Vera (81 page)

80
“She was not more”: Geoffrey Scott,
The Portrait of Zélide
(New York: Scribners, 1926), 1.

81
“clear but weirdly”: SM, 288.

82
the anonymous letter: There were a number of possible candidates for authorship, including at least one person who knew both women, and had known VéN since her childhood.

84
“a pretty woman”: VN to Guadanini, June 21, 1937, PC.

85
“20th century miracle”: Kokoshkin diary, PC. Madame Kokoshkin was citing Khodasevich.

86
three times: Kokoshkin to her son, February 10, 1937, PC.

87
Her laugh: I am indebted to Tatiana Morozoff for much of the background on Irina Guadanini.

88
When a twenty-one-year-old to “How beautiful!”: Desanti, 34–40. For the most part I have steered clear of Desanti's
Vladimir Nabokov
, billed as an “
essai fantasme
.” I have made an exception for these few moments, at which Desanti was actually present. The Fondaminsky report rings true for a second reason: VN wrote precisely the lines Desanti cites, earlier, in a letter to his mother.

89
“Anna Karenin!”: Boyd interview with Elizabeth Marinel Allan, March 29, 1983, Boyd archive.

90
With tears streaming: Kokoshkin diary, August 3, 1937, PC. Games of hangman: Guadanini diary, PC.

91
“Were his hands”: Desanti, 35.

92
A week later, he: VN to Guadanini, June 21, 1937, PC.

93
beyond his strength: Guadanini diary, PC.

94
The strain was such: VN to Guadanini, June 14, 1937, PC.

95
a lovely ruse: VN to Guadanini, June 19, 1937, PC.

96
“indescribable, unprecedented”: VN to Guadanini, June 22, 1937, PC.

97
“around like a bomb”: VN to Guadanini, June 14, 1937, PC.

98
“You always have”: VN to Guadanini, June 22, 1937, PC. tormenting her lover: Guadanini diary, June 25, 1937, PC.

99
Adultery was a perfectly: LL, 133.

100
“I love you more than”: Guadanini diary; also Kokoshkin to Guadanini, July 3, 1937.

101
yearned for Irina: VN to Guadanini, July 15, 1937, PC.

102
He promised: VN to Guadanini, July 23, 1937, PC.

103
“Her smile kills” to “hallucination”: VN to Guadanini, July 28, 1937, PC.

104
“bamboozle her husband”: Kokoshkin diary, July 23, 1937, PC.

105
felt so madly sorry: VN to Guadanini, August 2, 1937, PC.

106
promised to terminate: VéN corrections to Field, 1977, VNA.

107
prove under oath: VéN to Boyd, June 6, 1987, VNA.

108
powerful evidence: In Kokoshkin's and Guadanini's diaries. Both were replying to VN's reports from the Riviera.

110
The Guadanini-VN encounter: Guadanini's diary.

111
learned later that her rival: Boyd interview with VéN, December 5, 1986, Boyd archive.

112
hoodwinked Vladimir: Kokoshkin to Guadanini, September 13, 1937, PC.

113
She predicted that he would: Guadanini's diary.

114
“If he loves you”: Kokoshkin to Guadanini, September 13, 1937, PC.

115
“The Tunnel” to “penetrate his letters”: Aletrus, “The Tunnel,”
Sovremennik
3 (1961), 6–23.

116
ode to fidelity: Boyd, 1990, 444.

117
single most appealing: Defending VN against Field's charge that the work provided few moral heroines, VéN countered with Zina and Mme. Luzhin. VéN copy of Field, 1986, 165, VNA.

119
In June he told: VN to Guadanini, June 21, 1937, PC.

120
Later he reported: VN to Guadanini, August 2, 1937, PC.

121
“light, popular fiction”: undated Bobbs-Merrill report, Mariam Lyman, Lilly.

122
series of fleeting affairs: VN to Guadanini, June 19, 1937, PC.

123
bristled visibly: Interview with George Weidenfeld, April 21, 1997. Eva had studied chemistry under Madame Curie in Paris; she was cultured, cosmopolitan, and beautiful.

124
ready to deny: Interview with Boyd, November 21, 1996; VéN to Boyd, June 6, 1987, VNA.

125
hints of philandering: VN to Struve, May 26, 1930, LOC; VN to Khodasevich, April 26, 1934, Berberova papers, Yale.

126
lent his hero: VN to Aldanov, February 3, 1938.

