Glory by Vladimir Nabokov Read Free Book Online

Bilitis
in the cheap edition illustrated with the naked forms of adolescents, from which she would read to him, meaningfully pronouncing the French, in the early evening on the Acropolis, the most appropriate place, one might say. What he found particularly appealing about her speech was the ripply way she pronounced the letter “r,” as if there were not just one letter, but a whole gallery, accompanied, as if that were not enough, by its reflection in water. And instead of those French corybantics, guitar-filled Petersburgan white nights, or libertine sonnets of five dactylic stanzas, he managed to find in this girl with the hard-to-assimilate name something quite, quite different. The acquaintance that had imperceptibly begun on shipboard continued in Greece, at the seaside, in one of the white hotels of Phaleron. Sofia and her son ended up in a nasty, tiny room; its only window gave on a dusty courtyard where, at dawn, with various agonizing preparatives, with a preliminary flapping of wings and other sounds, a young cock commenced his series of hoarse, cheerful cries. Martin slept on a hard blue couch; Sofia’s bed was narrow and unsteady with a lumpy mattress. The only representative of the insect kingdom in the room was a solitary flea, which, in recompense, was very crafty, voracious, and absolutely uncatchable. Alla, who had had the good fortune to get an excellent room with twin beds, offered to have Sofia sleep with her, sending her husband over to Martin in exchange. After saying, several times in a row, “I wouldn’t think of it, I wouldn’tthink of it,” Sofia willingly accepted, and the transfer took place that very same day. Chernosvitov was big, lanky, and sullen, and filled the little room with his presence. Apparently his blood immediately poisoned the flea, as it did not reappear. His toilet implements—a small mirror bisected by a crack, eau-de-cologne, a shaving brush that he always forgot to rinse and that would stand the whole day, all stuck together by gelid lather, on windowledge, table, or chair—depressed Martin, and the encroachment was especially hard to bear at bedtime, when he was obliged to clear his couch of the man’s various neckties and mesh undershirts. While undressing, Chernosvitov would scratch himself listlessly between gaping yawns; then he would place an enormous, naked foot on the edge of the chair and, thrusting his hand into his hair, freeze in this uncomfortable attitude, until he slowly came once more into motion, wound his watch, got into bed, and then, for a long time and with many grunts and groans, kneaded the mattress with his body. Some time later, in the dark, his voice would always pronounce the same sentence: “One special request, my boy: don’t foul the air.” While shaving in the morning, he would invariably say, “Pimplekill face cream. Indispensable at your age.” As he dressed, choosing, whenever possible, socks that guaranteed decorum by having holes at the big toe rather than above the heel, he would exclaim (quoting a popular bard), “Ah, yes, in our day we were young coursers too,” and whistle softly through his teeth. This was all very monotonous and unfunny. Martin would smile politely.
    Yet his awareness of a certain risk afforded some consolation. Any night, in a treacherous dream, he might distinctly pronounce a full-voweled name, and any night the exasperated husband might steal up with a sharpened razor. Chernosvitov, of course, used only a safety razor; he treated thislittle instrument just as sloppily as his brush, and the ashtray always contained a rusty blade with a fringe of petrified foam dotted with black hairs. His sullenness and his insipid sayings seemed to Martin proof of a deep-seated but restrained jealousy. Going as he did to Athens on business for the whole day, he could not help suspecting that his wife was passing the time alone with the good-humored, calm, yet worldly-wise young fellow that Martin fancied