Read Online Despair by Vladimir Nabokov - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Vladimir Nabokov
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leaves it and continues north alone, straight to the village of Waldau (the nail of my left thumb). Thrice a day there is a bus plying between Koenigsdorf and Waldau (seventeen kilometers); and it is at Waldau, by the bye, that the center of the land-selling enterprise is situated; a gaily painted pavilion, a fancy flag flapping, numerous yellow signposts: one, for instance, points “to the bathing beach,” but there is yet no beach to speak of—only a bog on the lip of the Waldau lake; another points “to the casino,” but the latter is likewise absent, though represented by something looking like a tabernacle, with an incipient coffee stall; still another sign invites you “to the sports ground,” and sure enough you find there, newly erected, a complicated affair for gymnastics, rather like gallows, but there is nobody who might use the thing, apart from some village urchin swinging head downward and showing the patch on his bottom; and all around, in every direction, lie the lots; some of them are half sold and on Sundays you see fat men in bathing suits and horn-rimmed glasses sternly engaged in building rudimentary bungalows; here and there you may even see flowers freshly planted, or else a pink privy enlaced with climbing roses.
We shall, however, not go as far as Waldau either, but leave the bus on the tenth kilometer from Koenigsdorf, at a point where a solitary yellow post stands on our right. On the east side of the highway the map shows a vast space all dotted over: it is the forest; there, in its very heart, lies the small lake we bathed in, with, on its western bank, spread fanwise like playing cards, a dozen allotments, only one of which is sold (Ardalion’s—if you can call it sold).
We are now getting to the exciting part. Mention has already been made of the station of Eichenberg which comes after Koenigsdorf when you travel east. Now comes a technical question: can a person starting from the neighborhood of Ardalion’s lake reach Eichenberg on foot? The answer is: yes. We should go round the southern side of the lake and then bear east through the wood. After a four-kilometer walk, keeping in the wood all the time, we come out to a rustic lane, one end of which leads no matter where, to hamlets we need not bother about, while the other brings us to Eichenberg.
My life is all mangled and messed, but here I am clowning away, juggling with bright little descriptions, playing on the cosy pronoun “we,” winking at the tourist, the cottage owner, the lover of Nature, that picturesque hash of greens and blues. But be patient with me, my reader. The walk we shall presently take will be your rich reward. These conversations with readers are quite silly too. Stage asides. The eloquent hiss: “Soft now! Someone is coming.…”
That walk. I was dropped by the bus at the yellow post. The bus resumed its course taking away from me three old women in polka-dotted black; a fellow wearing a velvet waistcoat, with a scythe wrapped in sackcloth; a small girl with a large parcel; and a man in an overcoat despite the heat, with a heavy-looking traveling bag on his knees: probably a veterinary surgeon.
Among the spurge and scutch-grass I found traces of tires—the tires of my car which had bumped and bounced here several times, during the trips we had made. I wore plus fours, or as Germans call them: “knickerbockers” (the “k” is sounded). I entered the wood. I stopped at the exact spot where I and my wife had once waited for Ardalion. I smokeda cigarette there. I looked at the little puff of smoke that slowly stretched out in midair, was folded by ghostly fingers, and melted away. I felt a spasm in my throat. I went on to the lake and noticed, on the sand, a crumpled black and orange scrap of film wrap (Lydia had been snapping us). I went round the lake on its south side and then straight east through the thick pine wood.
After an hour’s stroll I came out on the country road. I took it and in
We shall, however, not go as far as Waldau either, but leave the bus on the tenth kilometer from Koenigsdorf, at a point where a solitary yellow post stands on our right. On the east side of the highway the map shows a vast space all dotted over: it is the forest; there, in its very heart, lies the small lake we bathed in, with, on its western bank, spread fanwise like playing cards, a dozen allotments, only one of which is sold (Ardalion’s—if you can call it sold).
We are now getting to the exciting part. Mention has already been made of the station of Eichenberg which comes after Koenigsdorf when you travel east. Now comes a technical question: can a person starting from the neighborhood of Ardalion’s lake reach Eichenberg on foot? The answer is: yes. We should go round the southern side of the lake and then bear east through the wood. After a four-kilometer walk, keeping in the wood all the time, we come out to a rustic lane, one end of which leads no matter where, to hamlets we need not bother about, while the other brings us to Eichenberg.
My life is all mangled and messed, but here I am clowning away, juggling with bright little descriptions, playing on the cosy pronoun “we,” winking at the tourist, the cottage owner, the lover of Nature, that picturesque hash of greens and blues. But be patient with me, my reader. The walk we shall presently take will be your rich reward. These conversations with readers are quite silly too. Stage asides. The eloquent hiss: “Soft now! Someone is coming.…”
That walk. I was dropped by the bus at the yellow post. The bus resumed its course taking away from me three old women in polka-dotted black; a fellow wearing a velvet waistcoat, with a scythe wrapped in sackcloth; a small girl with a large parcel; and a man in an overcoat despite the heat, with a heavy-looking traveling bag on his knees: probably a veterinary surgeon.
Among the spurge and scutch-grass I found traces of tires—the tires of my car which had bumped and bounced here several times, during the trips we had made. I wore plus fours, or as Germans call them: “knickerbockers” (the “k” is sounded). I entered the wood. I stopped at the exact spot where I and my wife had once waited for Ardalion. I smokeda cigarette there. I looked at the little puff of smoke that slowly stretched out in midair, was folded by ghostly fingers, and melted away. I felt a spasm in my throat. I went on to the lake and noticed, on the sand, a crumpled black and orange scrap of film wrap (Lydia had been snapping us). I went round the lake on its south side and then straight east through the thick pine wood.
After an hour’s stroll I came out on the country road. I took it and in
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