Vera (84 page)

247
“with long, thick” and “I could see”: Hannah Green, “Mister Nabokov,”
The New Yorker
, February 14, 1977. Repr. in Quennell,
Vladimir Nabokov
, 34–41.

249
general swooning: Interview with Sally Luten Morse, August 25, 1997.

250
“I have given”: VN to Hessen, March 14, 1947, PC.

251
“gentle dismay”: Green, “Mister Nabokov,” 41.

252
denied all: VéN corrections to Field, 1977, n.d. She insisted too that he was always in a hurry to return to Cambridge, to his work, VéN to Barbara Breasted, December 28, 1970, VNA.

253
“I like small-breasted”: Interview with Peebles, December 6, 1996. “No, never!”: VéN copy of Field, 1984, 224, VNA.

254
frank anticommunism: VéN diary, VNA.

255
“quite a wrench”: Boyd interview with Berkman, Boyd archive.

256
terrified that the Cornell: VN to White, May 30, 1948, BMC.

257
“I didn't receive any”: VéN to Goldenweiser, August 12, 1958, Bakhm.

258
Mrs. Horton later: Interview of Winter 1970, WCA.

259
rather frightened the dean: Boyd interview with Berkman, Boyd archive. Also Berkman interview, WCA.

260
“the safe drabness”: ADA, 472.

261
“I did not take it”: Wilson to Grynberg, November 19, 1948, LOC.

262
foreglimmers: Ernest J. Simmons to Karpovich, April 15, 1942, Bakhm. For a full account of the events that brought VN to Cornell, see Galya Diment,
Pniniad
.

263
better teacher: Interviews with Ignatius, Curtis. Also Ruth Stokes, August 1996. VéN quibbled with the assessment of her talent, which she thought inferior to her husband's.

265
“my head is spinning”: VéN to Marinels, April 25, 1948, PC.

266
“had been compelled”: VéN to Eric Bergh, April 5, 1948, VNA.

267
His mood: VN to Hessen, June 13, 1948, PC.

268
“It will be a sequence”: VN to Kenneth McCormick, September 22, 1946.

269
had been irritated: VéN to
The Saturday Review
, December 29, 1947.

270
“a short novel about”: VN to Wilson, April 7, 1947, Yale.

271
original employment proposal: Bishop to VN, September 13, 1947, PC.

272
“Possibly my wife”: VN to Milton Cowan, June 1948. Draft, VNA.

273
“scrubbing was Mrs.”: Bishop to VN, May 21, 1948. The house belonged to a professor of electrical engineering, who Bishop reported was “off to Brookhaven to make bombs for the summer.”

274
“The horrible packing”: VN to Hessen, June 13, 1948, PC.

275
“I will never,” and the Ithaca anti-sesame: Boyd interview with Berkman, Boyd archive.

1
“always so kind”: Burton Jacoby to the Nabokovs, June 24, 1969. Interview with Bill Pritchard, February 7, 1997.

2
bought a car: VN to Wilson, September 3, 1948, NWL, 205.

3
“One of us had better”: Interview with Dick Keegan, April 9, 1997.

4
or an obsolete one: VéN to Sonia Slonim, May 17, 1947.

5
worry about his health: VéN to HS, November 30, 1948.

6
“It's not very hard”: Interview with Keegan, April 9, 1997.

7
He distrusted cars: Arthur Mizener,
Cornell Alumni News
, September 1977.

8
electric pencil sharpeners: Interview with Jill Krementz, March 1973.

9
Keegan noticed: Interview with Keegan, March 25, 1997. Keegan had the firm sense that the Dodge had a very great deal to do with the relationship, at least initially.

11
“carts around her”: VN to Karpovich, September 28, 1948, Bakhm.

12
wonder mischievously: VN to Harry Levin, May 31, 1949, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

13
a pinch-hitting driver: Interview with Frank Tretter, September 26, 1996.

14
Salt Lake City: Interview with Richard Buxbaum, May 6, 1996. Boyd notes of Buxbaum interview, May 3, 1983, Boyd archive.

15
East Seneca Street: See William R. Orndorff,
Cornell Alumni News
, February 1984, 20–21.

16
“Why don't you call”: Interview with Harold Croghan, November 23, 1996.

17
“an elderly man”: FBI File 105–11456, serials 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9.

18
A neighbor on East Seneca: Robert Ruebman to author, April 22, 1996.

19
“And pray, find me”: Cited in GOGOL, 111.

