Judgement Day Pale Fire Journal Judgement Day Pale Fire Journal | Page 55

my client and Mr. Shade, the prosecution will refute my argument in citing
passages from pages 23 and 24 of my client’s foreword in which he de-
scribes his viewing of the inside of the Shades’ household at length: “The
view from one of my windows kept providing me with first-rate entertain-
ment…by dialing their number and watching their window at the same
time…” Certainly these are actions a stalker might commit, however, I be-
seech you to think upon your favorite celebrity. If you found yourself living
across the street from them with a perfect vantage point to watch their
every doing, wouldn’t you be equally as invested by fascination?
The prosecution will also point out others’ portrayals and interpretations of
my client, specifically the ones he includes on page 25 of a group of dra-
ma students who portray him as “a pompous woman hater with a German
accent[1]” as well as a woman who confronted my client, in the middle of a
grocery store nonetheless, to tell him that he is “-a remarkably disagreea-
ble person” and that she “(fails) to see how John and Sybil can stand
(him).” When my client tried to politely disengage from this confrontation
with a smile (p.25) the woman went on to say, “What’s more, you are in-
sane.” This malice exhibited toward my client can only be attributed to, as
my client puts it, “the thick venom of envy which began squirting at me as
soon as academic suburbia realized that John Shade valued my society
above that of all other people (p.24).”
Alluding to this “academic suburbia,” my client references an individual by
the name of Netochka. At the top of page 25 he is referring to Netochka
when he says, “He always behaved with such exquisite courtesy toward
me that I sometimes wondered if he did not suspect what Shade suspect-
ed, and what only three people definitely knew.” The subject of this suspi-
cion is none other than his secret identity as the exiled King of Zembla.
Furthermore, on page 80 of my client’s commentary on Shade’s poem, he
describes the lengths to which he strove to impress upon Shade the de-
tails of Zembla in order for Shade to accurately emulate the place in his
poem. “-by mid-June I felt sure at last that he would recreate in a poem the
dazzling Zembla burning in my brain. I mesmerized him with it. I saturated
him with my vision, I pressed upon him with a drunkard’s wild generosity,
all that I was helpless myself to put into verse. The prosecution will hone in
on the intensity with which my client observed Shade’s writing as a sign of
stalking, “By the end of May I could make out the outlines of some of my
images in the shape his geni us might give them.” To their indiscretion, the
significance of his attention to Shade’s work only serves to emphasize the
land of Zembla being so near and dear to my client’s heart as only a land
can be to a king. My client even explains this behavior for himself on page
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