Vera

by Stacy Schiff

  94 “For me one result of his”: VéN to Alison Bishop, March 29, 1963.

  95 “V. is the one”: VéN to L. Thompson, October 1, 1961.

  96 “Don’t let anything upset”: VéN to Rolf, March 7, 1962.

  97 in his stride: VéN to DN, June 28, 1961, VNA.

  98 began to feel sheepish: VéN to Goldenweiser, February 11, 1962, Bakhm.

  99 “I am unable honestly”: VéN to Goldenweiser, November 29, 1965, Bakhm.

  100 “It is a narrative” to “bizarre”: VN to Rust Hills, Esquire, March 23, 1961, SL, 329.

  101 evolved significantly: See VN to Epstein, March 24, 1957, SL, 212–13. “A Mr. Stefan Schimanski”: VN to David Higham, March 24, 1958.

  102 “But they’re horrible!”: VéN to Mme. Cherix, May 7, 1962.

  103 in no way offensive: VéN to Lisbet Thompson, July 16, 1962.

  104 It had been almost: Interview with Harris, September 12, 1996.

  105 “in general the picture”: VéN to L. Thompson, December 17, 1962.

  106 Proudly he showed: La Tribune de Lausanne, September 1, 1963.

  107 Only in 1969: Interview with Martha Duffy, November 14, 1995. See also Harris and Kubrick in Newsweek, January 3, 1972, 30.

  108 more fun to write: George Cloyne, The New York Times Book Review, May 27, 1962.

  109 “In any case”: McCarthy, The New Republic, June 4, 1962, 21–27. The two approaches to the Pale Fire coin are perfectly represented in Mary McCarthy and Hannah Arendt’s correspondence on the subject. McCarthy wrote of her joy in the book, of the sheer delight she had had reviewing it. To her it seemed as if Nabokov had turned “this weird new civilization into a work of art, as though he’d engraved it all on the head of a pin, like the Lord’s Prayer.” Arendt had not read the novel but greatly disliked Nabokov; he seemed always so eager to prove his superior intelligence. “There is something vulgar in his refinement,” she replied, promising to read the novel all the same. Carol Brightman, ed., Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy, 1949–1975 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1995), 133–36.

  110 “I read it with amusement”: Wilson to Grynberg, May 20, 1962, Bakhm. On the other side of the ocean, Evelyn Waugh arrived at a different conclusion: “Too clever by half. But a pleasure.” See Mosley, ed., Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, 468.

  111 “that evil woman”: Rolf to Tenggren, January 25, 1961, PC. VéN told William Maxwell that McCarthy had found far more in the novel than the author had intended, but that VN was pleased with the review. Maxwell to Katharine White, n.d., BMC.

  112 “In general the atmosphere”: VéN to HS, June 8, 1962, PC.

  113 “VN could be like”: Interview with Appel, June 2, 1995. Then again, VéN was a woman who could, and did, summon compassion for a panicked rhinoceros—in this case one filmed from the air, for television. See Dmitri Nabokov in The Nabokovian 26 (Spring 1991), ii.

  114 “mostly in cabs”: VéN to the de Petersons, July 24, 1962, SL, 338–39.

  115 like coming home: VéN to Berkman, October 25, 1962.

  116 “It is still not a ‘home’ ”: VéN to Lisbet Thompson, November 8, 1963.

  117 “Where we’ll settle”: VéN to Elena Levin, March 10, 1963, PC.

  118 “This book is a torrent” and “dialogical”: VN and VéN to Karin Hartell, October 1, 1961.

  119 “I do a lot of typing”: Interview with Galen Williams, December 4, 1996.

  120 opened his mouth: His first words at the April 5 reading: “I shall begin by reciting ‘The Ballad of Longwood Glen,’ which is a short poem composed in Wyoming, one of my favorite states of existence.”

  121 Why had he not signed: Interview with Arthur Luce Klein, October 30, 1996.

  122 sensationally beautiful: Aileen Ward to author, May 25, 1996; interview with William McGuire, October 16, 1995.

  123 she billed the work: VéN to Mondadori, December 7, 1964. Russian scholars felt differently about the brilliant, petulant, outsized Onegin. Elizabeth Hardwick conveyed their position perfectly in one line: The volume “was a folly of such earnest magnitude that it might have been conceived in Bouvard and Pécuchet.” Sight Readings (New York: Random House, 1998), 207. See also William McGuire, Bollingen: An Adventure in Collecting the Past, 264.

  124 The Ithaca return: Field, 1977, 278–79. Boyd, 1991, 482. VéN to Boyd, March 11, 1989, VNA. Interview with Appel, August 7, 1996. It was Appel who knew of Bishop’s inadvertent espionage mission of about 1950, and who first connected the two incidents. “An overwhelming tenderness”: ADA, 574.

