Letters to Véra
Page 48
Hello, my darling,
yesterday was a very hard day, but I had had a great sleep (the hotel turned out to be very pleasant and quiet, with a predominance of ‘p e r m a n e n t’ little old ladies) and I had fun in my talks. At 10 a.m. I spoke for a whole hour about Tolstoy, then I had an hour free before lunch, I took your advice and retired to an empty room – where with a shy smile the professor in whose class I had just spoken brought me to read his typewritten memoirs. I had lunch with an old lady writer and a young author (who had written a novel apiece about frontier life in the beginning of the last century – ‘from here you see’) and I spoke in their combined class at 1 p.m. The class seemed bright to me, and I treated them to Art & Commonsense – and I think they understood more than their mentors. Meanwhile I was constantly in lively contact with Elmer, an agreeable sort and very circumstantial, passionate partaker in all kinds of conventions – you know what I mean; however not stupid (although he replies to everything with unnecessary details) and with humour. He found time to take me to see the university press, and then we rode around the campus. Everything is lilac and blooming Judas trees, and as the campus is on a hill, the impression is rather Ithacan – steep streets and awful difficulties with parking. I changed for tea, and by four was reading my English poems to a small but thoughtful group. As always, an unavoidable Pevzner couple, from Mogilyov, appeared, speaking Russian with sad tenderness, through a mist. The reading took place in a wonderful, elegant hall – in general, the beauties and comforts of the campus immeasurably surpass our poor Cornell. Around six I made it to the home of a young German couple, the Winters, where I had dinner: he’d been a translator in the German army and had reached Gatchina. Another supervisor of Russian classes, the very nice Andersen (former student of Cross), with two dachshunds, after dinner gathered a Russian group at his place, and I read my translations to them and showed how Herman[n] won, as well as how he pulled out the wrong card, because their mentors could not explain that (I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings). Got home around 10 p.m., and fell asleep almost immediately – and again had a great sleep. Today entomology, and in the evening my Gogol talk. Adore you both, hug you both.
V.
1964
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[ANS, 1 PP.]
[3 May 1964]
TO: Clinique Beaulieu, 22 ave. Beau-Séjour, Genève
[Montreux]
3rd May
1964
My love,
I wanted to send you orchids, but there weren’t any.
I will come around noon.
A cheerful Mityusha phoned on Friday night. Hugs and hugs and hugs. My love.
V.
1965
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[ANS, 1 P.]
[15 April 1965]
for Véra
40 flowers = years
V.
1966
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[ALS 1 P.]
[2 October 1966]
TO: c/o Feigin, 250 West 104th St., New York City
[Montreux]
2–X–66
12:50 PM
My darling,
I got your telegram today, and yesterday, a charming postcard from Mityusha: he had an interview and a photograph in the local, Tulsa, newspaper. I also received from Minton adorable end-papers with a butterfly (surprisingly well hatched) on one side and a map of the Nabokovs’ lands on the other: ask him for it, if you have a chance. No other interesting mail – except for the Grove edition of Miller’s ‘Tropic of Cancer’ – the hilarious scheme of one Egorov, a Russian translator. I am writing awfully fast because I have just realized that if I do not send it off now (i.e. before Elena’s and my journey for slippers on the 1.30 train to Lausanne), you won’t get this letter. She is upset by Vladimír’s affairs and slept poorly because they had put a board under her (they have taken it out today). She is now making an omelette for me, the weather’s wonderful, I miss you unbearably.
V.
I don’t know how to fold this thing ...
1968
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[AN, 1 P.]
[8 June 1968]
Tomorrow morning
Please
write a confirmation to Park Hotel and ask for theirs
==
I will post it in the village
1969
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[ANS, 1 P.]
[15 April 1969]
[Montreux]
Cymbidium lowianum
for Vérochka
from VN, Ada & Lucette
(and Dmitri)
15–IV–1969
[ANS, 1 P.]