20
“minus my teeth”: VN to Wilson, June 3, 1950, Yale.

21
She had not understood: Interview with DN, November 15, 1996.

22
“Iso-Rivolta is not”: VéN to Walter Minton, February 18, 1966.

23
asserted proudly: Taped conversation following CBC interview with Mati Laanso, March 20, 1973.

24
“I
loved
driving”: Rodney Phillips to author, January 1997. Boyd interview with VéN, January 16, 1982, Boyd archive.

25
“my heroic wife”: VN to Wilson, September 1951, NWL, 265.

26
“I have upwards”: VéN to Eugenia Cannac, February 14, 1962.

27
“My Oldsmobile” to “Oh, the sunlight”: VN 1951 diary, VNA. For the last, see LO, 95.

28
she compiled an inventory: LOC. The results can be read in LO, 208.

29
“and a few ‘dust devils' ”: VéN to the Bishops, summer, 1959.

30
“apocaliptic [sic]”: VéN to D. Lindsay, December 17, 1965.

31
“The most exciting”: VéN to Elena Levin, June 24, 1956, PC. Also, Boyd interview with VéN, December 22, 1981, Boyd archive.

32
“through the grey wall”: VN to the Hessens, November 27, 1950, PC.

33
to the liquor store: Interview with Keegan, December 15, 1997.

34
“Inseparable, self-sufficient”: Alfred Appel, Jr., “Nabokov: A Portrait,”
The Atlantic
, September 1971, 85. Repr. in J. E. Rivers and Charles Nicol, eds.,
Nabokov's Fifth Arc
, 12.

36
immobile, oblivious: Interview with Frances Halperin, January 15, 1996. Similarly, interviews with Gardner and Florence Clark, September 1, 1996, Dorothy Staller. See also Diment,
Pniniad
, 162.

37
husband's galoshes: Interview with Marcia Elwitt, August 20, 1996.

38
“Wives, Mr. Shade”: PF, 22.

39
“Did you grade” to “brute strength”: Interview with Keegan, November 14, 1997.

40
“This is a genuine”: VN to Grynberg, September 1, 1948, Bakhm.

41
“We miss him”: VN to HS, winter 1948.

42
his last priority: VN to Zenzinov, January 21, 1949.

43
“You
must
go”: Interview with Keegan, January 12, 1997.

44
“Everything has its limits”: Cited in Diment,
Pniniad
, 35.

45
“Will you tell me”: Interview with Anna Balakian, September 2, 1995.

46
“I am the new professor”: Interview with Aileen Ward, November 1, 1995.

47
“I envy you”: VN to Mrs. Victor Lowe, May 24, 1949.

48
braced himself: Victor Lange,
Michigan Quarterly Review
, October 1986, 479–92. Also, David Daiches, “Nabokov à Cornell,”
L'Arc
24 (Spring 1964), 65–66.

49
“I want to warn you”: VN to Dean C. W. de Kiewit, March 21, 1948. The line is from the unedited text, penciled in the margin of de Kiewit's letter. For amended version see SL, 83.

50
“was deemed ‘too literary' ”: Diment,
Pniniad
, 34. Also, VN to Grynberg, March 31, 1949, Bakhm. The letter appears to have been written by VéN.

52
no respect: Interview with Dr. Bruce Cowan, March 14, 1997.

53
“You just wait”: Diment, 34.

54
poisoned her husband's mind: Alice Colby-Hall to author, April 9, 1997. Interview with George Gibian, August 29, 1996. Leonard Blorenge, Chairman of French Literature and Language at Pnin's Waindell College, distinguishes himself on two counts: “he disliked Literature and he had no French” (PNIN, 140). In the Nabokovs' opinions, Fairbanks had no Russian. VN shivered to think what havoc Fairbanks's graduates would wreak at the State Department (SL, 263). As late as 1958, he was writing the
Cornell Daily Sun
to protest the poor language instruction at the university.

55
“the French gave her”: VéN corrections to Field, 1977.

56
“used whoever was”: Boyd interview with VéN, December 12, 1982, Boyd archive. Blorenge brags that an instructor of French “is required to be only one lesson ahead of his students,” PNIN, 142.

57
do his laundry: Interview with E. Levin, June 6, 1995.

58
“Nabokov never scraped”: VéN corrections to Boyd's Chapter 29, n.d. Interview with Harold Croghan, November 23, 1996.

