by Stacy Schiff
130 The MCZ: Charles Klaus to author, March 7, 1996. Interview with Charles Remington, July 10, 1996.
131 “I love to play”: VN to his mother, April 29, 1921, VNA. This took some doing at the MCZ, which was filled with colorful characters. For Hessen VN described the eleven A.M. scene at the museum, where four scholars gathered on the steps for a cigarette, “a paleontologist, the curator of mollusks, the curator of reptiles, and Dr. [sic] Nabokov, all old men, except the doctor.” VN to Hessen, March 30, 1943, PC.
132 “An eccentric”: SO, 132.
133 hallway greetings: Interview with Kenneth Christiansen, August 11, 1996.
134 “Is this really”: Interview with Phyllis Smith Christiansen, August 10, 1996.
135 “not quite normal”: VN to Hessen, December 1942, PC.
136 glacial charms: Interview with Laughlin, July 27, 1995; interview with E. Levin, November 10, 1997.
137 edge of a cliff: Interview with Laughlin. See also “Ezra Pound Said Be a Publisher,” The New York Times Book Review, August 23, 1981, 13.
138 systematically defeating: VN to Hessen, July 1943, PC.
139 The John Downey encounters: Interview with John Downey, November 11, 1997.
140 “he really let himself”: GOGOL, 140.
141 “knowing that if I did”: Gerald Clarke, Esquire, July 1975, 69.
142 “Véra has had a serious”: VN to Wilson, January 3, 1944, NWL, 121.
143 “I, or rather Vera”: VN to Wilson, January 7, 1944, NWL, 123.
144 “acclimated”: VN to Jan Priel, March 17, 1946.
145 “I am devoting”: VN to Wilson, May 8, 1944, NWL, 134–35. Also VN to Grynberg, May 8, 1944, Bakhm.
146 “It’s Sunday today”: VN to Hessen, May 8, 1944, PC.
147 “I have long since”: VN to Hessen, December 10, 1943, PC.
148 less willing victims: Interview with Margaret Stephens Humpstone.
149 portion of his tuition: VéN to Goldenweiser, July 1, 1958, Bakhm; to Barbetti, January 28, 1946.
150 returned from leave: Affidavit for Goldenweiser, Bakhm.
151 “was incompatible”: VéN to HS, December 17, 1945, PC. She received some compensation from the Department of Foreign Languages in 1947 as well.
152 Harvard library position: VéN to HS, April 6, 1947, PC.
153 promising to write: See J. D. O’Hara, “Fondling the Details,” The Nation, November 8, 1980. O’Hara to VéN, February 9, 1980, VNA.
155 Sparing her husband: Boyd interview with VéN, February 25, 1982, Boyd archive.
156 Together the two: VN to Wilson, January 25, 1947, NWL, 182.
157 “Volodia, would it be”: Cited in Boyd, 1991, 109.
158 “A little tartly”: Interview with J. D. O’Hara, September 11, 1996.
159 “My husband wishes”: VéN to Mavis McIntosh, October 27, 1947.
160 remembered him fulminating: Interview with C. C. Sprague, May 20, 1997.
161 allegedly on the grounds: See Parry, The Texas Quarterly, Spring 1971.
162 Vladimir’s ill humor: Interview with Kay Rice, August 13, 1996.
163 “I think he would have”: VéN to Miss Henneberger, February 5, 1944.
164 Rumor around the VOA: Interview with Helen Yakobson, November 29, 1996.
165 “Since you are asking”: VN to Vaudrin, November 6, 1947, VNA.
166 love to “Sonya”: Wilson to VN, October 26, 1944, Yale.
167 “Tell it to Véra”: Boyd interview with Sylvia Berkman, April 9, 1983, Boyd archive.
168 “Véra sends you”: VN to the Hessens, May 1944, PC.
169 “My husband has turned”: VéN to Emily Morison, Knopf, February 12, 1945, HR.
