by Stacy Schiff
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.
212 200-franc bribe: She was certain she would be arrested for the offer, Boyd interviews with VéN, December 19, 1981, June 4, 1982, Boyd archive.
213 “I have sound reasons”: VN to Tolstoy, December 6, 1939, TF.
214 “to stutter his astonishment”: SM, 258.
215 application for immigration: U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration & Naturalization Service, No. 707. Special thanks to Brian Gross.
216 “slithering down”: Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind, 1929–1939 (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976), 337.
217 first-class cabin: VéN to Goldenweiser, December 28, 1957, Bakhm. Much of the account of the departure is drawn from the Goldenweiser files, those of the TF, and the Marinel correspondence, thanks to Michaël Juliar.
218 “but you, Véra”: E. Marinel to VéN, May 31, 1940.
219 visibly pulsing: Isherwood, Christopher, 338.
220 The trunk: Interview with DN, October 24, 1996.
221 looked miserably lost: VN to Robert Hughes, interview text, 10.
222 honest driver: VéN read Field’s 1986 account, 203, without disputing it. If he was not the one to fumble, VN nonetheless appropriated the misstep, Harvey Breit, The New York Times Book Review, February 18, 1951. On his visa application he stated that he had savings of $600, but there is every reason in the world to believe he inflated the number.
223 “out of the cell”: IB, 211.
224 a refugee: Mary McCarthy parsed these meanings beautifully in The New York Review of Books, March 9, 1972, 4: “If a group of Greek writers draws up a manifesto, they are writers-in-exile, but if we are trying to raise money to help them, they are refugees.”
4 THE PERSON IN QUESTION
1 “I speak fluently”: VéN curriculum vitae, July 23, 1939, TF. The TF materials prove the most complete of documentation for the first American year. As background, Anthony Heilbut, Exiled in Paradise (New York: Viking, 1983).
2 “I find it difficult”: VéN diary, VNA.
3 when he first invited her: VN to VéN, December 3, 1923, VNA.
4 “the panic-stricken”: VN to Marinels, August 25, 1940, SL, 33.
5 “A miracle has occurred”: VN to Rostovzeff, summer 1940, Duke University.
6 Natalie Nabokov: Interview with Ivan Nabokov, October 24, 1995.
7 Vladimir concluded: VN to Karpovich, summer 1940, Bakhm.
8 a Russian friend: Goldenweiser to Mikhail Kantor, August 14, 1940, Bakhm.
9 “genteel book” to “satisfy her”: VN to Marinels, August 25, 1940, SL, 34.
10 “so that his wife”: Jannelli to Bobbs-Merrill, October 1, 1940, Lilly.
11 a perfect nuisance: VN to Karpovich, October 7, 1940, Bakhm.
12 “a ram-chakal farmhouse”: VN to Edmund Wilson, June 16, 1942, NWL, 66.
13 the Karpovich estate: Interviews with Serge Karpovich, April 4, 1996, Mary Struve, August 11, 1995; Elena Levin, June 6, 1995. See also Yakobson, 127–28.
14 “with a certain horror”: VN to Tolstoy, July 29, 1940, TF.
15 “Vladimir Vladimirovich”: Interview with Serge Karpovich, April 4, 1996. “would be glad to take”: VN to Tolstoy, August 12, 1940, TF.
16 On Wreden: Interview with Peter Wreden, September 29, 1997.
17 “One of the few things”: VN to Karpovich, September 15, 1940, Bakhm.
18 “a dreadful little flat”: VéN diary, VNA.
19 “promoted”: VéN diary, VNA.
20 “brilliantly debunk”: VN to Karpovich, November 11, 1940, Bakhm.
21 “Dear Mr. Wilson”: VN to Wilson, October 7, 1940, Yale.
22 Mozart and Salieri: Wilson to VN, December 27, 1940. The translation appeared in the April 21, 1941, issue. On the two scholars, see as well Gleb Struve in the Times Literary Supplement, May 2, 1980, 509–10.
23 “a man named Ross”: Wilson’s plea on his friend’s behalf is reproduced in Wilson, Letters on Literature and Politics, 409.
24 Free French newspaper: VéN to Goldenweiser, July 1, 1958, Bakhm.
25 wore better than he
r gaunt: Ellendea Proffer, Vladimir Nabokov, v-vi.
26 “We are going to put”: VN to VéN, March 20, 1940, VNA. The line is in English.
27 In the eyes: Interview with Margaret Stephens Humpstone, August 20, 1996.
28 Statue of Liberty: Interview with DN, November 22, 1996.
29 “American” in which he was: VN to Hessen, May 25, 1941, PC.
30 bundled in fur: Interview with Constance Darkey, October 16, 1997.
31 indelible impression: Interview with Janet Lewis (Mrs. Yvor Winters), November 6, 1997.
32 “Stranger always”: LL, 372.
33 “On walks through”: VéN pages on DN childhood.
