The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov Read Free Book Online

necessarily especially often, but quite differently from all the other young names; a man whose every new searing line he, Fyodor, despising himself, quickly and avidly devoured in a corner, trying by the very act of reading to destroy the marvel of it—after which for two days or so he could not rid himself either of what he had read or of his own feeling of debility or of a secret ache, as if while wrestling with another he had injured his own innermost, sacrosanct particle; a lonely, unpleasant, myopic man, with some kind of unpleasant defect in the reciprocal position of his shoulder blades. But I shall forgive everything if it is you.
    He thought he was keeping his pace to a dawdle, yet the clocks that he came across on the way (the emergent giants of watchmakers’ shops) advanced even more slowly and when, almost at his destination, he overtook in one stride Lyubov Markovna, who was going to the same place, he understood that he had been borne along throughout his journey by his impatience, as by an escalator that transforms even a motionless man into a runner.
    Why did this flabby, unloved, elderly woman still make up her eyes when she already wore a pince-nez? The lenses exaggerated the unsteadiness and crudity of the amateurish ornamentation and as a result, her perfectly innocent gaze became so ambiguous that one could not break away from it: the hypnosis of error. In fact nearly everything about her seemed based on an unfortunate misunderstanding—and one wondered if it was not even a form of insanity when she thought that she spoke German like a native, that Galsworthy was a great writer, or that Georgiy Ivanovich Vasiliev was pathologically attracted to her. She was one of the most faithful frequenters of the literary parties that the Chernyshevskis, together with Vasiliev, a fat old journalist, organized every other Saturday; today was only Tuesday; and Lyubov Markovna was still living on her impressions from the previous Saturday, sharing them generously. Men fatally became absentminded boors in her company. Fyodor himself felt he was slipping too, but fortunately they were coming to the front door and there the Chernyshevskis’ maid already stood waiting, keys in hand; actually, she had been sent to meet Vasiliev, who suffered from an extremely rare diseaseof the heart valves—he had, in fact, made a hobby of it and sometimes arrived at the home of friends with an anatomical model of the heart and demonstrated everything very clearly and lovingly.
“We
don’t need the elevator,” said Lyubov Markovna and started up the stairs with a strong plodding gait which turned to a curiously smooth and silent swing on the landings; Fyodor had to zigzag behind her at a reduced pace, as you sometimes see a dog do, weaving and shoving its nose past its master’s heel now on the right, now on the left.
    They were admitted by Alexandra Yakovlevna herself. Fyodor had scarcely time to notice her unusual expression (as if she disapproved of something or wanted to avert something quickly), when her husband darted into the hallway on his short plump legs, waving a newspaper as he ran.
    “Here it is,” he shouted, the corner of his mouth violently jerking downward (a tic acquired since the death of his son). “Look, here it is!”
    “When I married him,” observed Mme. Chernyshevski, “I expected his humor to be more subtle.”
    Fyodor saw with surprise that the paper he uncertainly took from his host was a German one.
    “The date!” shouted Chernyshevski. “Go ahead, look at the date, young man!”
    “April 1,” said Fyodor with a sigh, and unconsciously he folded up the paper. “Yes, of course, I should have remembered.”
    Chernyshevski began to guffaw ferociously.
    “Don’t be cross with him, please,” said his wife in an indolently sorrowful tone, slightly rolling her hips and gently taking the young man by the wrist.
    Lyubov Markovna clicked her purse shut and sailed off toward the parlor.
    It was a