Vera (90 page)

41
“Here something happened”: Rolf, “January,” 17–18, PC.

42
“Véra positively” to “It is not a matter”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 15, 1961, PC.

43
“You know why”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 17, 1961, PC.

44
“I had not known”: Rolf, “January,” 70, 76, PC.

45
“royalty of the spirit”:
Ibid.
, 76.

46
On VéN's familiarity with the work: See David Slavitt,
Newsweek
, June 25, 1962, 53. Interviews with George Weidenfeld, April 21, 1997, DN, January 1997.

47
“Why do they have to”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 21, 1961, PC.

48
“that of the little girl”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 15, 1961, PC.

49
“for they were heavily”: Rolf, “January,” 23. The passage begins: “I felt like a tennis ball in the air, being bashed back and forth between their two hard, sensitive and hence impatient rackets. In my mind's eye I could see their knees bending, their tendons straining, their faces glazed in a smile of absorption and deep enjoyment, for they were heavily in love.…”

50
“the ball sometimes watches” to “speed”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 15, 1961, PC.

51
“Poets are never” and “And Coleridge?”: “January,” 23, PC. Rolf to Tenggren, January 18, 1961, PC. Rolf to VéN, December 15, 1961.

52
“They are mating like”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 16, 1961, PC.

53
“with a little despairing”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 17, 1961, PC.

54
“but we discovered that”: VéN to Lisbet Thompson, March 11, 1961.

55
“secret communion of”: Wayne Booth,
The Rhetoric of Fiction
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 300.

56
“You'll meet him”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 16, 1961, PC. See Luzhin's encounter with his old schoolmate, DEFENSE, 198–200.

57
“Now what do” to “your poem!”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 17, 1961, PC.

58
book's soul: VéN to HS, February 11, 1961, PC.

59
“like a happy” to “
wonderful
evening!”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 18, 1961, PC.

60
“not by raising”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 15, 1961, PC.

61
“to our sidewalk”: Rolf, “January,” 68, PC.

62
“Véra will do” to “I don't know”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 25, 1961, PC. Also, “January,” 43.

63
“And what a Swede”: VéN to DN, January 30, 1961, VNA.

64
“We save ourselves”: VéN to HS, January 24, 1961.

65
“Have you yet”: Feigin to VéN, January 25, 1961.

66
“a rather boring, out-of-the-way”: VéN to Rolf, June 10, 1961, PC.

67
“Alas, no shades”: VéN to Michael Scammell, January 30, 1961.

68
“I have been limping”: VéN to Rolf, February 11, 1961.

69
unfortunate distraction: VéN to DN, December 5, 1962, VNA. VéN to Lisbet Thompson, November 11, 1962.

70
“We're always in a panic”: VéN to Elena Levin, June 4, 1964, PC.

71
“It is a fantastically”: VN to Minton, February 18, 1961.

72
“out of sheer distaste”: VéN to Rolf, February 9, 1961.

73
“I cannot even begin”: VéN to Mohrt, Gallimard, February 9, 1961.

74
“they all talk at the same”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 26, 1961, PC.

75
“the stupidest accident”: VéN to Lisbet Thompson, April 7, 1961.

76
“flatly declared V.” and “I am not”: VéN to Amy Kelly, April 19, 1961. See
Times Literary Supplement
, April 7, 1961, 218.

77
“I, too, have been working”: VéN to Lisbet Thompson, June 12, 1961.

78
“I deeply regret”: VéN to Alberta Pescetto, June 26, 1961, VNA.

79
“We are very dumb”: VN to McGraw-Hill, January 31, 1973, SL, 509.

80
in contractual matters: VéN to Joseph Iseman, July 14, 1971, PW.

81
rejected by her own counsel: Joan Daly to files, August 22, 1988, PW.

82
posed the obvious question: Robert MacGregor, New Directions, to VéN, July 11, 1963.

83
“Sumptuous, my foot!”: Rolf, “January,” 16, PC.

84
“In front of me” and “indifferent”: VéN to E. Levin, September 8, 1961, PC.

85
considered nouveau riche: Boyd interview with VéN, December 24, 1984, Boyd archive.

86
She could not resist: VéN to Anna Feigin, September 18, 1961.

87
“In the 4 months”: VéN to Don Wallace, Jr., December 9, 1961, PW.

