Glory by Vladimir Nabokov

Author:Vladimir Nabokov [Nabokov, Vladimir]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Classics
ISBN: 9780297994169
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1971-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

25

At nightfall Darwin dropped in, magnificently flung off his gown, sat down by the fire, and immediately began livening up the coals with the poker. Martin lay in silence, full of self-pity, again and again imagining himself coming out of the church with Rose, who was wearing white kid gloves, pulled on with difficulty. “Sonia is coming alone tomorrow,” said Darwin unconcernedly. “Her mother’s got the flu, a bad case of flu.” Martin said nothing, but visualized with a stab of excitement tomorrow’s soccer match. “How are you going to play, though?” said Darwin. “That, of course, is the question.” Martin remained silent. “Badly, probably,” Darwin resumed. “Goalkeeping needs presence of mind, and you’re in one hell of a state. You know, I just had a chat with that woman.”

Silence. The tower chimes rang across the town.

“A poetic nature, inclined to fantasy,” Darwin went on a minute later. “She’s no more pregnant than, for instance, I am. Want to bet a fiver that I can twist this poker into a monogram?” (Martin lay like a dead man.) “I interpret your silence as assent. Let’s see.”

He grunted once, twice. “No, can’t do it today. The money’s yours. I paid exactly five pounds for your stupid declaration. We’re even, and everything’s in order.”

Martin was silent, only his heart had begun beating violently.

“But,” said Darwin, “just remember, if you ever set foot in that bad and expensive pastry shop again, you’ll get kicked out of the university. That lass can be impregnated by a mere handshake, don’t forget that.”

Darwin got up and stretched. “You’re not very talkative, chum. I must confess that you and your hetaera have somehow marred tomorrow for me—I mean the morrow one has in one’s mind.”

He went out, quietly closing the door behind him, and Martin had three simultaneous thoughts: that he was terribly hungry, that you couldn’t find another friend like that, and that tomorrow this friend would propose. At that moment he joyously and ardently wished that Sonia would accept, but the moment passed, and next morning, when he and Darwin met Sonia at the station, he felt the old familiar, dreary jealousy (his only, rather pathetic advantage over Darwin was his recent, wine-toasted transition to the intimate second-person singular, the Russian “ty,” with Sonia; in England that form had died out with the bowmen; nonetheless Darwin had also drunk auf Bruderschaft with her, and had addressed her all evening with the archaic “thou”).

“Hello, flower,” she said casually to Martin, alluding to his botanical last name; then, at once turning away, she began telling Darwin things that might have interested Martin too.

“What’s so attractive about her, after all?” he thought for the thousandth time. “All right, she has those dimples, that pale complexion—that’s not enough. Her eyes are so-so, gypsyesque, and her teeth are uneven. And her lips are so thick, so glossy—if one could just stop them, shut them up with a kiss. And she thinks she looks English in that blue suit and those low-heeled shoes.

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