Pnin

'It so happens,' answered Laurence, 'that I have not the least intention to be dropped or otherwise moved anywhere today. Besides, it is highly improbable they will need eight rooms for their reunion.'

Pnin put on his new brown suit (paid for by the Cremona lecture) and, after a hurried lunch at The Egg and We, walked through the snow-patched park to the Waindell bus station, arriving there almost an hour too early. He did not bother to puzzle out why exactly Liza had felt the urgent need to see him on her way back from visiting St Bartholomew's, the preparatory school near Boston that her son would go to next falclass="underline" all he knew was that a flood of happiness foamed and rose behind the invisible barrier that was to burst open any moment now. He met five buses, and in each of them clearly made out Liza waving to him through a window as she and the other passengers started to file out, and then one bus after another was drained and she had not turned up. Suddenly he heard her sonorous voice ('Timofey, zdrastvuy!') behind him, and, wheeling around, saw her emerge from the only Greyhound he had decided would not bring her. What change could our friend discern in her? What change could there be, good God! There she was. She always felt hot and buoyant, no matter the cold, and now her sealskin coat was wide open on her frilled blouse as she hugged Pnin's head and he felt the grapefruit fragrance of her neck, and kept muttering: 'Nu, nu, vot i horosho, nu vot'--mere verbal heart props--and she cried out: 'Oh, he has splendid new teeth!' He helped her into a taxi, her bright diaphanous scarf caught on something, and Pnin slipped on the pavement, and the taximan said 'Easy,' and took her bag from him, and everything had happened before, in this exact sequence.

It was, she told him as they drove up Park Street, a school in the English tradition. No, she did not want to eat anything, she had had a big lunch at Albany. It was a 'very fancy' school--she said this in English--the boys played a kind of indoor tennis with their hands, between walls, and there would be in his form a--(she produced with false nonchalance a well-known American name which meant nothing to Pnin because it was not that of a poet or a president). 'By the way,' interrupted Pnin, ducking and pointing, 'you can just see a corner of the campus from here.' All this was due ('Yes, I see, vizhu, vizhu, kampus kak kampus: The usual kind of thing'), all this, including a scholarship, was due to the influence of Dr Maywood ('You know, Timofey, some day you should write him a word, just a little sign of courtesy'). The Principal, a clergyman, had shown her the trophies Bernard had won there as a boy. Eric of course had wanted Victor to go to a public school but had been overruled. The Reverend Hopper's wife was the niece of an English Earl.

'Here we are. This is my palazzo,' said jocose Pnin, who had not been able to concentrate on her rapid speech.

They entered--and he suddenly felt that this day which he had been looking forward to with such fierce longing was passing much too quickly--was going, going, would be gone in a few minutes. Perhaps, he thought, if she said right away what she wanted of him the day might slow down and be really enjoyed.

'What a gruesome place, kakoy zhutkiy dom,' she said, sitting on the chair near the telephone and taking off her galoshes--such familiar movements! 'Look at that aquarelle with the minarets. They must be terrible people.'

'No,' said Pnin, 'they are my friends.'

'My dear Timofey,' she said, as he escorted her upstairs, 'you have had some pretty awful friends in your time.'

'And here is my room,' said Pnin.

'I think I'll lie on your virgin bed, Timofey. And I'll recite you some verses in a minute. That hellish headache of mine is seeping back again. I felt so splendid all day.'

'I have some aspirin.'

'Uhn-uhn,' she said, and this acquired negative stood out strangely against her native speech.

He turned away as she started to take off her shoes, and the sound they made toppling to the floor reminded him of very old days.

She lay back, black-skirted, white-bloused, brown-haired, with one pink hand over her eyes.

'How is everything with you?' asked Pnin (have her say what she wants of me, quick!) as he sank into the white rocker near the radiator.

'Our work is very interesting,' she said, still shielding her eyes, 'but I must tell you I don't love Eric any more. Our relations have disintegrated. Incidentally, Eric dislikes his child. He says he is the land father and you, Timofey, are the water father.'

Pnin started to laugh: he rolled with laughter, the rather juvenile rocker fairly cracking under him. His eyes were like stars and quite wet.

She looked at him curiously for an instant from under her plump hand--and went on: 'Eric is one hard emotional block in his attitude toward Victor. I don't know how many times the boy must have killed him in his dreams. And, with Eric, verbalization--I have long noticed--confuses problems instead of clarifying them. He is a very difficult person. What is your salary, Timofey?'

He told her.

'Well,' she said, 'it is not grand. But I suppose you can even lay something aside--it is more than enough for your needs, for your microscopic needs, Timofey.'

Her abdomen tightly girdled under the black skirt jumped up two or three times with mute, cosy, good-natured reminiscential irony--and Pnin blew his nose, shaking his head the while, in voluptuous, rapturous mirth.

'Listen to my latest poem,' she said, her hands now along her sides as she lay perfectly straight on her back, and she sang out rhythmically, in long-drawn, deep-voiced tones: 'Ya nadela tyomnoe plat'e, I monashenki ya skromney; Iz slonovoy kosti raspyat'e Nad holodnoy postel'yu moey.

No ogni nebпvalпh orgiy

Prozhigayut moyo zabпtyo

I shepchu ya imya Georgiy--

Zolotoe imya tvoyo!

(I have put on a dark dress

And am more modest than a nun;

An ivory crucifix

Is over my cold bed.

But the lights of fabulous orgies

Burn through my oblivion,

And I whisper the name George--

Your golden name!)'

'He is a very interesting man,' she went on, without any interval. 'Practically English, in fact. He flew a bomber in the war and now he is with a firm of brokers who have no sympathy with him and do not understand him. He comes from an ancient family. His father was a dreamer, had a floating casino, you know, and all that, but was ruined by some Jewish gangsters in Florida and voluntarily went to prison for another man; it is a family of heroes.'

She paused. The silence in the little room was punctuated rather than broken by the throbbing and tinkling in those whitewashed organ pipes.

'I made Eric a complete report,' Liza continued with a sigh. 'And now he keeps assuring me he can cure me if I cooperate. Unfortunately, I am also cooperating with George.'

She pronounced George as in Russian--both g's hard, both e's longish.

'Well, c'est la vie, as Eric so originally says. How can you sleep with that string of cobweb hanging from the ceiling?' She looked at her wrist-watch. 'Goodness, I must catch the bus at four-thirty. You must call a taxi in a minute. I have something to say to you of the utmost importance.'

Here it was coming at last--so late.

She wanted Timofey to lay aside every month a little money for the boy--because she could not ask Bernard Maywood now--and she might die--and Eric did not care what happened--and somebody ought to send the lad a small sum now and then, as if coming from his mother--pocket money, you know--he would be among rich boys. She would write Timofey giving him an address and some more details. Yes--she never doubted that Timofey was a darling ('Nu kakoy zhe tп dushka'). And now where was the bathroom? And would he please telephone for the taxi?