loathing for a person who makes advances, and then betrays a noble and naïve heart, telling foul stories about his victim and pursuing him with brutal practical jokes, 741; his not being able, owing to some psychological block or the fear of a second G, of traveling to a city only sixty or seventy miles distant, where he would certainly have found a good library, 747; his letter of April 2, 1959, to a lady who left it locked up among her treasures in her villa near Nice when she went that summer to Rome, 768; divine service in the morning and ramble in the evening with the poet finally speaking of his work, 802; hi remarks on a lexical and linguistic miracle, 803; his borrowing a collection of F.K. Lane’s letters from the motor court owner, 810; his penetrating into the bathroom where his friend sat and shaved in the tub, 887; his participation in a Common Room discussion of his resemblance to the King, and his final rupture with E. (not in the Index), 894; he and S shaking with mirth over tidbits in a college textbook by Prof. C. (not in the Index), 929; his sad gesture of weariness and gentle reproach, 937; a young lecturer in Onhava University vividly recollected, 957; his last meeting with S in the poet’s arbor, etc., 991; his discovery of the scholarly gardener recalled, 998; his unsuccessful attempt to save S’s life, and his success in salvaging the MS, 1000; his arranging to have it published without the help of two “experts,” Foreword.
Kobaltana, a once fashionable mountain resort near the ruins of some old barracks now a cold and desolate spot of difficult access and no importance but still remembered in military families and forest castles, not in the text.
Kronberg, a snow-capped rocky mountain with a comfortable hotel, in the Bera Range, 70, 130, 149.
Krummholz, Gordon, b. 1944, a musical prodigy and an amusing pet; son of Joseph Lavender’s famous sister, Elvina Krummholz, 408.
Lane, Franklin Knight, American lawyer and statesman, 1864-1921, author of a remarkable fragment, 810.
Lavender, Joseph S., see O’Donnell, Sylvia.
Mandevil, Baron Radomir, b. 1925, man of fashion and Zemblan patriot; in 1936, K’s throne page, 130; in 1958, disguised, 149.
Marcel, the fussy, unpleasant, and not always plausible central character, pampered by everybody in Proust’s A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, 181, 691.
Marrowsky, a, a rudimentary spoonerism, from the name of a Russian diplomat of the early 19th century, Count Komarovski, famous at foreign courts for mispronouncing his own name—Makarovski, Macaronski, Skomorovski, etc.
Multraberg, see Bera.
Niagarin and Andronnikov, two Soviet “experts” still in quest of a buried treasure, 130, 681, 741; see Crown Jewels.
Nitra and Indra, twin islands off Blawick, 149.
Nodo, Odon’s half-brother, b. 1916, son of Leopold O’Donnell and of a Zemblan boy impersonator; a cardsharp and despicable traitor, 171.
Odevalla, a fine town north of Onhava in E. Zembla, once the mayorship of the worthy Zule (“chessrook”) Bretwit, granduncle of Oswin Bretwit (q.v., q.v., as the crows say), 149, 286.
Odon, pseudonym of Donald O’Donnell, b. 1915, world-famous actor and Zemblan patriot; learns from K. about secret passage but has to leave for theater, 130; drives K. from theater to foot of Mt. Mandevil, 149; meets K. near sea cave and escapes with him in motorboat, ibid.; directs cinema picture in Paris, 171; stays with Lavender in Lex, 408; ought not to marry that blubber-lipped cinemactress, with untidy hair, 691; see also O’Donnell, Sylvia.
O’Donnell, Sylvia, nee O’Connell, born 1895? 1890?, the much-traveled, much-married mother of Odon (q.v.), 149, 691; after marrying and divorcing college president Leopold O’Donnell in 1915, father of Odon, she married Peter Gusev, first Duke of Rahl, and graced Zembla til about 1925 when she married an Oriental prince met in Chamonix; after a number of other more or less glamorous marriages, she was in the act of divorcing Lionel Lavender, cousin of Joseph, when last seen in this Index.