170 Vladimir accidentally: VéN to Max Pfeffer, March 20, 1947, VNA.
171 “Véra is wonderful”: Wilson to Elena Thornton, October 4, 1946, Yale. Lewis Dabney unearthed this letter.
172 Anglicisms were creeping: VéN to Barbetti, May 13, 1947.
173 crowded faculty party: James McConkey to author, August 12, 1996.
174 similar tastes from the beginning: Boyd to author, December 14, 1997.
175 “Now why did I marry”: Rolf to Tenggren, c. January 21, 1961, PC.
176 “Good Heavens”: Interview with DN, November 12, 1997.
177 psoriasis on his elbow: VN to Hessen, October 10, 1944, PC.
178 she would forgive him: Wilson to VN, January 25, 1947, Yale.
179 what Stalin thought: See Wellesley Magazine, February 1948, 179–80. For a portrait of VN at Wellesley, see also Barbara Breasted and Noëlle Jordan, “Vladimir Nabokov at Wellesley,” Wellesley Magazine, Summer 1971, 22–26.
180 fought like cocks: VN to Hessen, October 10, 1944, PC.
181 Nabokov divided the Russian: VN to Vladimir Zenzinov, March 17, 1945, Bakhm.
182 difficult even for Wilson: See Jeffrey Meyers, “The Bulldog and the Butterfly,” The American Scholar, Summer 1994, 379–402.
183 “When I have to choose”: VN to Rev. Gardiner Day, December 21, 1945.
184 “even more catastrophic”: VN to Marinels, May 22, 1946, SL, 68.
185 hate for the Germans: VN to HS, October 25, 1945, PC.
186 “I don’t understand”: VéN to Barbetti, January 1, 1947.
187 “knowing the Germans”: VéN to Col. Joseph I. Greene, January 14, 1948, SL, 80.
188 call a duel: Boyd interview with E. Allan, March 29, 1983, Boyd archive.
189 charges of racism: VN to Aldanov, January 21, 1942, Bakhm. In 1953, he refused even to review her biography of her father. VN to The Yale Review, September 22, 1953, VNA.
190 The accommodations: VN to Phyllis Smith Christiansen, July 18, 1946.
191 “And what would happen”: VN to Hessen, n.d. In VN’s letter to Wilson of July 18, 1946, NWL, 170, the “nervous exhaustion” became “practically a ‘nervous breakdown.’ ” For a later, enhanced version of what was presumably the same New Hampshire episode, see ANL, 436.
192 “We had a few”: VéN to Field, September 20, 1968.
193 work precluded any: VéN to Barbetti, January 1, 1947.
194 “She treated him like”: Verna Irwin Marceau to author, December 7, 1995. Interview of May 1, 1996.
195 FBI investigation: FBI file number 121–10141, report of June 26, 1948.
196 “Véra and I watch”: VN to HS, November 26, 1945, SL, 58.
197 “She had so”: Boyd interview with Berkman, April 9, 1983, Boyd archive.
198 Isabel Stephens assumed: Interviews with M. S. Humpstone, August 20, 1996, Dave Stephens, August 19, 1996.
199 “She was much too busy”: Interview with E. Levin, June 6, 1995.
200 “slice, chop, twist”: VN to Laughlin, August 8, 1942, SL, 42.
201 “intervestibular connecting”: SM, 144. The word for which he was searching was “diaphragm,” according to Sue Pasccucci, New York Transit Museum.
202 “I hope this helps”: VéN to Charles B. Timmer, December 20, 1949.
203 she was disappointed: VéN to Barbetti, January 1, 1947.
204 strongly recommended: VéN to Barbetti, May 13, 1947.
205 Evelyn Waugh: VéN to Barbetti, January 1, 1947.
206 “She won’t let her”: Wilson to Elena Thornton, October 4, 1946, Yale.
207 to inhale his scent, and “We shall fight”: VN to Hessen, July 17, 1945, PC.
208 felt wretched: VN to Zenzinov, June 17, 1945, Bakhm.
