Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977

by Vladimir Nabokov

  I do hope that you can see my point and that we can arrive at an agreement.

  We are staying at a charming place (address above) where we shall remain till June 15th. A new novel2 I am writing takes a good deal of my time but I manage to walk up to 15 kilometers daily on the steep paths in search of butterflies.

  Véra joins me in sending you and Barbara our most cordial regards.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: PROF. ALFRED APPEL, JR.

  CC, 2 pp.

  Camogli (Genova), Italy

  Cenobio dei Dogi

  May 23, 1967

  Dear Mr. Appel,

  Here are the answers to the questions in your letter of May 6.

  p. 33, "Dillingham" has no significance. A Murder is Announced on the next page, of course. A Percy Elphinstone did write A Vagabond in Italy which I found in a hospital library, the nearest thing to a prison library. The "Elph-in-stone" is wrong. It is my own random recollection of Percy, a happier vagabond than my man. But it is worth noting that the fairy tale LOLITA ends in Elph's Stone and begins in Pixie.

  p. 48. Pisky is another form of pixy (fairy, elf) and also means "moth" in rural England. Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer is O.K. It was also Wilde's alias after prison. Melmoth may come from Mellonella Moth (which breeds in beehives) or, more likely, from Meal Moth (which breeds in grain).

  p. 253. John Randall of Ramble was a real person, I think (as was in the book also Cecilia Dalrymple Ramble, p. 254). Catagela is a town invented by Aristophanes in one of his plays. James Mavor Morell is one of the main characters in Shaw's CANDIDA, and Hoxton is a place-name therein.

  p. 260–65. False. If Rita is a "pun" (what a dreadful one!) on "reader" then we may as well see in "Lolita" another bad pun on Low Litter (especially in view of a phrase on p. 302). I suspect you were pulling my leg with the "Rita-Reader."

  Counting "Phalen" (Fr. phalène, moth), "Melmoth" and "Pisky", I can glean only eleven lep references in LOLITA (less than there are references to dogs or birds). I may have forgotten two or three, but there are certainly not fifty references!

  p. 54. Falter (German for "butterfly"), one of Lo's schoolmates.

  p. 112. I think I have given you earlier this "moth-or-butterfly" example of Humbert's complete incapacity to differentiate between Rhopalocera and Heterocera.

  p. 123. The "powdered bugs" wheeling around the lamps are noctuids and other moths which look floury on the wing (hence "millers", which, however, may also come from the verb) as they mill in the electric light against the damp night's blackground. Bugs is an Americanism for any insect. In England, it means generally bedbugs.

  p. 158. The insects that poor Humbert mistakes for "creeping white flies" are the biologically fascinating little moths of the genus Pronuba whose amiable and indispensable females transport the pollen that fertilizes the yucca flowers (see, what Humbert failed to do, "Yucca Moth" in any good encyclopedia).

  p. 159. The gray hummingbirds at dusk etc. are, as I have mentioned in an earlier communication, not birds but hawkmoths which do move exactly like hummingbirds (which are neither gray nor nocturnal).

  p. 191. When naming incidental characters I like to give them some mnemonic handle, a private tag: thus "Avis Chapman" which I mentally attached to the South-European butterfly Callophrys avis Chapman (where Chapman, of course, is the non-italicizable name of that butterfly's original describer).

  p. 213. This "patient bug" is not necessarily a moth—it could be some clumsy big fly or miserable beetle.

  p. 236. Butterflies are indeed inquisitive, and the dipping motion is characteristic of a number of genera.

  p. 252 & 303. "Schmetterling" (German "butterfly") blended with the author of L'Oiseau Bleu.

  p. 294. Moths like derelict snowflakes.

  p. 260. Under the sign of the Tigermoth (an Arctid).

  p. 261. Rita's phrase "Going round and round like a mulberry moth" combines rather pleasingly the "round and round the mulberry tree" of the maypole song and the silk moth of China which breeds on mulberry.

  p. 318. Footnote to lycaeides sublivens Nabokov.