  125 “first through a telescope”: Carroll, Through the Looking Glass (Signet: New York, 1960), 149.

  126 Véra was livid: Interview with DN, November 1, 1996.

  127 “Don’t you dare work”: Sonia Slonim to VéN, June 13, 1964.

  128 “When I am ill nobody”: VéN to Marcantonio Crespi, May 22, 1969, VNA.

  129 “Much ado about”: VéN to Berkman, March 19, 1965.

  130 “What we won’t do”: VéN to Elena Levin, April 1, 1969, PC.

  131 “It was unpleasant”: VéN to E. Levin, June 3, 1969, PC.

  132 “And of course I would”: VN to Frank Taylor, April 7, 1969, Lilly.

  133 editors were asked: VéN to Minton, March 15, 1963.

  134 “He does not intend”: VéN to Martin J. Esslin, February 28, 1968, SL, 429. VéN’s concern may have been with citizenship. At the time, naturalized Americans were required to return to the United States periodically.

  135 All looked as if: Interview with Appel, April 19, 1995.

  136 “he had planned”: Maxwell to the Nabokovs, April 1969.

  137 to feel manageable: Martha Duffy notes for Time, PC.

  138 modest villa in the south: VN to Minton, February 16, 1965.

  139 The comforts of European: VéN to the Bishops, November 4, 1961, SL, 331.

  140 “rusty and unwieldy”: VéN to Ergaz, November 13, 1962.

  141 Callier to correct: Interview with Jacqueline Callier, March 29, 1998.

  142 “We have hit a snag”: VéN to Ergaz, January 8, 1962.

  143 America was his favorite: Le Figaro, January 13, 1973. Also, Le Monde, November 22, 1967.

  144 It would be inexact: VéN to Drago Arsenijevic, La Tribune de Genève, October 17, 1967.

  145 “I was five days”: VéN to Elena Levin, 1967 postcard, PC.

  146 “I have been imagining” and “I was dealt”: VN to VéN, November 28, 1967, VNA.

  147 “I don’t know how”: VN to VéN, October 2, 1966, VNA.

  148 “Oh, you mustn’t” to “think of crying”: Untitled poem, December 6, 1964, VNA.

  149 Véra’s enormous help: La Tribune de Lausanne, September 1, 1963.

  150 “To whom am I”: VN to McGuire, June 14, 1963, LOC, SL, 346. In the end he extended his thanks to his wife, his son, and the Bollingen editors. The translation is dedicated, “To Véra.”

  151 “the inspirer of my”: J. S. Mill, Autobiography of John Stuart Mill (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948), 184.

  152 earned a promotion: Dostoyevsky referred to Anna Grigoryevna as his “collaborator” from the start. She more accurately spoke of their work as “our joint publishing activity”; like Countess Tolstoy, she doubled as her husband’s publisher. Anna Dostoyevsky, Dostoyevsky Reminiscences (New York, Liveright, 1975).

  153 “She is my collaborator”: Guy de Velleval, Journal de Genève, March 13, 1965.

  154 “I felt he was”: Interview with Steinberg, January 4, 1996.

  155 Even the family members: Interview with HS, July 20, 1997.

  156 “The feeling of distress”: VN diary, January 18, 1973, VNA.

  157 “It has been suggested”: “Scenes,” STORIES, 613.

  158 For VN on prophetic dreaming, see Herbert Gold, “The Artist in Pursuit of Butterflies,” The Saturday Evening Post, February 11, 1967, 81–85.

  159 “Tried in vain” to “please and surprise”: VN journal, 1964.

/>   160 “one of those dreams that still”: PNIN, 109.

  161 “Awoke with a pang”: VN journal, 1964.

  162 “Dream of the hotel”: VN 1968 diary, VNA.

  9 LOOK AT THE MASKS

  1 early run-ins: Interview with Jenni Moulton.

  2 “exchange of impressions”: VN to HS, November 1967, SL, 418.

  3 read passages: Interview with Jacqueline Callier, July 11, 1995.

  4 impression of most visitors: Interview with Stephen Jan Parker, November 13, 1996.

  5 the Montreux tradespeople: Levy, The Velvet Butterfly, 14.

  6 poison himself: Interview with Louba Schirman, June 17, 1996.

  7 “I don’t know why”: VéN to Parker, November 4, 1967.

  8 “gay tussles”: Simona Morini, Vogue, April 15, 1972, 74–79.

  9 “managed to turn”: VéN to Louba Schirman, September 7, 1964, VNA.

  10 “had remained constantly”: VéN to Weidenfeld, September 9, 1965.

  11 “first real” to “impertinent serf”: Girodias notes for unfinished volume, May 20, 1969. Gelfman Schneider Agency.