[4 July 1969]
[Cureglia, Ticino, Switzerland]
4-VII-1969
How charming to hear your pure little voice in the garden from my balcony. Such sweet notes, such a tender rhythm!
cordially yours,
VN
[ANS, 1 P. ]
[22 July 1969]
[Cureglia, Ticino, Switzerland]
To Vérochka
How I loved the poems of Gumilyov!
Reread them I cannot,
But traces have stayed in my mind,
Such as, on this think-through:
‘… And I will die not in a summerhouse,
From gluttony and heat,
But with a heavenly butterfly in my net
On the summit of some wild hill.’
V. Nabokov
2. VII. 69
Cureglia (Lugano)
1970
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[ALS 2 PP.]
[6 April 1970]
TO: Montreux Palace Hotel, Montreux
SAN DOMENICO PALACE HOTEL
room 220
6–IV–1970
Taormina
Hello, my angel,
As I already reported to you and Mityusha da Monza on the phone yesterday, the overnight trip was fine and sleepless, in the same kind of uninteresting wagon-lit as the Montrome one. I told them to turn off completely the infernal heating in my compartment after which it gradually became horribly cold. In the middle of the night I called for wine, and the conductor brought me a half-bottle of half-good Ruffino. An emphatically old auto-charabanc from the hotel was waiting for me. The hotel is charming, i.e., rather, its charm very quickly grows through the fashionable shortcomings. The bed is marvellously soft, but the real masterpiece is a simply melting deep chair in golden silks. Your cell adjoins mine, slightly bigger. I suggest we agree on an apartment with a sitting-room.
A gift – half-a-dozen large oranges – in a fancy basket was waiting for me along with the most delicious business card of the director, Freddie Martini. I coughed up the last clot of Rome’s black phlegm and immediately went for a four-hour walk. A chilly wind was blowing, but it was sunny and there were lots of butterflies flying. The little local Euchloe ausonia was skimming over the orange carpet of little wild chrysanthemums. Had dinner in an aura of embryonic friendship with the mercantile maître d’hôtel and went to bed at nine. I was woken around three by a very hungry, very lonely, very professional mosquito, which deftly disappeared into the white height of the walls, out of which one could cut two or three more such cells. The shutters opened more pliably than they were supposed to. I made it to the first performance of the apricot-and-blue dawn. Can see the sea and (from the little balcony) Etna, on which there is both snow and the familiar cloud-cap, don’t forget to ask for a second blanket, while the Cyprian’s silvery star shimmers in the pale azure, Russian prose-writers always loved to describe the beauties of the south. A great chirping in the picture-postcard garden; bring me without fail the book of European birds, it’s next to the West-Americans on my ‘kitchen’ shelves, a little to the right and lowish.
Now I will shave and bathe, and at seven – they don’t serve earlier – will phone for café complet to be sent up, after which I’ll head for the hills beyond the city, not hills, not hills – slopes overgrown with
olives between two villages. I miss you very much, my precious creature.
V.
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[ALS 2 PP.]
[7 April 1970]
TO: Palace Hotel, Montreux
[Taormina, Italy]
SAN DOMENICO PALACE HOTEL
11 a.m.
Tuesday
7th Apr.
My love,
Yesterday it was cloudless and, in spite of the air’s icy background, a lot of butterflies were flying in gullies and olive groves screened from the wind. I pottered about from eight in the morning till after noon trying to catch various quicker-flyers, and have already got some interesting stuff. I had a sandwich at a chance café. For two hours, I sat in the sun in our paradisiacal hotel garden, and then went out to buy little things, and on this occasion, I want to ask you, my darling, to:
¶ Bring me 1) three or four lavender sachets, the pharmacist knows what kind, with a picture of a lady on the sachet. They were foisting on me alternately either an insect repellent powder or an aromatic potion for the W. C. (a fool who understood English misunderstood my American for the closet); and 2) without fail at least one tube of Mennen Brushless Shaving Cream. Here one cannot get anything brushless except for the rather frightful Noxzema, made in Italy, judging by the literature on the tube: Apply while your whiskers are warm and wet. Keep out of reach of children. (Otherwise you will get what happened to Humbert). ¶
This morning, the Saturday issue of Her. Trib. triumphantly arrived (I read it in Rome), and it’s raining. There’s no wind, and the air seems to be a bit warmer, but disgustingly overcast, and I won’t get out for a walk before lunch. I will try to locate our little restaurant, I couldn’t find it yesterday – although I recalled a multitude of little details of the ‘patterns of the past’, as if it was very recent, and not ten years ago.
