Владимир Набоков - Pale Fire

Rimming the cheekbone; the dark silky brown

Of hair brushed up from temple and from nape;

The very naked neck; the Persian shape

Of nose and eyebrow, you have kept it all -

And on still nights we hear the waterfall.

Come and be worshiped, come and be caressed,

270My dark Vanessa, crimson-barred, my blest

My Admirable butterfly! Explain

How could you, in the gloam of Lilac Lane,

Have let uncouth, hysterical John Shade

Blubber your face, and ear, and shoulder blade?

We have been married forty years. At least

Four thousand times your pillow has been creased

By our two heads. Four hundred thousand times

The tall clock with the hoarse Westminster chimes

Has marked our common hour. How many more

280Free calendars shall grace the kitchen door?

I love you when you're standing on the lawn

Peering at something in a tree: "It's gone.

It was so small. It might come back" (all this

Voiced in a whisper softer than a kiss).

I love you when you call me to admire

A jet's pink trail above the sunset fire.

I love you when you're humming as you pack

A suitcase or the farcical car sack

With round-trip zipper. And I love you most

290When with a pensive nod you greet her ghost

And hold her first toy on your palm, or look

At a postcard from her, found in a book.

She might have been you, me, or some quaint blend:

Nature chose me so as to wrench and rend

Your heart and mine. At first we'd smile and say:

"All little girls are plump" or "Jim McVey

(The family oculist) will cure that slight

Squint in no time." And later. "She'll be quite

Pretty, you know"; and, trying to assuage

300The swelling torment: "That's the awkward age."

"She should take riding lessons," you would say

(Your eyes and mine not meeting). "She should play

Tennis, or badminton. Less starch, more fruit!

She may not be a beauty, but she's cute."

It was no use, no use. The prizes won

In French and history, no doubt, were fun;

At Christmas parties games were rough, no doubt,

And one shy little guest might be left out;

But let's be fair: while children of her age

310Were cast as elves and fairies on the stage

That she'd helped paint for the school pantomime,

My gentle girl appeared as Mother Time,

A bent charwoman with slop pail and broom,

And like a fool I sobbed in the men's room.

Another winter was scrape-scooped away.

The Toothwort White haunted our woods in May.

Summer was power-mowed, and autumn, burned.

Alas, the dingy cygnet never turned

Into a wood duck. And again your voice:

320"But this is prejudice! You should rejoice

That she is innocent. Why overstress

The physical? She _wants_ to look a mess.

Virgins have written some _resplendent_ books.

Lovemaking is not everything. Good looks

Are not that indispensable!" And still

Old Pan would call from every painted hill.

And still the demons of our pity spoke:

No lips would share the lipstick of her smoke;

The telephone that rang before a ball

330Every two minutes in Sorosa Hall

For her would never ring; and, with a great

Screeching of tires on gravel, to the gate

Out of the lacquered night, a white-scarfed beau

Would never come for her; she'd never go,

A dream of gauze and jasmine, to that dance.

We sent her, though, to a château in France.

And she returned in tears, with new defeats,

New miseries. On days when all the streets

Of College Town led to the game, she'd sit

340On the library steps, and read or knit;

Mostly alone she'd be, or with that nice

Frail roommate, now a nun; and, once or twice,

With a Korean boy who took my course.

She had strange fears, strange fantasies, strange force

Of character - as when she spent three nights

Investigating certain sounds and lights

In an old barn. She twisted words: pot, top,

Spider, redips. And "powder" was "red wop."

She called you a didactic katydid.

350She hardly ever smiled, and when she did,

It was a sign of pain. She'd criticize

Ferociously our projects, and with eyes

Expressionless sit on her tumbled bed

Spreading her swollen feet, scratching her head

With psoriatic fingernails, and moan,

Murmuring dreadful words in monotone.

She was my darling - difficult, morose -

But still my darling. You remember those

Almost unruffled evenings when we played

360Mah-jongg, or she tried on your furs, which made

Her almost fetching; and the mirrors smiled,

The lights were merciful, the shadows mild,

Sometimes I'd help her with a Latin text,

Or she'd be reading in her bedroom, next

To my fluorescent lair, and you would be

In your own study, twice removed from me,

And I would hear both voices now and then:

370"Mother, what's grimpen?" "What is what?" "Grim Pen."

Pause, and your guarded scholium. Then again:

"Mother, what's chtonic?" That, too, you'd explain,

Appending, "Would you like a tangerine?"

"No. Yes. And what does sempiternal mean?"

You'd hesitate. And lustily I'd roar

The answer from my desk through the closed door.

It does not matter what it was she read

(some phony modern poem that was said

In English Lit to be a document

"Engazhay and compelling" - what this meant

Nobody cared); the point is that the three

380Chambers, then bound by you and her and me,

Now form a tryptich or a three-act play

In which portrayed events forever stay.

I think she always nursed a small mad hope.

I'd finished recently my book on Pope.

Jane Dean, my typist, offered her one day

To meet Pete Dean, a cousin. Jane's fiancé

Would then take all of them in his new car

A score of miles to a Hawaiian bar.

The boy was picked up at a quarter past

390Eight in New Wye. Sleet glazed the roads. At last

They found the place - when suddenly Pete Dean

Clutching his brow exclaimed that he had clean

Forgotten an appointment with a chum

Who'd land in jail if he, Pete, did not come,

Et cetera. She said she understood.

After he'd gone the three young people stood

Before the azure entrance for awhile.

Puddles were neon-barred; and with a smile

She said she'd be de trop, she'd much prefer

400Just going home. Her friends escorted her

To the bus stop and left; but she, instead

Of riding home, got off at Lochanhead.

You scrutinized your wrist: "It's eight fifteen.

[And here time forked.] I'll turn it on." The screen

In its blank-broth evolved a lifelike blur,

And music welled. _He took one look at her,

And shot a death ray at well-meaning Jane._

A male hand traced from Florida to Maine

The curving arrows of Aeolian wars.

410You said that later a quartet of bores,

Two writers and two critics, would debate

The Cause of Poetry on Channel 8.

A nymph came pirouetting, under white

Rotating petals, in a vernal rite

To kneel before an altar in a wood

Where various articles of toilet stood.

I went upstairs and read a galley proof,

And heard the wind roll marbles on the roof.

"See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing"

420Has unmistakably the vulgar ring

Of its preposterous age. Then came your call,

My tender mockingbird, up from the hall.

I was in time to overhear brief fame

And have a cup of tea with you: my name

Was mentioned twice, as usual just behind

(one oozy footstep)Frost. "_Sure you don't mind?

I'll catch the Exton plane, because you know