  12 “Vladimir has been discovered”: VéN to Weidenfeld, September 21, 1968.

  13 Even Katharine White: White comment on VéN note of 1967, BMC.

  14 poked fun at those writers: Clarke, Esquire, July 1975.

  15 “flamingoes”: Duffy notes, PC.

  16 it was not rich enough: VéN to Rowohlt, February 11, 1969, VNA. It flourished as the translations multiplied. Dieter Zimmer to author, March 6, 1996.

  17 “Stand over them with a spoon”: VNA. See also LATH, 116, for the “ectoplasmic swell in the dancing water.”

  18 He found her heavy: Hughes interview text, December 28, 1965, 32. As is clear from the pages each Nabokov reworked of the 1933 story “The Leonardo,” when moving from Russian to English VéN’s language tended toward the more fluid and literal, VN’s toward the more neologistic. Where VéN has “those crackling vertebrae,” VN has “that crumpy backbone”—which took the day. STORIES, 361.

  19 “like the little abyss”: Clarence Brown, The New Republic, January 20, 1968, 19.

  20 “Incidentally, not having a Russian”: VN to Library of Congress. In his diary (April 11, 1966, VNA), VN noted: “With Véra’s suggestions, finished Lincoln.”

  21 “He says that the”: VéN to Barley Alison, Weidenfeld, February 11, 1967.

  22 “like a tenacious ancestral”: National Medal acceptance speech, 1975, courtesy of Fred Hills.

  23 “glossological disarray”: VN to the editors, The New York Review of Books, July 8, 1965, SL, 375. Elsewhere he termed the battles that stood at the center of his wife’s existence “the poignant demands of pedantic purity.” VN to Taylor, December 9, 1969.

  24 Was it really too: VéN to Prins & Prins, May 17, 1966.

  25 “My dear George”: VéN to Weidenfeld, June 13, 1966.

  26 “It irks me”: VN to Weidenfeld, June 10, 1970.

  27 chores that are repetitive: Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life (New York: Plume, 1990), 213.

  28 shouldn’t the book charged: VéN to Minton, November 26, 1962.

  29 The “disaster”: Interview with Vladimir Sikorsky, March 5, 1997.

  30 “If you live in a teapot”: Jane Austen, cited in John Lukacs, The Hitler of History (New York, Knopf, 1997), 32.

  31 “Véra, this amounts”: VéN to Minton, May 3, 1967.

  32 “He wants me to forewarn”: VéN to Oscar de Liso, Phaedra, September 16, 1965.

  33 “Oh dear, I think”: Interview with Nikki Smith, September 24, 1998.

  34 “I must again apologize”: VéN to D. Lindsey, March 13, 1966.

  35 relished the image: Interview with Evan Harrar, August 26, 1996.

  36 “Yes, of course”: VéN to Robert Shankland, International Book Exchange, January 14, 1967.

  37 A 1969 reporter: Interview with Martha Duffy, November 14, 1995.

  38 “That is the difference”: Levy, The Velvet Butterfly, 30.

  39 “man is not truly one”: Stevenson, cited in LL, 199.

  40 “I was thinking”: PNIN, 17.

  41 “This is cheating”: VéN to Appel, January 24, 1967. See Appel, “Nabokov’s Puppet Show,” The New Republic, January 14 and 21, 1967.

  42 seemingly omniscient narrator: See especially Wood, The Magician’s Doubts, 164.

  43 Friends had long: As Wilson observed in Slavitt’s June 25, 1962, Newsweek cover story on Nabokov, 54: “He loves to tell you something which is not true, and have you believe it; but even more, he loves to tell you something which is true, and have you think he is lying.”

  44 “But he adds that”: VéN to Field, March 1966.

  45 “the person I usually”: SO, 298.

  46 “Have you seen Volodya”: Wilson to Sonya Grynberg, May 9, 1969, Bakhm. Harry Levin acknowledged as much in his 1964 Cambridge introduction, Levin, Grounds for Comparison (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 376.

  47 “It is a false idea”: Interview with Jason Epstein, September 24, 1996.

  48 go into hiding: VéN to Schirman, April 11, 1966, VNA.

  49 “to dissimulate our presence”: VéN to Sonia Slonim, August 4, 1966.

  50 “It’s just like some miserable”: VéN to Elena Levin, July 21, 1967, PC; to Anna Feigin, July 18, 1967.

  51 Worse yet, she had to: VéN to the Hessens, October 18, 1965, PC.

  52 “If he had the time”: VéN to Irving Lazar, March 5, 1972, VNA.

  53 Barozzi saw to it: Interview with Carlo Barozzi, July 10, 1995.

  54 “strangers and half-strangers”: VéN to Nat Hoffman, April 8, 1975, VNA.

  55 “He made a” and “Véra, what am”: Interview with Ivan Nabokov, October 24, 1995.

