Vera (91 page)

157
“It has been suggested”: “Scenes,” STORIES, 613.

158
For VN on prophetic dreaming, see Herbert Gold, “The Artist in Pursuit of Butterflies,”
The Saturday Evening Post
, February 11, 1967, 81–85.

159
“Tried in vain” to “please and surprise”: VN journal, 1964.

160
“one of those dreams that still”: PNIN, 109.

161
“Awoke with a pang”: VN journal, 1964.

162
“Dream of the hotel”: VN 1968 diary, VNA.

1
early run-ins: Interview with Jenni Moulton.

2
“exchange of impressions”: VN to HS, November 1967, SL, 418.

3
read passages: Interview with Jacqueline Callier, July 11, 1995.

4
impression of most visitors: Interview with Stephen Jan Parker, November 13, 1996.

5
the Montreux tradespeople: Levy,
The Velvet Butterfly
, 14.

6
poison himself: Interview with Louba Schirman, June 17, 1996.

7
“I don't know why”: VéN to Parker, November 4, 1967.

8
“gay tussles”: Simona Morini,
Vogue
, April 15, 1972, 74–79.

9
“managed to turn”: VéN to Louba Schirman, September 7, 1964, VNA.

10
“had remained constantly”: VéN to Weidenfeld, September 9, 1965.

11
“first real” to “impertinent serf”: Girodias notes for unfinished volume, May 20, 1969. Gelfman Schneider Agency.

12
“Vladimir has been discovered”: VéN to Weidenfeld, September 21, 1968.

13
Even Katharine White: White comment on VéN note of 1967, BMC.

14
poked fun at those writers: Clarke,
Esquire
, July 1975.

15
“flamingoes”: Duffy notes, PC.

16
it was not rich enough: VéN to Rowohlt, February 11, 1969, VNA. It flourished as the translations multiplied. Dieter Zimmer to author, March 6, 1996.

17
“Stand over them with a spoon”: VNA. See also LATH, 116, for the “ectoplasmic swell in the dancing water.”

18
He found her heavy: Hughes interview text, December 28, 1965, 32. As is clear from the pages each Nabokov reworked of the 1933 story “The Leonardo,” when moving from Russian to English VéN's language tended toward the more fluid and literal, VN's toward the more neologistic.
Where VéN has “those crackling vertebrae,” VN has “that crumpy backbone”—which took the day. STORIES, 361.

19
“like the little abyss”: Clarence Brown,
The New Republic
, January 20, 1968, 19.

20
“Incidentally, not having a Russian”: VN to Library of Congress. In his diary (April 11, 1966, VNA), VN noted: “With Véra's suggestions, finished Lincoln.”

21
“He says that the”: VéN to Barley Alison, Weidenfeld, February 11, 1967.

22
“like a tenacious ancestral”: National Medal acceptance speech, 1975, courtesy of Fred Hills.

23
“glossological disarray”: VN to the editors,
The New York Review of Books
, July 8, 1965, SL, 375. Elsewhere he termed the battles that stood at the center of his wife's existence “the poignant demands of pedantic purity.” VN to Taylor, December 9, 1969.

24
Was it really too: VéN to Prins & Prins, May 17, 1966.

25
“My dear George”: VéN to Weidenfeld, June 13, 1966.

26
“It irks me”: VN to Weidenfeld, June 10, 1970.

27
chores that are repetitive: Mary Catherine Bateson,
Composing a Life
(New York: Plume, 1990), 213.

28
shouldn't the book charged: VéN to Minton, November 26, 1962.

29
The “disaster”: Interview with Vladimir Sikorsky, March 5, 1997.

30
“If you live in a teapot”: Jane Austen, cited in John Lukacs,
The Hitler of History
(New York, Knopf, 1997), 32.

31
“Véra, this amounts”: VéN to Minton, May 3, 1967.

32
“He wants me to forewarn”: VéN to Oscar de Liso, Phaedra, September 16, 1965.

33
“Oh dear, I think”: Interview with Nikki Smith, September 24, 1998.

34
“I must again apologize”: VéN to D. Lindsey, March 13, 1966.

35
relished the image: Interview with Evan Harrar, August 26, 1996.

36
“Yes, of course”: VéN to Robert Shankland, International Book Exchange, January 14, 1967.