Oleg, Duke of Rahl, 1916-1931, son of Colonel Gusev, Duke of Rahl (b. 1885, still spry); K.’s beloved playmate, killed in a toboggan accident, 130.
Onhava, the beautiful capital of Zembla, 12, 71, 130, 149, 171, 181, 275, 579, 894, 1000.
Otar, Count, heterosexual man of fashion and Zemblan patriot, b. 1915, his bald spot, his two teenage mistresses, Fleur and Fifalda (later Countess Otar), blue-veined daughters of Countess de Fyler, interesting light effects, 71.
Paberg, see Bera Range.
Payn, Dukes of, escutcheon of, 270; see Disa, my Queen.
Poems, Shade’s short: The Sacred Tree, 49; The Swing, 61; Mountain View, 92; The Nature of Electricity, 347; one line from April Rain, 470; one line from Mont Blanc, 782; opening quatrain of Art, 957.
Religion: contact with God, 47; the Pope, 85; freedom of mind, 101; problem of sin and faith, 549; see Suicide.
Rippleson Caves, sea caves in Blawick, named after a famous glass maker who embodied the dapple-and-ringle play and other circular reflections on blue-green sea water in his extraordinary stained glass windows for the Palace, 130, 149.
Shade, Hazel, S’s daughter, 1934-1957; deserves great respect, having preferred the beauty of death to the ugliness of life; the domestic ghost, 230; the Haunted Barn, 347.
Shade, John Francis, poet and scholar, 1898-1959, his work on Pale Fire and friendship with K, Foreword; his physical appearance, mannerisms, habits, etc., ibid.; his first brush with death as visualized by K, and his beginning the poem while K plays chess at the Student’s Club, 1; his sunset rambles with K, 12; his dim precognition of G, 17; his house seen by K in terms of lighted windows, 47; his starting on the poem, his completing Canto Two, and about half of Three, and K’s three visits at those points of time, ibid.; his parents, Samuel Shade and Caroline Lukin, 71; K’s influence seen in a variant, 79; Maud Shade, S’s father’s sister, 86; K shown S’s clockwork memento mori, 143; K on S’s fainting fits, 162; S beginning Canto Two, 167; S on critics, Shakespeare, education, etc., 172; K’s watching S’s guests arriving on his and S’s birthday, and S writing Canto Two, 181; his worries over his daughter recalled, 230; his delicacy, or prudence, 231; his exaggerated interest in the local fauna and flora, 238, 270; the complications of K’s marriage compared to the plainness of S’s, 275; K’s drawing S’s attention to a pastel smear crossing the sunset sky, 286; his fear that S might leave before finishing their joint composition, 288; his waiting vainly for S on July 15th, 338; his walk with S through old Hentzner’s fields and his reconstitution of S’s daughter’s expeditions to the Haunted Barn, 347; S’s pronunciation, 367; S’s book on Pope, 384; his grudge against Peter Provost, 385; his work on lines 406-416 synchronized with G’s activities in Switzerland, 408; again his prudence, or considerateness, 417; his having possibly glimpsed twenty-six years ago Villa Disa and the little Duchess of Payn with her English governess, 433; his apparent assimilation of the Disa material and K’s promise to divulge an ultimate truth, ibid.; S’s views on Prejudice, 470; K’s views on Suicide, 493; S’s and K’s views on sin and faith, 549; S’s crabbed hospitality and delight in meatless cuisine at my house, 579; rumors about his interest in a female student, ibid.; his denial of a stationmaster’s insanity, 629; his heart attack synchronized with K’s spectacular arrival in the USA, 691; K’s allusion to S in a letter to Disa, 768; his last ramble with S and his joy at learning S is working hard on the “mountain” theme—a tragic misunderstanding, 802; his games of golf with S, 819; his readiness to look up references for S, 887; S’s defense of the King of Zembla, 894; his and K’s hilarity over the rot in a textbook compiled by Prof. C., psychiatrist and literary expert (!), 929; his beginning his last batch of cards, 949; his revealing to K the completion of his task, 991; his death from a bullet meant for another, 1000.
