Fun with Nabokov
It's hard for me to believe that when I took this book from the to-be-read stack last summer, I got 32 pages into it and decided I hated everything about it. Well, I did love the way it was written, and could see the delight in well-turned, humorous phrasing, but I didn't like any of the characters, and that's death in a book for me.
But this winter, it's all changed. While Martha and Franz are still horribly naughty little beasts, I positively adore giddy, robust Dreyer! I hated him before? I must have been nuts.
The following passage--about a mannequin in Dreyer's haberdashery--amused me on several levels, and since tomorrow is March 1st, I figured I'd post it.
Then he advanced with humorously outstretched hand toward an unresponsive young man of painted wood who had been changed recently into tennis togs. The shopgirls had dubbed him Ronald.
Dreyer stood before the red-sweatered oaf a long time looking with contempt at his posture and olive face, and thinking with a tender excitement about the task which the happy inventor was struggling with. From the way Ronald held his racket it was obvious he could not hit a single ball--even an abstract ball in his world of wood. Ronald's stomach was sucked in, his face bore an expression of inane self-satisfaction. Dreyer noticed with a shock that Ronald was wearing a tie. Encouraging people to wear ties for tennis!
He turned. Another young man (more or less alive, and even wearing glasses) dutifully listened to the boss's brief instructions.
"By the way, Franz," add Dreyer, "show me the very best rackets."
Franz complied. Touched, Piffke watched with a melting gaze from afar. Dreyer selected an English racket, he gave the amber strings a a couple of twangy fillips. He balanced it on the back of his finger to see which was heavier, frame or grip. He swung it in a passable imitation of a good player's backhand drive. It was a comfortable thirteen and a half.
"Keep it in a press," he said to Franz. Emotion clouded the young man's glasses.
"Token of affection, modest gift," said Dreyer in an explanatory patter and, casting an unfriendly last glance at vulgar Ronald, he walked away, with Piffke trotting beside him.
Although strictly speaking it was not at all a part of his job, Franz embraced the wooden corpse and started undoing its tie. As he worked at it, he could not help touching the stiff cold neck. Then he undid a tight button. The shirt collar opened. The dead body was a brownish-green with darker blotches and pale discolorations. Because of the open collar, Ronald's fixed condescending grin became even more caddish and indecent. Ronald had a dark-brown smear under one eye as if he had been punched there. Ronald had a pied chin. Ronald's nostrils were clogged with black dust. Franz tried to recall where he had seen that horrible face before. Yes, of course--long, long ago, in the train. In the same train there had been a beautiful lady wearing a black hat with a little diamond swallow. Cold, fragrant, madonna-like. He tried to resurrect her features in his memory but failed to do so.
*sigh*
I love Nabokov.