34 retired blazer: Interview with Elena Levin, June 6, 1995. Elena Levin was eleven years VéN’s junior, and already much in awe of VN’s work.
35 “play the real American”: VN to George Hessen, May 25, 1941, PC.
36 “rapid acculturation”: Nathans, “Beyond the Pale,” 91.
37 “pathetic attempt of a very small”: VéN pages on DN’s childhood. “Everything looked elegant”: Interview with E. Levin, November 9, 1997.
38 “He just had to walk”: Cited in Boyd, 1991, 26.
39 crippling case of sciatica: VN to Hessen, May 25, 1941, PC.
40 “I’ll be so bold” and filling the blackboard: VN to VéN, March 25, 1941, VNA.
41 She failed to place: VéN to VN, March 17, 1941, VNA.
42 took care to specify: VN to VéN, March 31, 1941, VNA.
43 “It’s true, it is”: VN to VéN, March 28, 1941, VNA. His impracticality took other forms; earlier in the month he had written so stridently political a book review for The New Republic that the magazine had had no choice but to reject it.
44 she had not recovered: VN to Hessen, May 25, 1941, PC.
45 “an interdepartmental visitor”: Mildred H. McAfee to VN, June 30, 1941.
46 “Yes, Russia is en vogue”: VéN to Goldenweiser, May 27, 1942, Bakhm.
47 “Funny—to know Russian”: VN to Wilson, June 16, 1942, NWL, 66.
48 “illness which resulted”: VéN to Goldenweiser, July 1, 1958, Bakhm. She was filing her reparations claim, but even there steered well clear of exaggeration.
50 south rim of the Grand: Field, 1977, 238.
51 “that right beside”: Boyd, 1991, 29. For “A Discovery,” See POEMS AND PROBLEMS, 155.
52 “I’ve had wonderful” to “into the air”: Field, 1977, 179.
53 “I am not a trained”: VéN to Stephen Jan Parker, October 15, 1984, VNA.
54 “I bungled my family’s”: SO, 315.
55 “a cultured country”: VN to Hessen, May 25, 1941, PC.
56 “Because you have” to “Holmes?”: Nikolai All., Novoe Russkoye Slovo, June 23, 1940.
57 “I don’t have” to “by the road”: VéN pages on DN’s childhood.
58 “It was a real drifter’s”: Interview with DN, November 10, 1997.
59 “On a slope near Togwotee”: SO, 325.
60 “I also caught a white female”: VéN to Epsteins, January 19, 1953.
61 On Stanford: See Polly Kemp, Stanford Magazine, September 1992. I am grateful to Polly Kemp for her assistance, as well as to the magazine.
62 “My husband is working”: VéN to Goldenweiser, August 26, 1941, Bakhm.
63 “The existing translation is vileness”: VN to Karpovich, 1941, Bakhm.
64 the Stanford routine: I have drawn here on Glen Holland’s letter of October 9, 1992, to Stanford Magazine. The samovar was Holland’s recollection.
65 “very ‘formal’ ”: VéN diary.
66 “He kept score”: VN to Hessen, n.d., PC.
67 forfeited his own summer salary: Interview with Janet Lewis, October 21, 1997.
68 “I wonder where”: Field, 1986, 210, VéN copy, VNA.
69 “Nabokov lost as many”: Cyril Bryner to Polly Kemp, September 23, 1992. Interview with Bryner, August 21, 1997.
70 their chagrin at having had: VN to the Marinels, January 26, 1941, SL, 35–36; VéN to Choura Barbetti, October 23, 1945; VN to Karpovich, summer 1940, Bakhm. The “Neanderthal hardships” figures in the first, SL, 36.
71 barely detach himself: VN to Wilson, July 18, 1941, NWL, 46.
72 “Despite this, we’re very”: VéN to Goldenweiser, July 26, 1941, Bakhm.
73 “interesting in a Walt”: The New York Times Book Review, January 11, 1942, 14.
74 openly admitted: In the Wellesley College News, April 26, 1945. And SL, 42.
75 And still not on a par: VN to James Laughlin, August 8, 1942, SL, 42.
76 “I don’t know what language”: Vita Sackville-West to Nigel Nicolson, cited in Nigel Nicolson, ed., The Later Years, 1945–62 (New York: Atheneum, 1968), 357.
77 “a delight to read”: The New Republic, January 26, 1942.
78 “a dewy multitude”: VN to Wilson, August 1944, NWL, 139.
79 “a very long and very badly”: Katharine White to E. B. White, April 28, 1945, Cornell. White felt Nabokov was still very much learning to compose in English (note to file, BMC) and urged him to tone down his impressive vocabulary. “Mr. Ross says that he would feel self-conscious and embarrassed to use all of your big words,” she wrote. White to VN, March 1, 1949. See also Linda H. Davis, Onward and Upward, 146–51.
80 professed great sympathy: Boyd interview with VéN, January 13, 1980, Boyd archive.