Shade, Sybil, S’s wife, passim.
Shadows, the, a regicidal organization which commissioned Gradus (q.v.) to assassinate the self-banished king; its leader’s terrible name cannot be mentioned, even in the Index to the obscure work of a scholar; his maternal grandfather, a well-known and very courageous master builder, was hired by Thurgus the Turgid, around 1885, to make certain repairs in his quarters, and soon after that perished, poisoned in the royal kitchens, under mysterious circumstances, together with his three young apprentices whose pretty first names Yan, Yonny, and Angeling, are preserved in a ballad still to be heard in some of our wilder valleys.
Shalksbore, Baron Harfar, known as Curdy Buff, b. 1921, man of fashion and Zemblan Patriot, 433.
Steinmann, Julius, b. 1928, tennis champion and Zemblan patriot, 171.
Sudarg of Bokay, a mirror maker of genius, the patron saint of Bokay in the mountains of Zembla, 80; life span not known.
Taynik, Russ., secret place; see Crown Jewels.
Thurgus the Third, surnamed The Turgid, K’s grandfather, d. 1900 at seventy-five, after a long dull reign; sponge-bag-capped, and with only one medal on his Jaeger jacket, he liked to bicycle in the park; stout and bald, his nose like a congested plum, his martial mustache bristling with obsolete passion, garbed in a dressing gown of green silk, and carrying a flambeau in his raised hand, he used to meet, every night, during a short period in the middle-Eighties, his hooded mistress, Iris Acht (q.v.) midway between palace and theater in the secret passage later to be rediscovered by his grandson, 130.
Tintarron, a precious glass stained a deep blue, made in Bokay, a medieval place in the mountains of Zembla, 149; see also Sudarg.
Translations, poetical; English into Zemblan, Conmal’s versions of Shakespeare, Milton, Kipling, etc., noticed, 962; English into French, from Donne and Marvell, 678; German into English and Zemblan, Der Erlkönig, 662; Zemblan into English, Timon Afinsken, of Athens, 39; Elder Edda, 79; Arnor’s Miragarl, 80.
Uran the Last, Emperor of Zembla, reigned 1798-1799; and incredibly brilliant, luxurious, and cruel monarch whose whistling whip made Zembla spin like a rainbow top; dispatched one night by a group of his sister’s united favorites, 681.
Vanessa, the Red Admirable (sumpsimus), evoked, 270; flying over a parapet on a Swiss hillside, 408; figured, 470; caricatured, 949; accompanying S’s last steps in the evening sunshine, 993.
Variants: the thieving sun and moon, 39-40; planning the Primal Scene, 57; the Zemblan King’s escape (K’s contribution, 8 lines), 70; the Edda (K’s contribution, 1 line), 79; Luna’s dead cocoon, 90-93; children finding a secret passage (K’s contribution, 4 lines), 130; poor old man Swift, poor—(possible allusion to K), 231; Shade, Ombre, 275; Virginia Whites, 316; The Head of Our Department, 377; a nymphet, 413; additional line from Pope (possible allusion to K), 417; Tanagra dust (a remarkable case of foreknowledge), 596; of this America, 609-614; first two feet changed, 629; parody of Pope, 895-899; a sorry age, and Social Novels, 922.
Waxwings, birds of the genus Bombycilla, 1-4, 131, 1000; Bombycilla shadei, 71; interesting association belatedly realized.
Windows, Foreword; 47, 62, 181.
Word golf, S’s predilection for it, 819; see Lass.
Yaruga, Queen, reigned 1799-1800, sister of Uran (q.v.); drowned in an ice-hole with her Russian lover during traditional New Year’s festivities, 681.
Yeslove, a fine town, district and bishopric, north of Onhava, 149, 275.
Zembla, a distant northern land.