  This Coloradan member of the subgenus Lycaeides (which I now place in the genus Plebejus, a grouping corresponding exactly in scope to my former concept of Plebejinae) was described by me as a subspecies of Tutt's "argyrognomon" (now known as idas L.), but is, in my present opinion, a distinct species. V.N.

  In answer to your last question: ADA will take me another year and a half to finish, and I'll start revising my son's translation of THE EXPLOIT only when I am quite through with her.

  I have not yet received The Wisconsin Studies.1 If it is a bulky package they may not forward it from Montreux which means that I shall not see it till August when I return to my hotel.

  Cordially,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: ROBIE MACAULEY1

  CC, 1 p.

  June 10, 1967

  Dear Mr. Macauley,

  I thank you for your letter of June 6 with which were enclosed chapters 8 and 12 of my KING, QUEEN, KNAVE.

  Your suggestion that I make a new story using the elements of these chapters is amusing but completely unacceptable.

  Will you kindly return the rest of the typescript to me at the following address:

  Cita Grand Hotel

  Limone Piemonte (Cuneo)

  Italy.

  Sincerely yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

  CC, 1 p.

  Montreux, Switzerland

  Montreux Palace Hotel

  November n, 1967

  Dear Paper,

  For obvious reasons I refuse to tell you, in answer to your questionnaire, what brand of cigarettes my cousin smokes, nor can I divulge my "choice of shipping methods", or the price of my wristwatch. However: I like you very much, and here are four suggested improvements that would increase my affection.

  Splash U.S. successes with a little more enthusiasm.

  Reestablish the Monday stock exchange tables for the past week.

  Consign, at once and for keeps, Mrs. Sawyer1 to a mental asylum (this will give everybody more elbow room).

  Cut out the pop art (Chag et a!) and replace it by a Book Review page once a week.

  Faithfully yours,

  Old Reader

  Vladimir Nabokov

  TO: NEW STATESMAN

  PRINTED LETTER1

  Sir, Mr Pritchett (NS, 27 Oct)2 says he would have liked Mr Magarshack to tell him in what language Pushkin read Byron and other English authors. I do not know Mr. Magarshack's work or works, but I do know that since neither he, nor anybody else, could answer Mr. Pritchett without dipping into me, a vicious spiral is formed with an additional coy little coil supplied by Mr Pritchett's alluding to the 'diverting' article I published in Encounter (Feb. 1966). If, however, your reviewer would care to combine the diverting with the instructive I suggest he consult the pages (enumerated in the index to my work on Eugene Onegin under Pushkiniana, English) wherein I explain, quite clearly, that most Russians of Pushkin's time, including Pushkin himself, read English authors in French versions.

  By a pleasing coincidence the same issue of your journal contains another item worth straightening out. Mr Desmond Mac Namara, writing on a New Zealand novel, thinks that there should be coined a male equivalent of 'nymphet' in the sense I gave it. He is welcome to my 'faunlet' first mentioned in 1955 (Lolita, chapter 5). 1955! How time flies! How attention flags!

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Montreux

  TO: ELENA SIKORSKI

  HOLOGRAPH MEMO, 1 p. Elena Sikorski.

  Daily schedule1

  (26.XI-3.XII. 1967)

  6:30–10:30 VN drinks juices, writes, first in bed, then at lectern. Intervals: 7:45 shaving; 8:00–8:30 breakfast, perusal of mail, silence, J[ournal] de Genève for El[ena].

  8:30 return to lectern. 10:30–11:15 stool, bath, dressing. 11:00 Mme. Furrer comes to "cuire." 11:30 Aida and manservant clean. VN and E
l. go out for a walk (chats with shopkeepers etc.).

  12:15 Mme. F. serves lunch. Bordeaux. 1:00–3:00 siesta. 3:00–6:00 VN drinks vin de Vial,2 writes at lectern or in armchair. Intervals for perusal of mail that has accumulated since 2:00. First beer. 5:30 Mme. F. arrives quietly.