88
“It … is not like”: VéN to the Bishops, November 4, 1961, SL 331.

89
a strain, and “switch channels”: H. Hirschman to VéN, March 8, 1961. VéN to Grynberg, September 14, 1961.

90
“Would you know”: VéN to Weidenfeld, October 19, 1961.

91
“There never was an emotional”: Joseph Iseman to author, May 2, 1996.

92
“reach the blessed shore”: VéN to Minton, November 20, 1961.

93
“Don't work too much”: Rolf to the Nabokovs, December 17, 1961.

94
“For me one result of his”: VéN to Alison Bishop, March 29, 1963.

95
“V. is the one”: VéN to L. Thompson, October 1, 1961.

96
“Don't let anything upset”: VéN to Rolf, March 7, 1962.

97
in his stride: VéN to DN, June 28, 1961, VNA.

98
began to feel sheepish: VéN to Goldenweiser, February 11, 1962, Bakhm.

99
“I am unable honestly”: VéN to Goldenweiser, November 29, 1965, Bakhm.

100
“It is a narrative” to “bizarre”: VN to Rust Hills,
Esquire
, March 23, 1961, SL, 329.

101
evolved significantly: See VN to Epstein, March 24, 1957, SL, 212–13. “A Mr. Stefan Schimanski”: VN to David Higham, March 24, 1958.

102
“But they're horrible!”: VéN to Mme. Cherix, May 7, 1962.

103
in no way offensive: VéN to Lisbet Thompson, July 16, 1962.

104
It had been almost: Interview with Harris, September 12, 1996.

105
“in general the picture”: VéN to L. Thompson, December 17, 1962.

106
Proudly he showed:
La Tribune de Lausanne
, September 1, 1963.

107
Only in 1969: Interview with Martha Duffy, November 14, 1995. See also Harris and Kubrick in
Newsweek
, January 3, 1972, 30.

108
more fun to write: George Cloyne,
The New York Times Book Review
, May 27, 1962.

109
“In any case”: McCarthy,
The New Republic
, June 4, 1962, 21–27. The two approaches to the
Pale Fire
coin are perfectly represented in Mary McCarthy and Hannah Arendt's correspondence on the subject. McCarthy wrote of her joy in the book, of the sheer delight she had had reviewing it. To her it seemed as if Nabokov had turned “this weird new civilization into a work of art, as though he'd engraved it all on the head of a pin, like the Lord's Prayer.” Arendt had not read the novel but greatly disliked Nabokov; he seemed always so eager to prove his superior intelligence. “There is something vulgar in his refinement,” she replied, promising to read the novel all the same. Carol Brightman, ed.,
Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy, 1949–1975
(New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1995), 133–36.

110
“I read it with amusement”: Wilson to Grynberg, May 20, 1962, Bakhm. On the other side of the ocean, Evelyn Waugh arrived at a different conclusion: “Too clever by half. But a pleasure.” See Mosley, ed.,
Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh
, 468.

111
“that evil woman”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 25, 1961, PC. VéN told William Maxwell that McCarthy had found far more in the novel than the author had intended, but that VN was pleased with the review. Maxwell to Katharine White, n.d., BMC.

112
“In general the atmosphere”: VéN to HS, June 8, 1962, PC.

113
“VN could be like”: Interview with Appel, June 2, 1995. Then again, VéN was a woman who could, and did, summon compassion for a panicked rhinoceros—in this case one filmed from the air, for television. See Dmitri Nabokov in
The Nabokovian
26 (Spring 1991), ii.

114
“mostly in cabs”: VéN to the de Petersons, July 24, 1962, SL, 338–39.

115
like coming home: VéN to Berkman, October 25, 1962.

116
“It is still not a ‘home' ”: VéN to Lisbet Thompson, November 8, 1963.

117
“Where we'll settle”: VéN to Elena Levin, March 10, 1963, PC.

118
“This book is a torrent” and “dialogical”: VN and VéN to Karin Hartell, October 1, 1961.

119
“I do a lot of typing”: Interview with Galen Williams, December 4, 1996.

120
opened his mouth: His first words at the April 5 reading: “I shall begin by reciting ‘The Ballad of Longwood Glen,' which is a short poem composed in Wyoming, one of my favorite states of existence.”

