Vladimir Nabokov
Having ushered in the morning - a squinty, wretched morning - I started laughing, and had no idea why; perhaps it was simply because I had spent t h e e n t i r e night sitting in a wicker armchair, surrounded by rubbish and shards of plaster of Paris, amid the dust of congealed plasticine, t h i n k i n g o f y o u.
<...>
The day before I had spoken to you on the phone. It was I who had given in and called. We agreed to meet today at the Brandenburg Gate. Your voice, through the beelike hum, was r e m o t e a n d a n x i o u s. It kept s l i d i n g into the d i s t a n c e and v a n i s h i n g . I spoke to you with rightly shut eyes, and felt like crying. My love for you was t h e t h r o b b i n g, welling w a r m t h of tears. That is exactly how I imagined paradise: s i l e n c e a n d t e a r s, and the warm silk of your knees. This you c o u l d n o t c o m p r e h e n d.
<...>
I waited for you under an oppressive vault, between c h i l l y columns, near the grate of the guardhouse window. P e o p l e e v e r y w h e r e: Berlin clerks were leaving their offices, ill-shaven, each with a briefcase under his arm and, in his eyes, the turbid nausea that comes when you smoke a bad cigar on an empty stomach - their weary, predatory faces, their high starched collars, Bashed by endlessly; a woman passed with a red straw hat and a gray karakul coat; then a youth in velvet pants buttoned under the knees; and others still.
<...>
Here I became a w a r e of the world’s tenderness, the profound beneficence of a l l t h a t s u r r o u n d e d m e , the blissful bond between me and all of creation, and I realized that the joy I had sought in you was not only secreted within you, but breathed around me everywhere, in the speeding street sounds, in the hem of a comically lifted skirt, in the metallic yet tender drone of the wind, in the autumn clouds bloated with rain. I realized that the world does not represent a struggle at all, or a predaceous sequence of chance events, but shimmering bliss, beneficent trepidation, a gift bestowed on us and unappreciated.
<...>
knock, knock, knock...
<...>
The day before I had spoken to you on the phone. It was I who had given in and called. We agreed to meet today at the Brandenburg Gate. Your voice, through the beelike hum, was r e m o t e a n d a n x i o u s. It kept s l i d i n g into the d i s t a n c e and v a n i s h i n g . I spoke to you with rightly shut eyes, and felt like crying. My love for you was t h e t h r o b b i n g, welling w a r m t h of tears. That is exactly how I imagined paradise: s i l e n c e a n d t e a r s, and the warm silk of your knees. This you c o u l d n o t c o m p r e h e n d.
<...>
I waited for you under an oppressive vault, between c h i l l y columns, near the grate of the guardhouse window. P e o p l e e v e r y w h e r e: Berlin clerks were leaving their offices, ill-shaven, each with a briefcase under his arm and, in his eyes, the turbid nausea that comes when you smoke a bad cigar on an empty stomach - their weary, predatory faces, their high starched collars, Bashed by endlessly; a woman passed with a red straw hat and a gray karakul coat; then a youth in velvet pants buttoned under the knees; and others still.
<...>
Here I became a w a r e of the world’s tenderness, the profound beneficence of a l l t h a t s u r r o u n d e d m e , the blissful bond between me and all of creation, and I realized that the joy I had sought in you was not only secreted within you, but breathed around me everywhere, in the speeding street sounds, in the hem of a comically lifted skirt, in the metallic yet tender drone of the wind, in the autumn clouds bloated with rain. I realized that the world does not represent a struggle at all, or a predaceous sequence of chance events, but shimmering bliss, beneficent trepidation, a gift bestowed on us and unappreciated.
<...>
knock, knock, knock...