Pale Fire: Illustrated Sports Illustrated Sports Pale Fire Journal | Page 36

HAZEL SHADE
You refuse to listen to me. You’ll never understand.
DR. GREYSON
Alright, look - your similarities and differences aren’t really the problem here.
The issues regarding your tale lie elsewhere, places I’d really like you to explore.
So I will try. I will try to understand. I will, out of courtesy to you, operate un-
der the premise that you and Kinbote are one. Unhappy young girl, tired of her
life, invents a new one. That’s not completely out there. Then what I don’t un-
derstand is the change in your relationship with your parents - John and Sybil
Shade. Why, as shown in their behavior towards Kinbote, do they alienate you?
HAZEL SHADE
If your daughter started pretending to be a middle-aged man named Charles,
wouldn’t you be a little put-off?
DR. GREYSON
If you’ll forgive me for saying so, why not just have you committed to an asylum?
HAZEL SHADE
They always knew I was … odd. But not crazy. People would use freely the term
“loony” around me - not at me, of course, but they knew what they were doing.
But my father always put them in their place. He would say, “One should not
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