A Page From Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin

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She wore the same Gretchen-like coil of thick hair around her head. There was the same scar on her soft throat. But an engagement ring with a diminutive diamond had appeared on her plump hand, and this she displayed with coy pride to Pnin, who vaguely experienced a twinge of sadness. He reflected that there was a time he might have courted her--would have done so, in fact, had she not had a servant maid's mind, which had remained unaltered too. She could still relate a long story on a 'she said-I said-she said' basis. Nothing on earth could make her disbelieve in the wisdom and wit of her favourite woman's magazine. She still had the curious trick--shared by two or three other small-town young women within Pnin's limited ken--of giving you a delayed little tap on the sleeve in acknowledgement of, rather than in retaliation for, any remark reminding her of some minor lapse: you would say, 'Betty, you forgot to return that book,' or 'I thought, Betty, you said you would never marry,' and before she actually answered, there it would come, that demure gesture, retracted at the very moment her stubby fingers came into contact with your wrist.

"He is a biochemist and is now in Pittsburgh," said Betty as she helped Pnin to arrange buttered slices of French bread around a pot of glossy-grey fresh caviare and to rinse three large bunches of grapes. There was also a large plate of cold cuts, real German pumpernickel, and a dish of very special vinaigrette, where shrimps hobnobbed with pickles and peas, and some miniature sausages in tomato sauce, and hot pirozhki (mushroom tarts, meat tarts, cabbage tarts), and four kinds of nuts, and various interesting Oriental sweets. Drinks were to be represented by whisky (Betty's contribution), ryabinovka (a rowanberry liqueur), brandy-and-grenadine cocktails, and of course Pnin's Punch, a heady mixture of chilled Chateau Yquem, grapefruit juice, and maraschino, which the solemn host had already started to stir in a large bowl of brilliant aquamarine glass with a decorative design of swirled ribbing and lily pads.

"My, what a lovely thing!" cried Betty.

Click  here
to read an interview
with Mr. Nabokov 

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