59
the eighteen-year-old English major: Robert Ruebman to author, “Snacking at the Nabokovs,” April 10, 1996.

60
“Sonst noch was”:
Ruebman to author, March 14, 1997.

61
“If he had office hours”: Interview with Rona Schneider, September 1996.

62
The few who delved: Interviews with Stanley Komaroff, April 29, 1996, Dick Wimmer, December 1, 1997.

63
chief of a fire brigade: VN to Aldanov, February 2, 1951, Bakhm.

64
“he worked for the wages”: VéN corrections to Field, 1977, ms. p. 271.

65
essentially parked: Demorest, (Cornell)
Arts and Sciences Newsletter
, Spring 1983. VN lent a similar administrative limbo to Pnin, PNIN, 139.

67
“a touch of almost”: Lange,
Michigan Quarterly Review
, October 1986, 482.

68
He assured Keegan: Keegan recollections of VN, February 4, 1997.

69
“It is fine”: Laughlin to VéN, November 30, 1948.

70
“As you have probably”: VN to White, “Gardens and Parks” ms., LOC.

71
“Avatar” to “Touche”: Interview with Keegan, January 15, 1998.

72
“I wouldn't want to see”:
La Notte
, April 26/7, 1962.

73
“It is foolish”: VéN to HS, October 25, 1949, PC.

74
“1) that he was very”: VéN to Zinaida Shakhovskoy, January 9, 1949, Amherst.

75
“Volodya has still”: Natalie Nabokov to VéN, c. 1956.

76
“Dear Véra and Volodya”: Grynberg to the Nabokovs, March 30, 1949.

77
Wilson simply glided: Wilson to VN, July 15, 1949, Yale. The letter is addressed, “Dear Véra.”

78
“I am afraid”: VN to Croghans, November 7, 1948.

79
“unsolicited sounds”: VéN to Geoffrey Hughes, July 26, 1963.

80
“husband and wife serfs”: Interviews with the Croghans, November 22, 1996, November 26, 1997.

81
“slamming doors”: VN to Katharine and Andy [E. B.] White, October 25, 1950, Cornell.

82
“There is nothing louder”: LO, 129.

83
“I have no illusions”: VN to Katharine and E. B. White, October 25, 1950, Cornell.

84
Jane Carlyle: See Rose,
Parallel Lives
, 247.

85
fixing a flat tire: On a similar occasion on the 1949 trip with Buxbaum, VN excused himself at this juncture, setting off with his butterfly net.

87
“What can I do?”: Interview with Bea McCloud, April 3, 1996.

88
wooden cart of blocks: Edward C. Sampson to author, October 10, 1995. Interview with Frances Halperin, January 15, 1996.

89
He confessed to: ANL, xliv.

90
notebook in hand: Interviews with Shari Hathaway, Mrs. Orval French, May 3, 1996.

91
“Oh yes, I know”: Interview with Milton Konvitz, August 9, 1996.

92
“book clubs, bridge clubs”: “Conversation Piece,” STORIES, 586.

93
“autobiographical thingamabob”: VN to Edward Weeks, September 9, 1948.

94
she testified that working: White to Cass Canfield, November 29, 1948, HR.

95
“pessimistically thought that”: Unpublished last chapter of SM, LOC.

96
“so carefully mutilated”: VN to White, March 1948.

97
a “beginning” writer: John Fischer to VN, February 17, 1949, HR.

98
alarm bells: Handwritten note on John Fischer to VN, April 28, 1949, HR.

99
“If anybody again ever”: Allen Tate to VN, November 6, 1946.

100
all evidence points: DN felt his mother was the contract reader from the earliest days. Interview of December 1, 1997.

101
familiar-seeming woman: Interview with HS, January 15, 1997.

102
“amiable feelings”: VN to HS, May 22, 1949, PC.

103
addressed to Véra: VN to White, November 27, 1949, SL, 95. In BEND, Krug addresses his dead wife. See also Johnson,
Worlds in Regression
, 97.

104
shrugged it off: Interview with Appel, April 24, 1995.

105
“the year I married”: CE, 183. And in that edition she was “my wife” sleeping in the next room, not yet the abstract “you.” CE, 222. Nor does she make appearances as frequently; she joins her husband on his mid-book lepping excursion (SM, 129) but does not do so in
The New Yorker
of June 12, 1948, or in Chapter VI of CE.

106
Madame Chateaubriand: See Dan Hofstadter,
The Love Affair as a Work of Art
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1996), 83ff.