¶ Many, too many plump Germans. ¶
This is my second letter to you, you’ll get the first one on Wednesday the 8th, the local optimists say, and this one on Thursday the 9th. Have you already booked your ticket for Tuesday the 14th [?].
I adore and embrace you.
V
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[ALS 2 PP.]
[8 April 1970]
TO: Palace Hotel, Montreux
[Taormina, Italy]
SAN DOMENICO PALACE HOTEL
8–IV–70
Wednesday
7 AM
My a n g e l o,
I’ve finally found our restaurant, it is called Chez Angelo, and indeed, it is very pleasant. Yesterday morning (as you know from our pedant’s Tuesday letter) was dolefully overcast, but suddenly the charming miracle from S. in Fialta occurred. I was between cannellini and coffee when I suddenly noticed a dimple of sunshine on the cheek of the day and, having cancelled coffee (but after finishing my beautiful red corvo), in three minutes I was at the foot of the Hotel Excelsior and caught one of the most delectable local enchantresses (je m’excuse de ces mots un peu forts), namely, the Thais Zerynthia hypsipyle cassandra. I am absolutely in love with Taormina and have almost bought a villa here (8 rooms, 3 bathrooms, 20 olive trees).
¶ A family of Americans at Angelo’s; the mother calls the waiter: ‘Où je peux laver le petit garçon?’ (little boy wants to go to the bathroom). An ancient old lady (rather for advertising purposes, it seems) brought over a basket of fresh eggs from her village. ¶
For some reason all Italian waiters who speak English pronounce ‘vegetables’ as if it rhymed with ‘tables’. I went to bed at 8.30, took phanodorm, and slept from nine to six with one short break. For that reason, tell – or better not tell – Janits that the fresh little ‘dacron-marquisette’ used for sewing the net is now coloured – oh, not by the virgin blood of a young butterfly, but by my old man’s blood, which was being sucked by a mosquitess who perished last night. I won’t write on this foolishly thin paper again, it all shines through.
It’s rained again since morning, like yesterday, layers of heavy clouds, the horizon in fog, the sea malachite at the shore, with capes of foam, palm-trees and araucarias stirring as they do in Galina Kuznetsova’s diary. It was only 50°F in Milano, so I think your fur-coat has come in handy. I miss you awfully, my beloved! My 220 and your 221 are the last on one side of an enormous wide hallway or rather a prospect, with the doors facing each other. The door right opposite yours is a funny trompe l’oeil: it’s fake, painted on, and from behind it a rather cheerful monk is sticking out his white-bearded head.
I will now shave and take a bath and then wait for the weather. I think it won’t clear up before lunch. Lots and lots of kisses. I am waiting for a telephone call from you or a little note.
V.
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[ALS, 2 PP]
[8–9 April 1970]
TO: Montreux Palace Hotel, Montreux
[Taormina, Italy]
SAN DOMENICO PALACE HOTEL
Wednesday 8–IV–70
6:00 PM
and Thursday 9–IV–70
6:00 AM
My love,
Today nevertheless the sun looked out, but not for long, and I collected for no more than about two hours in the valley behind the town, from eleven to one, then had a goat cheese sandwich and drank a glass of wine to your precious health. Be careful not to get sick! Je tiens tremendously that you’re with me on the 15th.