  56 “She does the arguing”: Levy, The New York Times Magazine, October 31, 1971, 24. “She was his secret weapon,” concluded another. Interview with Willa Petschek, October 9, 1998.

  57 “I think it’s almost”: Lazar to VéN, November 19, 1963, VNA.

  58 “Far from it”: VéN to Lazar, December 2, 1963, VNA.

  59 “From here on”: VéN to Weidenfeld, October 7, 1968.

  60 “While they keep us informed”: VéN to Field, March 1966.

  61 “We have runny noses”: VéN to HS, January 20, 1965, PC.

  62 “We have been ill”: VéN to De Liso, January 28, 1968.

  63 “I ask you to bear”: VéN to Joan Daly, April 8, 1971, PW.

  64 “Would you please”: VéN to René Micha, L’Arc, March 4, 1964.

  65 “I rolled over him”: LO, 299.

  66 “He has asked his son”: VéN to Bud MacLennan, Weidenfeld, May 3, 1965.

  67 “signed by” and “Today I receive”: VN to Rowohlt, October 30, 1970.

  68 “It is hard to be happy”: “The Potato Elf,” STORIES, 232.

  69 “lone wolf”: VéN to Rex Stout, c. June 23, 1965.

  70 “lone lamb”: Vogue, December 1969, 191; SO, 156.

  71 “flurry of confabulation”: PF, 259. Also LATH, 87.

  72 She found it embarrassing: VéN to Esslin, February 28, 1968, SL, 429.

  73 “Darling, why” to “It’s too late”: Field, 1977, 176–77.

  74 “So I was surprised”: Dieter Zimmer to VéN, November 3, 1965. VéN to Zimmer, November 8, 1965.

  75 Swiss Police Ministry: VéN to Département de Justice et Police, February 7, 1965, VNA.

  76 “I am greatly distressed” and “spontaneous rot”: VN to Hughes, November 9, 1965. SL, 381.

  77 equally capable of boasting: Field, 1977, 180, vs. James Salter, People, March 17, 1975, 64.

  78 It was enough: Interviews with Sophie Lannes, June 11, 1996; Mati Laanso, March 26, 1997.

  79 His wife was his memory: Interview with Appel, April 24, 1995, vs. Laanso, CBC interview of VN, March 20, 1973.

  80 “a kind of rich and varicoloured”: VN to Bertrand Thompson, April 4, 1962.

  81 “I am completely exhausted”: VéN to Lisbet Thompson, April 12, 1963. />
  82 “But I still hope”: VéN to L. Thompson, November 8, 1963. She appears to have been discouraged too by Callier’s occasional missteps in English. On a Bristol card VN prepared for their secretary a little primer: “their” and “leur” behaved differently in their respective languages, so that “They cleared their throats,” unless of course “they were Siamese twins with two bodies but one head and one throat!”

  83 “I am better”: VéN to L. Thompson, March 9, 1966.

  84 “but since our return”: VéN to L. Thompson, October 25, 1966.

  85 “Please do not” and “I am not”: VéN to L. Thompson, March 11, 1967.

  86 firm sense of self-importance: Interview with Callier, March 29, 1998.

  87 “Ah, sweet socks”: VN to VéN, October 25, 1974, VNA.

  88 “to have made little jottings”: Interview with DN, June 23, 1996.

  89 Véra astonished its author: Interview with Edmund White, January 23, 1995.

  90 White began to visualize: Interview with White. White continues: “Reaching her, despite our differences, is a project that for some reason excites my imagination; I picture her as the ‘interior paramour.’ ” See States of Desire: Travels in Gay America (New York: Dutton, 1980), 255.

  91 “a disaster,” “I know many,” and “Where are the”: VéN to Topazia Markevitch, June 5, 1965.

  92 “I’m sending Volodya”: Anna Feigin to VéN, September 26, 1963.

  93 “You mustn’t apologize”: Appel to VéN, September 22, 1968.

  94 she went out of her way: VéN to Minton, May 3, 1967.

  95 “And in any case”: VéN to Flora Stone Mather College, December 8, 1971, VNA.

  96 “it does not belong”: VN to William Morris, January 10, 1967, VNA.

  97 “The project of which”: VéN to Weidenfeld, October 25, 1967. The young McGraw-Hill editor was Peter Kemeny, of whom VéN was very fond, but who left the firm just as VN was arriving.

  98 Paul, Weiss lawyers: Interview with Joseph Iseman, May 19, 1995.

  99 “We have lived”: VéN to Iseman, August 20, 1967, PW.

  100 consult an economics text: Irving Lazar, with Annette Tapert, Swifty: My Life and Good Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 203.

  101 “It goes without saying”: Daly to Iseman, October 23, 1975, PW.