127
“autobiography thinly”: Spender,
The New York Times Book Review
, May 26, 1963. “Please do not look for V.'s or my biography in
The Gift
. Apart from some absolutely external circumstances (very few even of those) there is nothing of V. in Fyodor. He gets quite vexed when people try to find it there,” VéN wrote Lisbet Thompson on October 29, 1964. It never helped that Berberova and Shakhovskoy, among those who knew VN best in the 1930s, found the novel to be closer to the truth than his autobiography. Or that VN cited
The Gift
as one of his three most autobiographical works, Field, 1986, 52.

128
Vladimir's favorites: VéN to Barley Alison, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, May 15, 1963.

129
write off
Orlando:
VN to Shakhovskoy, July 25, 1933, LOC.

131
It has been read: Boyd, 1990, 463.

132
“hopeless desire”: GIFT, 329.

133
ask that she return: Kokoshkin diary, December 29, 1937, PC.

134
“fragments of a novel”: LO, 96.

135
a long protest: VéN to Boyd, October 7, 1985, VNA.

136
“alien, sullen” and “looked down”: GIFT, 185, 195.

137
“Everyone lived”: Cannac, cited by Shakhovskoy; interview of October 26, 1995.

138
The last letter: Kokoshkin diary, February 7, 1938, PC.

139
“I want this”: Jannelli to VN, June 26, 1937.

140
author's questionnaire: November 1937, Bobbs-Merrill archive, Lilly.

141
“Our situation is”: VN to Shakhovskoy, n.d., LOC.

142
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Rachmaninoff to VN, May 28, 1938, LOC.

143
“The smooth bits”: VéN pages on DN's childhood.

144
“And among the candy-like”: SM, 308.

145
nude sunbathing: VN to Raisa Tatarinov, November 12, 1937.

146
“and now it is my wife's”: VN to Jannelli, January 31, 1938.

147
She was delighted: VéN to Shakhovskoy, 1938 postcard, LOC.

148
major French writer: Field, 1977, 141, 209. Despite what her husband said in jest, in VéN's opinion, “his French was as excellent as his English.” VéN to Boyd, June 6, 1987, VNA. She recalled that VN had cast about, uncertain what language to write in. January 9, 1985, Boyd archive.

149
article on Pushkin: “Pouchkine, ou le vrai et le vraisemblable,”
NRF
, March 1, 1937. “Mademoiselle O,”
Mesures
, 1936.

150
“both men might have chosen”: Unpublished last chapter of SM, LOC.

151
fantastic congealing: LL, 182–84.

152
convoluted copyright: Jannelli to VN, April 23, 1938, Lilly.

153
before the outbreak: VéN to Rowohlt, July 5, 1987, VNA.

154
“dazzlingly brilliant”: A. I. Nazaroff's report, Bobbs-Merrill ms., Lilly.

155
“threaded on my hero's: VN to Jannelli, July 14, 1938, Lilly.

156
an editor's suggestion: Putnam to VN, March 17, 1937.

157
“I schall [sic] never”: VN to Jannelli, May 18, 1938.

158
high cinematic hopes: It had been conceived for the screen, VN to Walter Minton, November 4, 1958.

159
“Eiffel Tower”: VN to VéN, February 19, 1936, VNA.

160
“because there is nowhere”: VN to Struve, December 23, 1938, LOC.

161
“the residence of most”: VéN to Rowohlt, August 5, 1960, VNA.

162
a lucrative market: As
Newsweek
had it in VN's obituary, “He might as well have been writing in Icelandic,” July 18, 1977, 42.

163
one reliable witness: Interview with Irina Morozova Lynch, December 6, 1996.

164
handwriting can be found: Ms. of RLSK, LOC.

165
“a champion figure”: VN to Roman Grynberg, January 29, 1963.

166
“switched from” to “VN's and my marriage”: VéN to Field, March 10, 1973, VNA.

167
suitcase balanced: VN was fond of drawing historical radii between writing desks—he was keen to say exactly where Flaubert had been in the composition of
Madame Bovary
when Dickens was composing
Bleak House
, one hundred miles away—but remained scornful of the idea that Joyce had had any influence on him. At the same time, he admitted in the early 1960s that he reread
Ulysses
annually. VN to Grynberg, December 11, 1950. (He had done so at least since 1931, when he told Struve he had reread the novel. Struve, “Vladimir Nabokov as I Knew and as I Saw Him,” 11, Hoover.)

169
Boyd has located: Boyd, 1990, 496.

170
Viennese delegation: DEFENSE, 10.

171
“pages slipped”: RLSK, 81.