37
A 1969 reporter: Interview with Martha Duffy, November 14, 1995.

38
“That is the difference”: Levy,
The Velvet Butterfly
, 30.

39
“man is not truly one”: Stevenson, cited in LL, 199.

40
“I was thinking”: PNIN, 17.

41
“This is cheating”: VéN to Appel, January 24, 1967. See Appel, “Nabokov's Puppet Show,”
The New Republic
, January 14 and 21, 1967.

42
seemingly omniscient narrator: See especially Wood,
The Magician's Doubts
, 164.

43
Friends had long: As Wilson observed in Slavitt's June 25, 1962,
Newsweek
cover story on Nabokov, 54: “He loves to tell you something which is not true, and have you believe it; but even more, he loves to tell you something which
is
true, and have you think he is lying.”

44
“But he adds that”: VéN to Field, March 1966.

45
“the person I usually”: SO, 298.

46
“Have you seen Volodya”: Wilson to Sonya Grynberg, May 9, 1969, Bakhm. Harry Levin acknowledged as much in his 1964 Cambridge introduction, Levin,
Grounds for Comparison
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 376.

47
“It is a false idea”: Interview with Jason Epstein, September 24, 1996.

48
go into hiding: VéN to Schirman, April 11, 1966, VNA.

49
“to dissimulate our presence”: VéN to Sonia Slonim, August 4, 1966.

50
“It's just like some miserable”: VéN to Elena Levin, July 21, 1967, PC; to Anna Feigin, July 18, 1967.

51
Worse yet, she had to: VéN to the Hessens, October 18, 1965, PC.

52
“If he had the time”: VéN to Irving Lazar, March 5, 1972, VNA.

53
Barozzi saw to it: Interview with Carlo Barozzi, July 10, 1995.

54
“strangers and half-strangers”: VéN to Nat Hoffman, April 8, 1975, VNA.

55
“He made a” and “Véra, what am”: Interview with Ivan Nabokov, October 24, 1995.

56
“She does the arguing”: Levy,
The New York Times Magazine
, October 31, 1971, 24. “She was his secret weapon,” concluded another. Interview with Willa Petschek, October 9, 1998.

57
“I think it's almost”: Lazar to VéN, November 19, 1963, VNA.

58
“Far from it”: VéN to Lazar, December 2, 1963, VNA.

59
“From here on”: VéN to Weidenfeld, October 7, 1968.

60
“While they keep us informed”: VéN to Field, March 1966.

61
“We have runny noses”: VéN to HS, January 20, 1965, PC.

62
“We have been ill”: VéN to De Liso, January 28, 1968.

63
“I ask you to bear”: VéN to Joan Daly, April 8, 1971, PW.

64
“Would you please”: VéN to René Micha,
L'Arc
, March 4, 1964.

65
“I rolled over him”: LO, 299.

66
“He has asked his son”: VéN to Bud MacLennan, Weidenfeld, May 3, 1965.

67
“signed by” and “Today I receive”: VN to Rowohlt, October 30, 1970.

68
“It is hard to be happy”: “The Potato Elf,” STORIES, 232.

69
“lone wolf”: VéN to Rex Stout, c. June 23, 1965.

70
“lone lamb”:
Vogue
, December 1969, 191; SO, 156.

71
“flurry of confabulation”: PF, 259. Also LATH, 87.

72
She found it embarrassing: VéN to Esslin, February 28, 1968, SL, 429.

73
“Darling, why” to “It's too late”: Field, 1977, 176–77.

74
“So I was surprised”: Dieter Zimmer to VéN, November 3, 1965. VéN to Zimmer, November 8, 1965.

75
Swiss Police Ministry: VéN to Département de Justice et Police, February 7, 1965, VNA.

76
“I am greatly distressed” and “spontaneous rot”: VN to Hughes, November 9, 1965. SL, 381.

77
equally capable of boasting: Field, 1977, 180, vs. James Salter,
People
, March 17, 1975, 64.

78
It was enough: Interviews with Sophie Lannes, June 11, 1996; Mati Laanso, March 26, 1997.

79
His wife was his memory: Interview with Appel, April 24, 1995, vs. Laanso, CBC interview of VN, March 20, 1973.

80
“a kind of rich and varicoloured”: VN to Bertrand Thompson, April 4, 1962.

81
“I am completely exhausted”: VéN to Lisbet Thompson, April 12, 1963.

