natural obstruction.
Pondering now fate’s methods (in this white, illuminated little enclosure, in Zina’s golden presence and with the participation of the warm, concave darkness immediately behind the carved radiance of the petunias), he finally found a certain thread, a hidden spirit, a chess idea for his as yet hardly planned “novel,” to which he had glancingly referred yesterday in the letter to his mother. It was of this that he spoke now, spoke in such a way as if it were really the best and most normal expression of his happiness—which was also expressed in a more accessible edition by such things as the velvetiness of the air, three emerald lime leaves that had got into the lamplight, the icy cold beer, the lunar volcanoes of mashed potato, vague voices, footfalls, the stars among the ruins of clouds….
“Here is what I’d like to do,” he said. “Something similar to destiny’s work in regard to us. Think how fate started it three and a half odd years ago…. The first attempt to bring us together was crude and heavy! That moving of furniture, for example: I see something extravagant in it, a ‘no-holds-barred’ something, for it was quite a job moving the Lorentzes and all their belongings into the house where I had just rented a room! The idea lacked subtlety: to have us meet through Lorentz’s wife. Wishing to speed things up, fate brought in Romanov, who rang me up and invited me to a party at his place. But at this point fate blundered: the medium chosen was wrong, I disliked the man and a reverse result was achieved: because of him I began to avoid an acquaintance with the Lorentzes—so that all this cumbersome construction went to the devil, fate was left with a furniture van on her hands and the expenses were not recovered.”
“Watch out,” said Zina, “she might take offense at this criticism now and revenge herself.”
“Listen further. Fate made a second attempt, simpler this time but promising better success, because I was in need of money and should have grasped at the offer of work—helping an unknown Russian girl to translate some documents; but this also failed. First because the lawyer Charski also turned out to be an unsuitable middleman, and secondly because I hate working on translations into German—so that it again miscarried. Then finally, after this failure, fate decided to take no chances, to install me directly in the place where you lived. As a go-between she chose not the first person to come along, but someone I liked who energetically took the matter in hand and did not allow me to dodge it. At the last minute, true, there occurred a hitch that almost ruined everything: in her haste—or from stinginess—destiny did not produce you at the time of my visit; of course, after talking five minutes to your stepfather—whom fate had been careless enough to let out of his cage—I decided not to take the unattractive room I had glimpsed over his shoulder. And then, at the end of her tether, unable to show me you immediately, fate showed me as a last desperate maneuver your bluish ball dress on the chair—and strange to say, I myself don’t know why but the maneuver worked, and I can imagine what a sigh of relief fate must have heaved.”
“Only that wasn’t my dress, it was my cousin Raissa’s—she’s very nice but a perfect fright—I think she left it for me to take something off or sew something on.”
“Then it was still more ingenious. What resourcefulness! The most enchanting things in nature and art are based on deception. Look, you see—it began with a reckless impetuosity and ended with the finest of finishing touches. Now isn’t that the plot for a remarkable novel? What a theme! But it must be built up, curtained, surrounded by dense life—my life, my professional passions and cares.”
“Yes, but that will result in an autobiography with mass executions of good acquaintances.”
“Well, let’s suppose that I so shuffle, twist, mix, rechew and rebelch everything, add such spices of my own and impregnate things so much with myself that nothing remains of the autobiography but dust—the kind of dust, of course, which makes the most orange of skies. And I shan’t write it now, I’ll be a long time preparing it, years perhaps… In any case I’ll do something else first—I want to translate something in my own manner from an old French sage—in order to reach a final dictatorship over words, because in my
“That’s all marvelous,” said Zina. “I like it all immensely. I think you’ll be such a writer as has never been before, and Russia will simply pine for you—when she comes to her senses too late…. But do you love me?”
“What I am saying is in fact a kind of declaration of love,” replied Fyodor.
“A ‘kind of’ is not enough. You know at times I shall probably be wildly unhappy with you. But on the whole it does not matter, I’m ready to face it.”
She smiled, opening her eyes wide and raising her eyebrows, and then she leaned slightly backwards in her chair and began to powder her chin and nose.
“Ah, I must tell you—this is magnificent—he has a famous passage which I think I can say by heart if I go right on, so don’t interrupt me, it’s an approximate translation: there was once a man… he lived as a true Christian; he did much good, sometimes by word, sometimes by deed, and sometimes by silence; he observed the fasts; he drank the water of mountain valleys (that’s good, isn’t it?); he nurtured the spirit of contemplation and vigilance; he lived a pure, difficult, wise life; but when he sensed the approach of death, instead of thinking about it, instead of tears of repentance and sorrowful partings, instead of monks and a notary in black, he invited guests to a feast, acrobats, actors, poets, a crowd of dancing girls, three magicians, jolly Tollenburg students, a traveler from Taprobana, and in the midst of melodious verses, masks and music he drained a goblet of wine and died, with a carefree smile on his face…. Magnificent, isn’t it? If I have to die one day that’s exactly how I’d like it to be.”
“Only minus the dancing girls,” said Zina.
“Well, that’s only a symbol of gay company…. Perhaps, now, we can go?”
“We have to pay,” said Zina. “Call him over.”
After this they were left with eleven pfennigs, counting the blackened coin which she had picked up a day or two before from the sidewalk: it would bring luck. As they walked down the street he felt a quick tremor along his spine, and again that emotional constraint, but now in a different, languorous form. It was a twenty minutes’ slow walk to the house, and the air, the darkness and the honeyed scent of blooming lindens caused a sucking ache at the base of the chest. This scent evanesced in the stretch from linden to linden, being replaced there by a black freshness, and then again, beneath the next canopy, an oppressive and heady cloud would accumulate, and Zina would say, tensing her nostrils: “Ah, smell it,” and again the darkness would be drained of savor and again would be heavy with honey. Will it really happen tonight? Will it really happen now? The weight and the threat of bliss. When I walk with you like this, ever so slowly, and hold you by the shoulder, everything slightly sways, my head hums, and I feel like dragging my feet; my left slipper falls off my heel, we crawl, dawdle, dwindle in a mist—now we are almost all melted…. And one day we shall recall all this—the lindens, and the shadow on the wall, and a poodle’s unclipped claws tapping over the flagstones of the night. And the star, the star. And here is the square and the dark church with the yellow light of its clock. And here, on the corner, the house.
Good-by, my book! Like mortal eyes, imagined ones must close some day. Onegin from his knees will rise— but his creator strolls away. And yet the ear cannot right now part with the music and allow the tale to fade; the chords of fate itself continue to vibrate; and no obstruction for the sage exists where I have put The End: the shadows of my world extend beyond the skyline of the page, blue as tomorrow’s morning haze—nor does this terminate the phrase.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg on April 23, 1889. His family fled to Germany in 1919, during the Bolshevik Revolution. Nabokov studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1919 to 1923, then lived in Berlin (1923–1937) and Paris (1937–1940), where he began writing, mainly in Russian, under the pseudonym Sirin. In 1940 he moved to the United States, where he pursued a brilliant literary career (as a poet, novelist, critic, and translator) while teaching literature at Stanford, Wellesley, Cornell, and Harvard. The monumental success of his novel