172
poetry of Donne: VéN translated Donne, and Marvell, into French. Interview with DN, January 16, 1997. (She has this in common with Sibyl Shade, PF, 58.) The immensely astute Mary Bellino, recognizing VN's inscription in a 1937 Chatto edition, supplied the information about Christmas 1938.

173
great deal of squabbling: HS to author, January 5, 1997, April 16, 1997.

174
“Thank God”: Sergei Nabokov to HS, January 18, 1939, PC.

175
his brother's conversion: VN to his mother, June 15, 1926, VNA. For a decoding of the name, see Barabtarlo,
Aerial View
, 213–17.

176
“Why couldn't you”: Interview with Svetlana Andrault de Langeron, January 28, 1997. Similarly, Sergei Nabokov to HS, January 18, 1939, PC.

177
perfectly charming or: Interview with Moussya Gucassoff, July 29, 1996. Interview with HS, January 15, 1997.

178
“always a good dresser:” VéN to Lena Massalsky, February 10, 1959.

179
also proved unhappy: VN to Shakhovskoy, November 1938, LOC.

180
twice been interrogated: Massalsky family archives.

181
“Now I feel like going”: VéN to Shakhovskoy, November 16, 1938, LOC.

182
Could the Tolstoy: VN to Tolstoy, March 19, 1939, TF.

183
a cramped room: VéN to Berberova, March 14, 1939, Yale. Also, VN to Berberova, January 29, 1939, Hoover.

184
Bitterly he complained: VN to VéN, April 11 and April 13, 1939, VNA.

185
“No—emphatically”: VN to VéN, April 17, 1939, VNA.

186
vexed by her dark hints: He also disapproved of some of her ideas. She should not insist on planning their summer around a weekend with the Churches—Henry Church was the wealthy American-born publisher of
Mesures;
VN had described Mrs. Church as “literature-addicted”—as there were no new connections to be made there. VN to VéN, June 19, 1939, VNA.

187
“criminally absent-minded”: VN to Berberova, July 4, 1938, Hoover.

188
“yield to the male”: Trilling,
The Beginning of the Journey
, 353.

189
“our love, and everything”: VN to VéN, April 12, 1939, VNA.

190
“old and fat”: VN to VéN, April 13, 1939, VNA.

191
on Eva Luytens: VN to VéN, April 16, 1939, VNA.

192
the funeral: Sergei Nabokov managed to attend the funeral only by securing Gestapo permission.

193
“ ‘telephone' + ‘armadas' ”: VN to VéN, June 1, 1939, VNA.

194
painfully aware: VN to VéN, June 7, 1939, VNA.

195
“What do you expect”: Jannelli to VN, March 14, 1939.

196
first of several letters: Karpovich to VN, June 3, 1939.

197
lost all the charm: VéN to Topazia Markevitch, August 24, 1972, VNA.

198
They missed him: VN to Berberova, September 1939, Yale.

199
He fretted: VN to Tolstoy, November 2, 1939, TF.

200
“And, please, make it”: VN to Jannelli, September 30, 1939, Lilly.

201
affidavit for domestic: Tolstoy to American Friends Service Committee, October 23, 1939, TF.

202
most miserable: The impression was confirmed by friends. See Lucie Léon Noel, “Playback,” Alfred Appel, Jr. and Charles Newman, eds.,
Nabokov
, 214.

203
On the mobilization: Boyd interviews with VéN, December 19, 1981, June 4, 1982, Boyd archive. “the nightmarish feeling”: VN to Marinel sisters, April 26, 1942, PC.

204
offered a portrait: Boyd interview with Elisaveta Marinel Allan, March 29, 1983, Boyd archive.

205
Berberova provided: VéN emphasized later that Berberova had stopped by uninvited, as if to press the point that they had not
asked
for the chicken, VéN to Elena Levin, August 19, 1969, PC. Boyd interview with VéN, May 16, 1982, Boyd archive.

207
“We have a very hard”: Marinel sisters to the Nabokovs, March 31, 1940.

208
“Tonight my son”: Boyd interview with E. Allan, Boyd archive.

209
delivering it to the walls: VN to Karpovich, April 20, 1940, Bakhm.

210
purely “metaphysical”: VN to Tolstoy, September 28, 1939, TF.

211
Nicholas Nabokov: Tolstoy to VN, April 24, 1940, TF. Karpovich made the same suggestion, to VN, June 3, 1939, Bakhm. The anti-Semites had a field day later with VN's hesitation. See Nathalie Dombre letter, Amherst.