  6:00–9:00 games (Scrabble), exchanges] of impr[essions]. 7:00 Mme. F. serves dinner. Second beer.

  End of interesting day. VN reads in bed until 10:30. Intervals dictated by age—tr[ips] to mas[ter] W.C. around midnight and at dawn. 6:30–10:30 VN drinks juices, writes, etc.

  I. Obligations of guest: neat appearance, making morn[ing] coffee (VN drinks 2 cups). Morning telephone calls to purveyors.*** Answering telephone. Example: "Here his secretary ("Elen Orska"). Vat? Gut.* Aisle usk." Knock on VN's door. Occasionally he answers the phone. At 9:00 PM three doors are locked: kitchen, "living," corner room. Kitchen key is taken by guest to her room in case of nighttime hunger (cf. Privileges) and is returned without fail early in the morning. * Washing cups (only), on Sunday morning (only). Chk. eves, if both ranges trnd. off. No messes anywhere.

  II. Privileges: use of living, where it is cosier than in the green boudoir (rm. 60). When making one's way at night to recover eyeglasses from living or get some cake in kitchen, use corr[idor] rte[route]. At other times: interior] rte.—it is preferable to going demonstratively through the corridor.**** Radio to be used at low volume. (There is a TV downstairs for favorite programs.) Books may be taken from storage room or from VN. For toilet articles] or secret dainties it is permissible to use small table (green arrow) in guest's chamber.

  III. It is prohibited: to burst into kitchen while Mme. F. ** is there, to give advice and "Russian" recipes, compare ailments, tell tales about India and the lions,3 etc.

  Note: change in gl[ass] ashtray by telephone in 64 is for tips to deliverymen, etc., and not for guests.

  Vladimir Nabokov4

  26-XI-1967

  Montreux

  TO: DMITRI NABOKOV

  HOLOGRAPH PS TO VÉRA NABOKOV LETTER

  Montreux, Switzerland

  6 December 1967

  Careful with the ladies!

  Your tired, very well writing, and loving

  P1

  TO: PROF. PAGE STEGNER

  CC, 2 PP.

  Montreux Palace Hotel

  Montreux, Switzerland

  December 6, 1967

  Dear Page,

  I am returning your admirable Introduction for the Portable Nabokov. VN asks me to say that he enjoyed the purity of your style and the precision of your thought.

  Below a few remarks:

  p. 2 Not an important matter but please put an accent on "e" in my name (people are apt to read it as "Veera").

  p. 4 VN suggests that you substitute "expatriates" for "displaced persons." There is very little in common between the first and the second Russian emigration, and the term "displaced persons", which came into use during the Second World War, calls to mind the new emigrants, products of almost thirty years of Soviet domination and with an ideology tainted by philistinism and marxism.

  — Is Krug the only hero answering your description? Is not Shade equally fixed in one spot?

  p. 6 "Meaningful relationships," says VN, "is ambiguous since 'meaningful' in itself is a meaningless word, and, anyway, the phrase does not apply to many of Martin's emotions and friendships." Then, further down, you have 'meaningless', which clashes with the 'meaningful' and, moreover, is not a true assessment of Martin's 'exploit.' When he crosses the border illegally, never to be seen again, he is meeting an intolerable challenge, something he feels he must conquer, just as he met the challenge of the mountain and prevailed upon his fear of it (around the middle of the book).

  p.11 VN questions the phrase "...their straight man, their Lemuel Pitkin" used to characterize Pnin.

  p.13 "To get rid of a book" has no element of annihilation for VN. It means "getting rid at last of an adorable but sometimes intolerable burden."

  p.20 The pun (bottom of your page) is made by Mona in the letter, not by Humbert, who actually does not notice it.

  p.21 I believe "Any" should be "And a."

  p.25 "Little girl, not your girl," says VN.

