The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov Read Free Book Online Page A

I’ve …”
    I looked you straight in the face. I looked with all my soul, directly. I collided with you. Your eyes were limpid, as if a pellicle of silken paper had fluttered off them—the kind that sheathes illustrations in precious books. And, for the first time, your voice was limpid too. “You know what I’ve decided? Listen. I cannot live without you. That’s exactly what I’ll tell him. He’ll give me a divorce right away. And then, say in the fall, we could …”
    I interrupted you with my silence. A spot of sunlight slid from your skirt onto the sand as you moved slightly away.
    What could I say to you? Could I invoke freedom, captivity, say I did not love you enough? No, that was all wrong.
    An instant passed. During that instant, much happened in the world: somewhere a giant steamship went to the bottom, a war was declared, a genius was born. The instant was gone.
    “Here’s your cigarette holder,” I said. “It was under the armchair. And you know, when I went in, Pal Palych must have been …”
    You said, “Good. Now you may leave.” You turned and ran quickly up the steps. You took hold of the glass door’s handle, and could not open it right away. It must have been torture for you.
    I stood in the garden for a while amid the sweetish damp. Then, hands thrust deep into my pockets, I walked along the dappled sand around the house. At the front porch, I found my bicycle. Leaning on the low horns of the handlebar, I rolled off along the park lane. Toads lay here and there. I inadvertently ran over one.
Pop
under the tire. At the end of the lane there was a bench. I leaned the bicycle against a tree trunk and sat down on the invitingly white plank. I thought about how, in the next couple of days, I would get a letter from you, how you would beckon and I would not return. Your house glided into a marvelous, melancholy distance with its winged piano, the dusty volumes of
The Art Review
, the silhouettes in their circular frames. It was delicious losingyou. You went off, jerking angularly at the glass door. But a different you departed otherwise, opening your pale eyes under my joyous kisses.
    I sat thus until evening. Midges, as if jerked by invisible threads, darted up and down. Suddenly, somewhere nearby, I became aware of a bright dapple—it was your dress, and you were—
    Had not the final vibrations died away? Therefore, I felt uneasy that you were here again, somewhere off to the side, beyond my field of vision, that you were walking, approaching. With an effort, I turned my face. It was not you but that girl with the greenish scarf—remember, the one we ran into? And that fox terrier of hers with its comical belly? …
    She walked past, through gaps in the foliage, and crossed the little bridge leading to a small kiosk with stained-glass windows. The girl is bored, she is strolling through your park; I shall probably make her acquaintance by and by.
    I rose slowly, slowly rode out of the motionless park onto the main road, straight into an enormous sunset, and, on the far side of a curve, overtook a carriage. It was your coachman, Semyon, driving at a walk toward the station. When he saw me, he slowly removed his cap, smoothed the glossy strands on the back of his head, then replaced it. A checkered lap rug lay folded on the seat. An intriguing reflection flashed in the eye of the black gelding. And when, with motionless pedals, I flew downhill toward the river, I saw from the bridge the panama and rounded shoulders of Pal Palych, who was sitting below on a projection of the bathing booth, with a fishing rod in his fist.
    I braked, and stopped with my hand on the railing.
    “Hey, hey, Pal Palych! How’re they biting?” He looked upward, and gave me a nice, homey kind of wave.
    A bat darted above the rose-colored mirror surface. The reflection of the foliage looked like black lace. Pal Palych, from afar, was shouting something, beckoning with his hand. A second Pal Palych quivered in