The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov Read Online Free Page A

Martin. “They say, for example, that women scratch the plaster off the walls in prison and use it to powder their faces, necks, or whatever.” In confirmation of his words he fetched from his bedroom a thick tome by a German criminologist and located in it a chapter about the routine of prison life. I tried changing the subject, but, no matter what theme I selected, Martin steered it with artful convolutions so that suddenly we would find ourselves discussing the humaneness of life imprisonment as opposed to execution, or the ingenious methods invented by criminals to break out into the free world.
    I was puzzled. Petya, who loved anything mechanical, was picking with a penknife at the springs of his watch and chuckling to himself. His mother worked at her needlepoint, now and then nudging the toast or the jam toward me. Martin, clutching his disheveled beard with all five fingers, gave me a sidelong flash of his tawny eye, and suddenly something within him let go. He banged the palm of his hand on the table and turned to his son. “I can’t stand it any longer, Petya—I’m going to tell him everything before I burst.” Petya nodded silently. Martin’s wife was getting up to go to the kitchen. “What a chatterbox you are,” she said, shaking her head indulgently. Martin placed his hand on my shoulder, gave me such a shake that, had I been an apple tree in the garden, the apples would literally have come tumbling off me, and glanced into my face. “I’m warning you,” he said. “I’m about to tell you such a secret, such a secret … that I just don’t know. Mind you—mum’s the word! Understand?”
    And, leaning close to me, bathing me in the odor of tobacco and his own pungent old-man smell, Martin told me a truly remarkable tale.
    “It happened,” began Martin, “shortly after your departure. In walked a customer. He had obviously not noticed the sign in the window, for he addressed me in German. Let me emphasize this: if he had noticed the sign he would not have entered a modest émigré shop. I recognized him right off as a Russian by his pronunciation. Had a Russian mug too. I, of course, launched into Russian, asked him what price range, what kind. He gave me a look of disagreeable surprise: ‘What made you think I was Russian?’ I gave him a perfectly friendly answer, as I recall, and began counting out his cigarettes. At that moment Petya entered. When he saw my customer he said with utter calm, ‘Now here’s a pleasant encounter.’ Then my Petya walks up close to him and bangs him on the cheek with his fist. The other froze. As Petya explained to me later, what had happened was not just a knockout with the victim crumpling to the floor, but a special kind of knockout: it turns out Petya had delivered a delayed-action punch, and the man went out on his feet. And looked as if he were sleeping standing up. Then he started slowly tilting back like a tower. Here Petya walked around behind him and caught him under the armpits. It was all highly unexpected. Petya said, ‘Give me a hand, Dad.’ I asked what he thought he was doing. Petya only repeated, ‘Give me a hand.’ I knowmy Petya well—no point in smirking, Petya—and know he has his feet on the ground, ponders his actions, and does not knock people unconscious for nothing. We dragged the unconscious one from the shop into the corridor and on to Petya’s room. Right then I heard a ring—someone had stepped into the shop. Good thing, of course, that it hadn’t happened earlier. Back into the shop I went, made my sale, then, luckily, my wife arrived with the shopping, and I immediately put her to work at the counter while I, without a word, went lickety-split into Petya’s room. The man was lying with eyes closed on the floor, while Petya was sitting at his table, examining in a pensive kind of way certain objects like that large leather cigar case, half a dozen obscene postcards, a wallet, a passport, an old but apparently