Vladimir Nabokov: The Enchanter

“Actually,” he continued without missing a beat, “I could use certain pieces of furniture myself. Do you suppose it might be convenient as well as proper if I…” He had forgotten the rest of his sentence, but improvised most adroitly, as he was beginning to feel at home with the artificial style of the still not fully comprehensible, many-ringed dream with which he was already so indistinctly but so firmly entwined that, for instance, he no longer knew what this thing was, and whose: part of his own leg or part of an octopus.

She was obviously delighted, and offered to take him there that very moment if he wished—the widow’s apartment, where she and her husband were also staying, was not far, right on the other side of the electric-railway bridge.

They set off. The girl walked in front, energetically swinging a canvas bag on a string, and already everything about her was, to his eyes, terrifyingly and insatiably familiar—the curve of her narrow back, the resilience of the two round little muscles farther down, the exact way the checks of her dress (the other, brown, one) tightened when she raised an arm, the delicate ankles, the rather high heels. She might be a little introverted, livelier of movement than of conversation, neither bashful nor forward, with a soul that seemed submerged, but in a radiant moistness. Opalescent on the surface but translucent in her depths, she must be fond of sweets, and puppies, and the innocent trickery of newsreels. Such warm-skinned, russet-sheened, open-lipped girls got their periods early, and it was little more to them than a game, like cleaning up a dollhouse kitchen…. And hers was not a very happy childhood, that of a half-orphan: this stern woman’s kindness was not like milk chocolate, but like the bitter kind—a home without caresses, strict order, symptoms of fatigue, a favor for a friend grown burdensome…. And for all this, for the glow of her cheeks, the twelve pairs of narrow ribs, the down along her back, her wisp of a soul, that slightly husky voice, the roller skates and the grayish day, the unknown thought that had just run through her head as she glanced at an unknown thing from the bridge… For all this he would have given a sack of rubies, a bucket of blood, anything he was asked….

Outside the building they ran into an unshaven man with a briefcase, as unabashed and as gray as his wife, so the four of them made a noisy entrance together. He expected to find a sick, emaciated woman in an armchair, but instead was met by a tall, pale, broad-hipped lady, with a hairless wart near a nostril of her bulbous nose: one of those faces you describe without being able to say anything about the lips or the eyes because any mention of them—even this—would be an involuntary contradiction of their utter inconspicuousness.

Upon learning that he was a potential buyer she immediately ushered him into the dining room, explaining, as she proceeded slowly and with a slight list, that she had no need for a four-room apartment, that she was moving that winter into a two-room one, and that she would be glad to get rid of that extension table, the extra chairs, that couch over in the parlor (when it had done its duty as a sleeping accommodation for her friends), a large étagère, and a small chest. He said he would like to see the last of these items, which turned out to be in the room occupied by the girl, whom they found lolling on the bed and gazing at the ceiling, with her knees, drawn up and encircled by outstretched arms, rocking in unison.

“Off the bed! What’s the meaning of this?” Hurriedly concealing the soft skin of her underside and the tiny wedge of her taut panties, she rolled off (oh, the liberties I would allow her! he thought).

He said he would buy the chest—it was a laughably cheap price for access to the house—and probably something else as well, but he had to decide just what. If it was all right with her, he would drop by for another look in a couple of days and then have everything picked up at the same time—here, by the way, was his card.

As she saw him to the door she unsmilingly (evidently she smiled seldom) but quite cordially mentioned that her friend and her daughter had already told her about him and that her friend’s husband was even a little jealous.

“Sure, sure,” said the latter, following them into the vestibule. “I’d gladly unload my better half on anybody who’d take her.”

“Watch your step,” said his wife, appearing from the same room as he. “Someday you might be sorry!”

“Well, you’re welcome anytime,” said the widow. “I’m always home, and you might be interested in the lamp or the pipe collection—they are all fine things, and it makes me a little sad to part with them, but that’s life.”

“What next?” he wondered on the way home. Up to that point he had played it by ear, practically without forethought, following blind intuition, like a chess player penetrating and applying pressure wherever there is a hint of shakiness or constriction in his opponent’s position. But what now? Day after tomorrow they are taking my darling away—that rules out any direct benefit from my acquaintance with her mother…. She’ll be back, though, and may even stay here for good, and by that time I’ll be a welcome guest…. But if the woman has less than a year to live (according to the hints I was given), then everything goes down the drain…. I must say she doesn’t look too decrepit to me, but if she does take to her bed and die, then the setting and the circumstances for a potentially jovial relationship will crumble, then it will all be over—how would I find her, under what pretext?… Nevertheless, he felt instinctively that this was the way to proceed: don’t think too much, keep the pressure on the weak corner of the board.

Therefore, next day he set out for the park with an attractive box of marrons glacés and sugar violets as a going-away present for the girl. Reason told him that it was a silly cliché, that this was a particularly dangerous moment to single her out for overt attention, even from an uninhibited eccentric, especially since so far he had—quite rightly—paid hardly any attention to her (he was a past master at dissimulating lightning bolts)—not like one of your putrid oldsters who always carry some candy to lure the lasses—and still he minced along with his present, in response to a secret impulse that was more accurate than reason.

He spent a whole hour on the bench, but they did not come. Must have left a day early. And, although one more encounter with her could in no way have alleviated the very special burden that had accumulated during the past week, he experienced the burning chagrin of a betrayed lover.

Continuing to ignore the voice of reason that told him he was again doing the wrong thing, he rushed over to the widow’s and bought the lamp. Noticing his odd shortness of breath, she invited him to sit down and offered him a cigarette. In his search for a lighter he came upon the oblong box and said, like a character in a book:

“It may seem odd to you, since we’ve known each other for such a short time, but still allow me to present you with this trifle—a little candy, not bad candy, I think—if you accept, it will give me great pleasure.”

She smiled for the first time—apparently she was more flattered than surprised—and explained that all the sweets of life were forbidden to her, and that she would give it to her daughter.

“Oh—I thought they had already—”

“No, tomorrow morning,” the widow resumed, fingering the gold ribbon not without regret. “Today, my friend, who spoils her dreadfully, took her to a needlework exhibit.” She sighed, and gingerly, as if it were something fragile, set the gift on a nearby side table, while her exceedingly charming guest inquired what she was and was not allowed, and listened to the epic of her malady, referring to the variants and interpreting with great acuity the most recent distortions of the text.