Pale Fire: Illustrated Sports Illustrated Sports Pale Fire Journal | Page 94

part can offer his own former wife is “my lovely, pale, melancholy queen”, which
is hardly so warm and caring as the poetry of Shade (306). In fact, he is so aloof
to her that he cannot finish that complimentary statement without dipping into
vaguely insulting descriptors. The two wedded duos contrast to show a fuller pic-
ture of marriage in general and work off each other to achieve a singular, bal-
anced image.
There is an awkward silence that follows. Ingeniously, this fade from piano
to nothingness delivers a final powerful message, this time concerning Kinbote
and the tragic Hazel. One of the great unifying characteristics between the two is
the mixing up of language. Hazel is said in the poem to have “twisted words”, a
trait Kinbote not only possesses, but also goes so far as to claim the example
John attributes to her to have been said by him instead (193). He even plays a
game of “word golf” in his index, redirecting hapless readers between the entries
for “word golf”, “lass”, “mass”, and “male” (310-315). This unique trait of toying
with words is shared by both of them and is more or less unique to the two
(Charles claims Shade also enjoyed “word golf” but cites for evidence the phrase
“game of worlds” from his poem, perhaps just another lexical twist on Charles’
94