I fell asleep rather stupidly in the afternoon, although I had slept marvellously at night, and at four went out for a haircut and to buy oranges, magazines, insoles for mountain boots: I am two steps away from remarkable places in the eastern spur of the Nebrodi Mountains where it would be a shame for us not to wander; we should, however, wait till the disgusting sirocco stops blowing, it tortures Taormina for three days running every spring (an old-timer tells me). I bought more oranges, I’m eating three a day, and walked into a very attractive bookshop. Apparently I had already been there, with my tail spread right out, ten years ago, since the owner recognized me as if in a dream and so on. Cars here still push their way through between tourists, but it’s all still somehow cheerier and pleasanter in the spring; our garden is enchanting, our windows look out on it. You won’t forget, my darling, the bird book, the shaving cream, and the lavender, the lavender, will you?
¶ They heat the place very well here. ¶
I haven’t told you to give my greetings to Anyuta, that goes without saying. Won’t I really get news from you? In a review of Lifar’s new memoirs I read this phrase: ‘Diaguiliev soon gave him up for his next new love, a schoolboy called Markevitch.’ Shall I tell Topazia about this? Anyway, she reads the ‘Observer’ where the review appeared. It’s terrible.
¶ Have the journals been sent to me – New Statesman, Spectator, The Problemist, etc.? ¶
They have set aside for us a beautifully positioned little table.
This is the fourth letter. I am finishing it on Thursday – a wonderful morning! Thank you for your call yesterday, my radiance. Love you. Have you found my note in your box of allenburies?
V.
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[ALS, 2 PP]
[10 April 1970]
TO: Montreux Palace Hotel, Montreux
[Taormina, Italy]
SAN DOMENICO PALACE HOTEL
10-IV-1970
Friday
7:00
My gold-voiced angel,
(can’t get out of the habit of these endearments). Certain small inconsistencies in my letters are explained by my writing many things for future use, communicating with you several times a day, and finishing up my letter the morning after. This is the fifth, concluding, letter in this series, since I think you won’t get anything after this in Montreux if you fly out on time.
On Thursday, the 9th, the weather remained cold but the sun was all ablaze and I took my first long walk (from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon) towards Castel Mola; but already at an altitude of 700 metres there were no butterflies and I spent
most of the time in the immediate vicinity of Taormina (was I careful? I was very careful). A sweet detail: around one p.m. I walked into a trattoria, no one was there, I started calling in different languages, suddenly a shaggy dog appeared, rushed right out of the café, I stood there a moment, started to leave – and suddenly I saw: it was leading the owner back from a nearby shack. You can easily imagine the outcome. I returned, took my time sorting out the charming catches, at half-past four went out to drink some hot chocolate (wonderful!) in Café ‘Macomba’ where I will take you.
Alfred Friendly called, wanted (good God, this transparent paper again!), to come over on Saturday the 11th with his wife for two days, but I put him off, asked him to come around the 20th, which he will do. At dinner yesterday an American woman at a nearby table addressed her silent husband, pointing with her chin at a couple who’d walked in: ‘He is something very important in coal.’ Another observation: in the square, where I was buying oranges again, a German with the most good-natured chuckle refused the souvenirs offered by a cripple and added: ‘But to make up for it I will take a picture of you!’ (I wish I remembered the exact tedesko-Italian phrase.)
I keep marvelling at the abundance of flowering plants on the slopes and some kind of elevated silence (as there was in the mountains of California), interrupted, though, either by the Puccinian radio on some farm or the awful, eternal sobbing of a donkey.
I am very pleased with your present – the knitted jacket.
Well, my sweetheart. The morning is sunny, but very fresh, with fleecy additions.
Now I’m waiting for you. I’m a little sorry, in one sense, that this correspondence is coming to an end, hugs and adoration.
Will note down the laundry, and then, around nine, go collecting.
V.
[ANS, 1 P.]
[15 April 1970]
TO: Mme Vladimir Nabokov, San Domenico Palace
[Taormina, Italy]
Forty-five springs!
V.
15–IV–70
Taormina
1971
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