Mary by Vladimir Nabokov Read Free Book Online Page B

dear Anton Sergeyevich, what time is it?”
    “Still early, time to sit a while yet.”
    Kunitsyn stood up, pulling down his waistcoat. “I can’t, my wife’s expecting me.”
    “In that case I have no right to detain you.” Anton Sergeyevich spread his hands and glanced sidelong through his pince-nez at his visitor. “Please give my regards to your wife. I haven’t the pleasure of knowing her, but give her my regards all the same.”
    “Thank you,” said Kunitsyn. “Delighted. Goodbye. I believe I left my coat in the hall.”
    “I’ll see you out,” said Podtyagin. “Please excuse me, Lev Glebovich, I’ll be back in a moment.”
    Alone, Ganin settled more comfortably in the old green armchair and smiled reflectively. He had called on the old poet because he was probably the only person who might understand his disturbed state. He wanted to tell him about many things—about sunsets over a highroad in Russia, about birch groves. He was, after all, that same Podtyagin whose verses were to be found beneath little vignettes in old bound volumes of magazines like The World Illustrated and The Pictorial Review .
    Anton Sergeyevich returned, gloomily shaking his head. “He insulted me,” he said, sitting down at the table and drumming on it with his fingers. “Oh, how he insulted me.”
    “What’s the matter?” asked Ganin.
    Anton Sergeyevich took off his pince-nez and polished it with the edge of the tablecloth.
    “He despises me, that’s what’s the matter. Do you know what he said to me just now? He gave me one of his cold, sarcastic little smiles and he said, ‘You’ve been spending your time scribbling poetry and I haven’t read a word of it. If I had read it I would have wasted the time when I could have been working.’ That’s what he said to me, Lev Glebovich; I ask you—is that an intelligent thing to say?”
    “What is he?” asked Ganin.
    “Deuce knows. He makes money. Ah, well. You see, he’s a person who—”
    “But what’s there to feel insulted about? He has one talent, you have another. Anyway, I’ll bet you despise him too.”
    “But Lev Glebovich,” Podtyagin fretted, “am I not right to despise him? It’s not that which is so awful—the awful thing is that a man like him dares to offer me money.”
    He opened his clenched fist and threw a crumpled banknote onto the table.
    “And the awful thing is that I took it. Look and admire—twenty marks, God damn it.”
    The old man seemed to quiver all over, his mouth was opening and shutting, the little gray beard under his lower lip twitching, his fat fingers drumming on the table. Then he sighed with a painful wheezing sound and shook his head.
    “Peter Kunitsyn. Yes, I still remember. He was good in school, the rascal. And always so punctual, with a watch in his pocket. During classes he used to hold up his fingers to show how many more minutes until the bell rang. Graduated from high school with a gold medal.”
    “It must be strange for you, remembering that,” said Ganin pensively. “Come to think of it, it’s even odd to remember some everyday thing—though really not everyday at all—something that happened a few hours ago.”
    Podtyagin gave him a keen but kindly look. “What’s happened to you, Lev Glebovich? Your face looks somehow brighter. Have you fallen in love again? Yes, there is a strangeness about the way we remember things. How nicely you beam, dash it.”
    “I had a good reason for coming to see you, Anton Sergeyevich.”
    “And all I could offer you was Kunitsyn. Let him be a warning to you. How did you get on at school?”
    “So-so,” said Ganin, smiling again. “The Balashov academy in Petersburg—know it?” he went on, slipping into Podtyagin’s tone of voice, as one often does when talking to an old man. “I remember the schoolyard. We used to play football there. There was firewood piled up under an archway and now and again the ball used to knock down a log.”
    “We preferred