82
“But I still hope”: VéN to L. Thompson, November 8, 1963. She appears to have been discouraged too by Callier's occasional missteps in English. On a Bristol card VN prepared for their secretary a little primer: “their” and “
leur
” behaved differently in their respective languages, so that “They cleared their throats,” unless of course “they were Siamese twins with two bodies but one head and one throat!”

83
“I am better”: VéN to L. Thompson, March 9, 1966.

84
“but since our return”: VéN to L. Thompson, October 25, 1966.

85
“Please do not” and “I am not”: VéN to L. Thompson, March 11, 1967.

86
firm sense of self-importance: Interview with Callier, March 29, 1998.

87
“Ah, sweet socks”: VN to VéN, October 25, 1974, VNA.

88
“to have made little jottings”: Interview with DN, June 23, 1996.

89
Véra astonished its author: Interview with Edmund White, January 23, 1995.

90
White began to visualize: Interview with White. White continues: “Reaching her, despite our differences, is a project that for some reason excites my imagination; I picture her as the ‘interior paramour.' ” See
States of Desire: Travels in Gay America
(New York: Dutton, 1980), 255.

91
“a disaster,” “I know many,” and “Where are the”: VéN to Topazia Markevitch, June 5, 1965.

92
“I'm sending Volodya”: Anna Feigin to VéN, September 26, 1963.

93
“You mustn't apologize”: Appel to VéN, September 22, 1968.

94
she went out of her way: VéN to Minton, May 3, 1967.

95
“And in any case”: VéN to Flora Stone Mather College, December 8, 1971, VNA.

96
“it does not belong”: VN to William Morris, January 10, 1967, VNA.

97
“The project of which”: VéN to Weidenfeld, October 25, 1967. The young McGraw-Hill editor was Peter Kemeny, of whom VéN was very fond, but who left the firm just as VN was arriving.

98
Paul, Weiss lawyers: Interview with Joseph Iseman, May 19, 1995.

99
“We have lived”: VéN to Iseman, August 20, 1967, PW.

100
consult an economics text: Irving Lazar, with Annette Tapert,
Swifty: My Life and Good Times
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 203.

101
“It goes without saying”: Daly to Iseman, October 23, 1975, PW.

102
knew she had been ridiculed: Boyd interview with VéN, January 9, 1985, Boyd archive.

103
“This is a
very private
” to “from VN”: VéN to Iseman, September 14, 1967, PW.

104
“VN was practically”: VéN to Canfield, December 2, 1967.

105
the Pierre meeting: Interview with Iseman, May 19, 1995. Boyd interview with VéN, January 9, 1985, Boyd archive. Interview with Dan Lacy, April 27, 1998.

106
“In the dimly-lit”: Iseman to Alan Cohen, December 4, 1967, PW.

107
“choral and sculptured”: PF, 136.

108
“in a rage”: VéN to Iseman, December 21, 1967.

109
Minton was none: Interview with Minton, June 5, 1995.

110
“Badminton”: VéN to Louba Schirman, May 22, 1968, VNA.

111
The Rowohlt sessions: Interview with Helmut Frielinghaus, May 28, 1996.

112
the marathons session were: VN to Rowohlt, April 17, 1974, VNA.

113
“Everything,” reported Vera: VéN to DN, November 10, 1969, VNA.

114
“Literature must be taken”: LRL, 105.

115
“not only Veen's muse:” Appel,
The New York Times Book Review
, May 14, 1969.

116
“sun-and-shade games”: ADA, 579.

117
One reviewer read: Matthew Hodgart,
The New York Review of Books
, May 22, 1969, 3–4.

118
could not live: ADA, 575.

119
“What the hell, Sir”: VN to Hodgart, May 12, 1969, SL, 450–51. Hodgart's elegant apology,
The New York Review of Books
, July 10, 1969.

120
“She is also, in a dimension”: Updike,
The New Yorker
, August 2, 1969, 67–73. Alfred Kazin arrived at the same conclusion, expressing great enthusiasm for VN but mustering only partial admiration for ADA. “It is too much about himself, his wife, his Russia-America, rather than an extension of the art that bears his name,” he declared. VN howled; an enterprising editor had the good sense to change—with Kazin's permission—the “w” to an “l” in the eighth word. See Kazin,
Bright Book of Life
(Boston: Little Brown, 1971), 317. Interview with Alfred Kazin, November 10, 1996.