''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

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and Marina. They get killed in wars and accidents,
or commit suicide, putting an end to their "useless
existence" in order to escape madness (Aqua) or out
of thwarted love (Lucette). Dan dies a suitably hellish
death, evidently still being under the impression
which has haunted him for some time, namely "... that
a devil combining the characteristics of a frog and
a rodent desired to straddle him and ride him to the
torture house of eternity" (435). This devil is to
be found in the centre part of Bosch's triptych The
Last Judgement42, exactly as Van describes him:
"black, pale-bellied, with a black dorsal buckler
shining like a dung beetle's back and with a knife in
his raised forelimb" (435), and he is indeed seen
straddling one of the poor lost souls.
There is no suggestion that human relationships,
with the exception of Van's and Ada's, provide any
happiness to compensate for the deficiencies of (Anti)
Terra and for the sufferings that people are subjected
to on this planet. They are characterized by indifference;
if there is ever any true feeling in them,
they do not last, as Demon's and Marina's affair has
shown. Love goes unrequitted and leads to misery or
suicide. Affairs and frequent visits to the "floramors"
provide poor substitutes for what is lacking.
Considering this state of affairs, one cannot miss
the irony (unintentional on his part) in Demon's suggestion
that Van should not "deprive" Ada of "normal
interests and a normal marriage" and of "normal amusements",
and one cannot blame Van for his ironic answer: