Vera (93 page)

26
He felt she would have denied: Interview with Boyd, November 23, 1996.

27
“was surprised by my reflection”: VéN to Boyd, March 19, 1989, VNA.

28
her eyes never left: Interview with Sophie Lannes, Lannes in
L'Express
, June 30, 1975.

29
“sharp-witted”: VéN to Sonia Slonim, January 20, 1967.

30
“again impair our personal”: Wilson to VN, March 8, 1971, NWL, 333. VN's animus toward Wilson was already quite clear to a 1969 visitor, Duffy interview. After the May 1957 visit VéN reported on the gout which had disabled Wilson, revealing no ill will. She had been surprised, however, that what Wilson felt he needed to recover was “a glass of whisky, undefiled by water” (VéN to Epstein, June 1, 1957). In his
American Scholar
piece, Meyers suggests that VéN had been offended by Wilson and had urged her husband to retaliate, a supposition for which there is no basis. See also Wilson,
Upstate
, 156–63.

31
A faculty wife: Interview with Frances Lange, September 12, 1996.

32
bellowed that: SO, 218–19.

33
“For my part”: VéN to E. Levin, July 27, 1972, PC.

34
better conveyed the torture: VéN to Goldenweiser, January 15, 1973, Bakhm., VéN to Schebeko, February 19, 1973, VéN to Elena Levin, May 9, 1973, PC.

35
“second-rate books”: Philip Oakes,
The Sunday Times
(London), June 22, 1969.

36
“the true reader's main”: TT, 75.

37
“angry panic” and “prepared”: VN diary, January 9 and 11, 1973, VNA.

38
“cretinous”: VN to Samuel Rosoff, March 23, 1973, SL, 513.

39
“You have written”: VéN to Field, March 10, 1973.

40
“She so often put”: Interview with V. Crespi, May 3, 1998.

41
“which teems with factual”: VéN to Parker, December 12, 1973. Field had his work cut out for him. For Paul, Weiss (May 25, 1973, PW) VN annotated the list of people to whom the biographer had spoken: “Dislikes me personally, I hardly know him, an enemy, knew him very little, unknown to me, knew him slightly, not sure ever met him, never met him, unknown to me, a cousin, a man of great imagination, saw me last in 1916, almost certainly a figment of AF's imagination.”

42
By page two: VéN copy of Field, 1977, VNA.

43
“This still is not the long”: VéN to Joan Daly, August 29, 1973, PW.

44
“I know that he doesn't”: VéN to DN, January 14, 1974, VNA.

45
“We can only plead”: VéN to Karlinsky, February 22, 1974, VNA.

46
“It has not been” to “of the century”: Salter,
People
, March 17, 1975. The difficulty in accepting a happy marriage at face value is not new; VN could nearly have added it to his short list of taboo topics in the afterword to LO, 314. Writing of another hugely productive couple, Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Carolyn G. Heilbrun has observed: “The marriage of a woman and man of talent must constantly be reinvented; its failure has already been predicted by conventional society, and its success is usually … disbelieved or denied.” Heilbrun,
Writing a Woman's Life
(New York: Ballantine, 1988), 81.

47
“High-born Russian ladies”: Rosalind Baker Wilson to author, September 28, 1994.

48
parted with Russian: Nadezhda Mandelstam conveyed this very message to Montreux in 1975, via the Proffers (Carl Proffer to the Nabokovs, November 12, 1975, Michigan). Solzhenitsyn too lamented VN's having abandoned Russia and her themes. E. Stein, “Reminiscences of Nabokov,”
Russkaya Mysl
, July 13, 1978, 11.

49
“Jewified”: Krivoshein to Z. Shakhovskoy, Amherst.

50
for commercial gain: Jeanne Vronskaya,
The Independent
, April 16, 1991. For a catalogue of VéN's offenses, see Shakhovskoy's addendum to “In Search of Nabokov,” Amherst.

51
“One has to know how”: VN, “The Anniversary,”
Rul
, November 18, 1927.

52
“Nabokov exhibits the most”: Joyce Carol Oates, “A Personal View of Nabokov,”
Saturday Review of the Arts
, January 1973, 37.

53
Asked if he would ever travel: Interview with Schirman, June 17, 1996.

54
“She had many” to “was Jewish”: Interview with Z. Shakhovskoy, October 25, 1995.

55
“Her blue eyes” to “his actual face”: “Pustynia,”
Novyj zhurnal
, June 1973, 27–33.