209 “Nothing like it”: VN to Wilson, June 17, 1945, NWL, 154.
210 torment her: VN to Wilson, June 9, 1944, Yale.
211 “In fact he does not”: VéN to Betty Cage, View, March 24, 1946, Ford papers, Yale.
212 “I am afraid” and “He also thinks”: VéN to Edith E. Dana, March 19, 1947.
213 “Incidentally I vomited”: VN to Wilson, June 9, 1944, Yale.
214 “devices of shadography”: BEND, 120. Gradus proves by contrast an uncertain “shadowgrapher,” PF, 180. Lolita makes “shadowgraphs” at camp, LO, 11
4. In the 1970s VN warned an interviewer that he could expect little from their talk but a “shadowgraph,” SL, 551.
216 grew taller: VéN to HS, April 6, 1947, PC.
217 “Volodya is always”: VéN to the Hessens, December 29, 1945, PC.
218 “shrunken dwarf apartment”: VN to Grynberg, September 1, 1948, Bakhm.
219 “At least I know”: Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (New York: Signet, 1960), 47.
220 “literally born again”: Amy Kelly to the Nabokovs, October 30, 1945.
221 “generally inspirational”: Karpovich to Ernest J. Simmons, April 20, 1942, Bakhm.
222 “I spent most of”: Interview with Harriet Dorothy Rothschild, March 11, 1997.
223 “I know I always”: Interview with Jocelyn Rogers Jerry, July 1997.
224 “We were all”: Interview with Jean H. Proctor, August 8, 1997.
225 being taken care of: Interview with Rosemary Farkas Meyerson. Also H. D. Rothschild.
226 “they noticed a face”: Wellesley College News, October 17, 1946.
227 “He was the only man”: Interview with Mary Pryor Black Lindley, February 1997. For a colorful account of VN at Wellesley, see Naomi B. Pascal, “A Reminiscence of Nabokov at Wellesley,” The Nabokovian, Fall 1995, 7–10.
228 Could he trouble: Interview with Jane Sharp, March 1997.
229 Merrily he informed: Interview with Jeannie Rudolph Pechin, July 20, 1997.
230 the butterfly visit: Interview with Jane E. Curtis, March 7, 1997.
231 Few of the girls: Pechin, Betty Comtois. Also Caroline C. Hendrickson, interview of July 10, 1996, Ruth D. Stoddard, August 13, 1997, Jane E. Curtis.
232 watched him adoringly: Interview with Marian McC. Kuhns, April 8, 1997. Also Sharp, Pechin.
233 best-looking girls: Interviews with Kitty Helm Hartnett, Alma Weisburg, Rothschild, Comtois. “He always needed to have his harem around,” quipped one.
234 “Ah, Miss Rogers”: Interview with Jocelyn Rogers Jerry, July 1997. The ring was filched for Betty Bliss, Pnin, 152.
235 “He definitely flirted”: Interview with Rothschild. Similarly, Comtois, Pologe, Weisberg, interview with Nancy Ignatius, July 7, 1997.
237 “Do you have any idea”: Wellesley alumna to author, November 13, 1995.
238 “I took a course”: Interviews with Katherine Reese Peebles, December 6, 1996, February 7, 1997. See her fine portrait of the professor in We, December 1943, 5. Interview with Priscilla Rasmussen, February 10, 1997.
240 “He did like young”: Interview with Peebles, February 7, 1997.
241 “I was a perceptive”: Interview with Peebles, November 12, 1997.
242 “avid eavesdropping”: Dr. Glen Holland, cited in Polly Kemp, “It Is Lolita Who Is Famous, Not I,” Stanford Magazine, September 1992, 52.
244 “Then can you read”: Interview with Peebles, December 6, 1996.
245 apparent helplessness: Interview with Grace Pologe, February 26, 1997. Similarly, interview with Aileen Ward, November 1, 1995.
246 “Do you realize”: Interview with Nancy W. Ignatius.
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.
5 NABOKOV 101
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.