  —"tenu" should be "tenue" and p. 28, "donne" should be "donnee"

  p.29 There are two translated poems in Gorniy Put' (Empyrean Path), one by Byron (Sun of the Sleepless), the other from Keats (La Belle Dame sans Merci). There are no other translations either in Gorniy Put' or in Grozd' (The Cluster). But VN published fairly numerous verse translations from other poets in emigre journals and newspapers, including Baudelaire, Musset, some Shakespeare, Tennyson, some Rupert Brooke etc.

  — VN suggests that you say 'poems' rather than 'verses'

  p.30 "The Wanderer" was an unfinished verse play

  — At the time he translated "Alice in Wonderland" he also translated Romain Rolland's "Colas Breugnon" into Russian.

  p.31 Of the three remaining books written in Russian The Exploit is being translated,1 but King, Queen, Knave, translated by Dmitri and edited by VN will be published in April 1968.

  — Of the "eleven" books you name ten (five and five). Did you mean to say "ten" or were you going to name The Eye as eleventh?

  — Since you give the English titles of the Russian books, it would perhaps be useful to put, after Camera Obscura (Laughter in the Dark in the English translation)?

  VN very much appreciates your having let him check the factual side of the Introduction.

  While I was in New York I spoke to Robert MacGregor of New Directions on the 'phone. They won't claim any permission fee for the "Government Specter."2 I did not speak to TIME because I was not sure in what stage was the correspondence between you or Marshall Best with them.

  Cordial greetings from VN and me.

  TO: JOHN BOOTHE1

  CC 1 p.

  Montreux, Switzerland

  Montreux Palace Hotel

  January 10,1968

  Dear Mr. Boothe,

  My husband asks me to say that he very much appreciates your kindness in allowing him to see the jacket and blurb.2 I regret to say he cannot approve either. This is what he dictated to me:

  "The picture for the jacket is misleading and embarrassing for it is apt to be taken for the author's portrait and not for that of the protagonist whose features, moreover, delicate and nervous, are quite differently described in the book." VN suggests that you use for the jacket "one, two or several eyes, nothing but eyes, no face. The eyes may vary in color and expression but the artist must read the book before proceeding."

  As to the blurb, VN suggests that you omit the quotation from The Guardian since it gives a very limited and pedestrian impression of his general work.

  Sincerely yours,

  (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)

  May I draw your attention to the correct spelling of Nabokov (not "Nabakov").

  I am enclosing your material with this letter.

  TO: NEW STATESMAN

  PRINTED LETTER1

  Sir, I do not intend to continue my chats with Mr Edmund Wilson, in private or print, but let me humbly concede before ending them, that Pushkin had almost as much English in the 1830s as Mr Edmund Wilson has Russian today. That should satisfy everybody.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Montreux

  TO: FRANK E. TATLOR1

  CC 1 p.

  Montreux, Switzerland

  Montreux Palace Hotel

  January 22, 1968

  Dear Mr. Taylor,

  Our letter of the 21st had not yet left when yours of January 18th arrived, and I am enclosing the letter my wife signed.

  I am not very happy with the procedure you suggest for the proofreading process.2

  If the set of galleys arrives here on Monday the 5th, it will be returned to you on the same or the following day, and reach you before the end of the week.

  It is indispensible that you send me simultaneously a second set (not necessarily read by your printers if
there is no time for that) to which I shall transfer my corrections and those of the printer, and keep.

  In the course of half a century of proofreading I have evolved certain habits the sudden changing of which would wreck my peace of mind. In other words, I absolutely must see the page proofs. That will take me a few hours, and I can cable my response the same day either with a simple o.k., or, if there is some bad error, informing you of it; but no book of mine has ever appeared without my having checked those last proofs—except a few paperbacks, with dreadful consequences. If I don't see the page proofs, I shall never know if my corrections have been understood, and whether they match yours, and some typographical disaster is very likely to follow—something that neither you nor I surely want to happen.

  An additional request: Please do not release to the English publisher (George Weidenfeld) anything but the completely corrected page proofs of the novel. In this respect, an unfortunate misunderstanding regarding LOLITA resulted in the first British edition being riddled with misprints.

  With most friendly greetings,

  Yours,

  Vladimir Nabokov