56
“like a true aristocrat”: HS to Shakhovskoy, January 7, 1979 (transcribed copy of original), Amherst.

57
“a frozen desert”:
Le Matin des Livres
, May 15, 1981.

58
“Why did you find it necessary”: Interview with HS, February 26, 1995.

59
“Sometimes when”: Roberta Smoodin,
Inventing Ivanov
(New York: Atheneum, 1985), 31.

60
“How,” she asks herself: Smoodin, 293.

61
“Without drawing a portrait”: Field, 1977, 180.

62
Pressured for a description: Interview with Fred Hills, April 7, 1995.

63
“matter-of-fact, father of muck”: LATH, 226.

64
“ultimate and immortal one”: LATH, 122.

65
“turquoise temple-vein”: LATH, 233.

66
“I read everything attentively”: LATH, 231.

67
slams the door shut: LATH, 226; SM, 295.

68
“your dear delicate hand”: LATH, 227.

69
“to present to the world”: Vronskaya,
The Independent
, April 16, 1991.

70
“dubbed jesterly”: Untitled poem, October 1, 1974, VNA.

71
“
Shade, Sybil
”: PF, 313.

72
“advises N” to “N's letters”: Boyd, 1991, 769–70.

73
“To say it plainly”: Broyard,
The New York Times
, October 10, 1974.

74
a toll on the work: The collective disappointment brings to mind Braque's dismissal of Picasso. “He used to be a great artist, but now he's only a genius.”

75
“This is the novel”: Peter Ackroyd, “Soi-disant,”
The Spectator
(London), April 19, 1975, 476.

76
“Here we are at last”: VN to VéN, April 15, 1975, SL, 546.

77
“40 years since”: VN diary, May 8, 1963, VNA.

78
great artist in nostalgia: Julian Moynahan,
Vladimir Nabokov
, Pamphlets on American Writers 96 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1971), 5.

79
“Incidentally,
Mashen'ka
”: VéN to Schirman, April 21, 1975, VNA.

80
“Though basically a law-abiding”: VéN to ML, April 15, 1975, PC.

81
“noisy construction”: VéN to Weidenfeld, June 7, 1975, VNA.

82
“Rather incredibly”: VéN to the Proffers, June 27, 1975, VNA.

83
nervous and edgy: VéN to E. Levin, April 24, 1976, PC.

84
“is a hopeless undertaking”: VéN to Daly, November 24, 1975, PW.

85
“Only because you're not”: Cited in Boyd, 1991, 658. Interview with Loo, May 9, 1998.

86
“As for me, I am just”: VéN to Nat Hoffman, February 24, 1976, VNA.

87
“I have always thought”: Schebeko to VéN, February 12, 1976, Interview with Marie Schebeko Biche, February 10, 1997.

88
“I am sorry that my son”: VéN to Hoffman, August 5, 1975, VNA.

89
she appealed to him: VéN to DN, November 16, 1975, VNA.

90
“twin soul”: Nicoletta Pallini interview with VéN and DN, “Una vita segreta,”
Gioia
, October 16, 1989. Also “Così traduco mio padre,”
Il Secolo
, October 11, 1987.

91
horrified by the results: VéN to Helen Jakovlev, June 3, 1983, VNA; interview with Nilly Sikorsky, March 4, 1995.

92
“He does not know”: VéN to Hills, McGraw-Hill, April 20, 1976, VNA.

93
shiver of sadness: Interview with Christine Semenenko, January 27, 1998.

94
“I am writing you on”: VéN to Hills, McGraw-Hill, February 5, 1977, VNA.

95
hunched and diminished: See also Buckley,
The Right Word
, 379–81.

96
The BBC dialogue: The account is Robert Robinson's, “The Last Interview,” in Quennell,
Vladimir Nabokov
, 119–20.

97
“My husband wants me to say”: VéN to Loo, McGraw-Hill, April 4, 1977, VNA.

98
full and invigorating: Ellendea Proffer to author, May 9, 1997.

99
He had screamed: VN diary entry, April 24, 1976, VNA.

100
not even begin to consider: VéN to Nicholas Nabokov, June 27, 1977, VNA.

101
“the physicians' manner”: DN, “On Revisiting Father's Room,”
The New York Times Book Review
, March 2, 1980, repr. Quennell, 136. Interview with DN, February 27, 1995.

102
A few days before the last: VéN to Carl Proffer, June 15, 1983, Michigan.

103
“S'il vous plaît, Madame
”: Interview with DN, January 1997.

