V.V. sought to express something, which <i>until</i> expressed had only a twilight being (or even none at all — nothing but the illusion of the backw… - Vladimir Nabokov

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V.V. sought to express something, which until expressed had only a twilight being (or even none at all — nothing but the illusion of the backward shadow of its imminent expression). It was Ada's castle of cards. It was the standing of a metaphor on its head not for the sake of the trick's difficulty, but in order to perceive an ascending waterful or a sunrise in reverse: a triumph, in a sense, over the ardis of time.