81 Harold Ross swore: Ross to Katharine White, BMC, undated. In a note on Ross’s memo, White allowed that Wilson had been the one to suggest that his friend VN had learned his English from the unabridged OED.
82 “splendid solitude” and “At night I have”: VN to Aldanov, October 20, 1941, Bakhm.
83 “I am not a good cook”: VéN to Judith Matlack, October 29, 1951. She used the word “heroism.”
84 general feeling: Katharine White to VN, March 1, 1949, BMC.
85 direct from Webster’s: John G. Hayman, Twentieth Century, December 1959, 444–50.
86 scrambled eggs: Interview with Alfred Appel, June 2, 1995.
87 “All of my time”: VéN to HS, December 17, 1945, and “As a housekeeper,” VéN to HS, January 21, 1946, PC.
88 “Why is no one taking you”: Interview with DN, October 25, 1997. Dmitri felt his mother was a little sad not to have known of the holiday.
89 series of letters: VN to Rostovzeff, December 16, 1941. On the same day he wrote Boris Stanfield regarding a position at Columbia University; Stanfield later grumbled to VéN that he felt it necessary to refresh her husband’s “phenomenal memory,” June 14, 1969.
90 “Marketing, washing, ironing”: Stephens file, WCA.
91 commanding a squadron: VN to Aldanov, May 20, 1942, Bakhm.
92 prospect of being drafted: VN to Marinels, April 26, 1942, Juliar collection.
93 “To talk with him”: VéN to HS, August 20, 1958, PC.
94 “We’re hoping that he’ll”: VéN to Goldenweiser, July 9, 1942, Bakhm.
95 “Why is it so difficult”: GLORY, 185.
96 dollop of refugee: As she explained to the couple’s lawyers decades later: “No one can predict the rate at which the inflation will progress. But we are conditioned by personal experience to fear it very much. I remember days when an hotel bill presented in the morning was no longer valid in the afternoon because the price of money had decreased so much in the intervening hours.” VéN to Joan Daly, February 22, 1971, PW.
97 “Véra Evseevna, you will”: Maria Marinel to VéN, October 5, 1940.
98 “depressed that everyone”: DEFENSE, 195.
99 “As before, we have no”: VéN to Goldenweiser, May 27, 1942, Bakhm.
100 “Vinteuil is accepted”: LL, 231.
101 “the insufficiency”: ADA, 579.
102 “the boomerang variety”: VN to Wilson, June 16, 1942, NWL, 66.
103 “Try to be cheerful”: VN to VéN, November 10, 1942, VNA.
104 “little economic wailings”: VN to VéN, October 13, 1942, VNA.
105 enjoyed less: VéN diary, VNA.
106 “was so kind”: VN to Wilson, June 16, 1942, NWL, 66.
107 under strict instructions: VN to VéN, August 3, 1942, VNA.
108 On the furniture: Boyd interview with Mary McCarthy, January 12, 1985, Boyd archive.
109 cramped headquarters: VN to John Finley, August 29, 1951. In BEND it is a “dingy little flat,” xi.
110 strewn with index: Interview with Phyllis Christiansen, August 10, 1996.
111 Isabel Stephens: Stephens interview, WCA.
112 “Now this gigantic”: VN to Hessen, December 1942, PC.
113 “Good Girl”: VN to VéN, October 20, 1942, VNA.
114 “dilly-dallying”: VN to Griselda Ohannessian, New Directions, January 29, 1942.
115 “not the best-looking”: VN to VéN, October 5, 1942, VNA.
116 “expecting a gentleman”: VN to VéN, October 5, 1942.
117 “Then again, only humans”: ENCHANTER, 11.
118 would have disappeared: VN to Hessen, December 1942, PC. VN to Aldanov, December 8, 1942, Bakhm.
119 “She still cannot manage”: VN to Laughlin, January 12, 1943.
120 “It is a very pleasant”: VN to Laughlin, April 9, 1942, SL, 40.
121 “presided as adviser”: SO, 105.
122 ind every one: Karpovich to VN, October 18, 1943, Bakhm.
123 overindulged in puns: VN to Roman Grynberg, October 10, 1944, Bakhm.
124 his own reflection: He had done so before and would be accused of doing so again, taken to task for “simply telling a tale of Nabokov in the mirror of Gogol.” Marc Slonim, Novoe Russkoye Slovo, November 12, 1944.
125 “Gogol was a strange”: GOGOL, 140.
126 “Artists are unusual”: VéN to Lisbet Thompson, October 29, 1964.
127 “I invent my own”: VN to Hessen, March 7, 1943, PC.
128 “as if it’s not myself”: VN to Hessen, December 1942, PC. See also The Last Word (Wellesley College), April 19, 1943, 19–21.
129 “Wars pass”: VN to Wilson, December 13, 1943, Yale. Discussing Hitler’s designs on Russia, he enlightened a Stanford Daily reporter (July 1, 1941): “Of course I’m not much interested in politics.”