104
“But please, no tears”: Interview with HS, February 26, 1995.

105
similar request: Interview with Nilly Sikorsky, March 4, 1995.

106
On the funeral: Interviews with HS; Loo; Marina Ledkovsky, May 19, 1997.

107
“Let's rent an airplane”: Interviews with DN, February 27, 1995, January 1997.

108
“I am writing to inform”: VéN to Schebeko, July 4, 1977, VNA.

109
contradicted a niece: Interview with Marina Ledkovsky, May 16, 1998.

110
something was radically wrong: Interview with HS, January 15, 1997.

111
“it is so much more grim”: VéN to Anastasia Rodzianko, July 26, 1979, VNA.

112
“It doesn't feel”: Interview with Boyd, November 23, 1996.

113
“A book lives longer”: LL, 125.

114
packed Dmitri off: VéN to Mrs. Timm, August 30, 1977, VNA.

115
“half an invalid”: VéN to E. Levin, August 7, 1979, VNA.

116
a question mark: Interview with Ivan Nabokov. VéN wrote Ivan's mother, Natalie Nabokov, that she was bent nearly in two, September 3, 1980, VNA.

117
the Bishop reunion: Interview with Alison Bishop Jolly, May 20, 1995.

118
the most beautiful woman: A. B. Jolly to DN, April 11, 1991, VNA.

119
“I have received from”: VéN to Nat Hoffman, November 23, 1978, VNA.

120
“We have been living”: VéN to Iseman, January 31, 1978, PW.

121
“She tried to catch him”: A. B. Jolly to author, July 7, 1998.

122
creative whittling: Interview with Iseman, October 3, 1995.

123
one of her favorite pastimes: VéN to Vera Peltenburg, June 5, 1978, VNA.

124
deeply touched: Interview with Matthew J. Bruccoli, April 18, 1995.

125
a note of entreaty: Interview with E. Levin, June 16, 1995.

126
“Don't forget me”: VéN to the Appels, July 3, 1980, VNA.

127
“I do hope you will visit”: VéN to Appel, October 30, 1983, VNA.

128
still insisting she lacked: VéN to Berkman, April 20, 1983.

129
neither her Russian nor her English: Boyd to author, June 14, 1997.

130
“Since they cannot talk”: VéN to Elena Jakovlev, September 1984.

131
“that nothing is impossible”: Buckley to VéN, February 17, 1980, VNA.

132
“But at least it is”: VéN to Barabtarlo, September 5, 1980, VNA.

133
“stupidly generous” and “illiteracies”: VéN to Parker, December 29, 1982, VNA.

134
“I have now decided”: VéN to the Proffers, November 29, 1982, Michigan. In some card catalogues, she appears as the author of the Russian
Pale Fire
.

135
“This is very important”: VéN to Michael Juliar, January 22, 1986, PC.

136
And when in doubt: VéN to Kathryn Medina, Doubleday, July 19, 1978, VNA.

137
“You may find”: VéN to Bruccoli, April 8, 1980, VNA.

138
A Roman author: VéN to Bruccoli, August 27, 1979, VNA.

139
“What an impressively”: Cited in Bruccoli to VéN, February 25, 1980, VNA.

140
the two essential aspects: VéN to Boyd, June 21, 1985, VNA.

141
wished he did not imitate: VéN to Carl Proffer, August 1, 1978, Michigan. The writer in question was Andrei Bitov.

142
“No one else—not students”: Boyd to VéN, July 6, 1985, VNA.

143
“I was not going”: VéN to E. Levin, December 21, 1979, VNA. See
The New York Review of Books
, July 19, 1979.

144
“1) to prove my hatred” to “representatives”: VéN to Schirman, July 20, 1979, VNA.

145
“was not so much about”: DN,
The Nabokovian
29 (Fall 1992), 15.

146
begging a mutual friend: Interview with Karlinsky, September 10, 1997.

147
rebuked one Parisian: VéN to Evgenia Cannac, February 11, 1980, VNA.

148
“I shall not love you less”: VéN to Natalie Nabokov, July 18, 1980, VNA.

149
she hid her hands: Interview with Karlinsky, May 25, 1998.

150
“I loathe organizations”: VéN to Rowohlt, December 5, 1980, VNA.

151
“between her physical”: Robin Kemball to author, March 6, 1997.

152
“stood for a long time”: GIFT, 205.