121
Why had he not signed: Interview with Arthur Luce Klein, October 30, 1996.

122
sensationally beautiful: Aileen Ward to author, May 25, 1996; interview with William McGuire, October 16, 1995.

123
she billed the work: VéN to Mondadori, December 7, 1964. Russian scholars felt differently about the brilliant, petulant, outsized
Onegin
. Elizabeth Hardwick conveyed their position perfectly in one line: The volume “was a folly of such earnest magnitude that it might have been conceived in
Bouvard and Pécuchet
.”
Sight Readings
(New York: Random House, 1998), 207. See also William McGuire,
Bollingen: An Adventure in Collecting the Past
, 264.

124
The Ithaca return: Field, 1977, 278–79. Boyd, 1991, 482. VéN to Boyd, March 11, 1989, VNA. Interview with Appel, August 7, 1996. It was Appel who knew of Bishop's inadvertent espionage mission of about 1950, and who first connected the two incidents. “An overwhelming tenderness”: ADA, 574.

125
“first through a telescope”: Carroll,
Through the Looking Glass
(Signet: New York, 1960), 149.

126
Véra was livid: Interview with DN, November 1, 1996.

127
“Don't you dare work”: Sonia Slonim to VéN, June 13, 1964.

128
“When I am ill nobody”: VéN to Marcantonio Crespi, May 22, 1969, VNA.

129
“Much ado about”: VéN to Berkman, March 19, 1965.

130
“What we won't do”: VéN to Elena Levin, April 1, 1969, PC.

131
“It was unpleasant”: VéN to E. Levin, June 3, 1969, PC.

132
“And of course I would”: VN to Frank Taylor, April 7, 1969, Lilly.

133
editors were asked: VéN to Minton, March 15, 1963.

134
“He does not intend”: VéN to Martin J. Esslin, February 28, 1968, SL, 429. VéN's concern may have been with citizenship. At the time, naturalized Americans were required to return to the United States periodically.

135
All looked as if: Interview with Appel, April 19, 1995.

136
“he had planned”: Maxwell to the Nabokovs, April 1969.

137
to feel manageable: Martha Duffy notes for
Time
, PC.

138
modest villa in the south: VN to Minton, February 16, 1965.

139
The comforts of European: VéN to the Bishops, November 4, 1961, SL, 331.

140
“rusty and unwieldy”: VéN to Ergaz, November 13, 1962.

141
Callier to correct: Interview with Jacqueline Callier, March 29, 1998.

142
“We have hit a snag”: VéN to Ergaz, January 8, 1962.

143
America was his favorite:
Le Figaro
, January 13, 1973. Also,
Le Monde
, November 22, 1967.

144
It would be inexact: VéN to Drago Arsenijevic,
La Tribune de Genève
, October 17, 1967.

145
“I was five days”: VéN to Elena Levin, 1967 postcard, PC.

146
“I have been imagining” and “I was dealt”: VN to VéN, November 28, 1967, VNA.

147
“I don't know how”: VN to VéN, October 2, 1966, VNA.

148
“Oh, you mustn't” to “think of crying”: Untitled poem, December 6, 1964, VNA.

149
Véra's enormous help:
La Tribune de Lausanne
, September 1, 1963.

150
“To
whom
am I”: VN to McGuire, June 14, 1963, LOC, SL, 346. In the end he extended his thanks to his wife, his son, and the Bollingen editors. The translation is dedicated, “To Véra.”

151
“the inspirer of my”: J. S. Mill,
Autobiography of John Stuart Mill
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1948), 184.

152
earned a promotion: Dostoyevsky referred to Anna Grigoryevna as his “collaborator” from the start. She more accurately spoke of their work as “our joint publishing activity”; like Countess Tolstoy, she doubled as her husband's publisher. Anna Dostoyevsky,
Dostoyevsky Reminiscences
(New York, Liveright, 1975).

153
“She is my collaborator”: Guy de Velleval,
Journal de Genève
, March 13, 1965.

154
“I felt he was”: Interview with Steinberg, January 4, 1996.

155
Even the family members: Interview with HS, July 20, 1997.

156
“The feeling of distress”: VN diary, January 18, 1973, VNA.