;« / CHRONICLESnelaborate set of electric trains. He readily admitted it. “Inhave no general ideas to exploit,” he once said, “I just likencomposing riddles with elegant solutions.” And here, it isnnot the words “general ideas” which should alert us (afternall, what great writer except, perhaps, the later Tolstoynwould openly proclaim his concern for “general ideas”) butnthe word “riddles.” Because there is no important masternwho so proudly (and sincerely!) would declare his preoccupationnwith riddles to be the major thrust of his creativeneffort. And it is precisely this riddle-ridden texture ofnNabokov’s prose which is the source of both its charm andnits weakness.n”I think,” Nabokov wrote, “that the meaning of thenwriter’s art lies in this: to portray ordinary things as they willnbe reflected in the flattering mirrors of future times, to findnin them that fragrant tenderness which our descendants willnfeel in those far-off days when every trifle of our daily lifenwill become in itself beautiful and festive, in those daysnwhen a person who has put on the very plainest sort ofnjacket that we wear today will be at once attired for ancountry masquerade.”nThis jacket of Nabokov’s, in some nostalgic, melancholicnand, I dare say, slightly amateurish way, reminds one of thenelegant jackets and exquisite neckties Nabokov’s dashingnfather liked to wear in the Duma—Russia’s embryonicnParliament—where he, a Duma deputy and brilliant politicalnamateur, gave long, fiery, but irrelevant speeches, whilenthe Bolsheviks — those hard-faced professionals — were diggingntrenches under the edifice of the Russian Empire.nThe linguistic games Nabokov plays are, in a way, like thengames played by the small boy Kay from H.C. Andersen’sntale The Snow Queen—the endless games which consistednof assembling intricate sentences from pieces of ice.nPerhaps the most striking contrast to Nabokov’s fiction isnthe prose of the writer Nabokov-the-critic admired sonmuch—Anton Chekhov. In Chekhov’s stories (not hisnplays, which are weaker) even the most extravagant andnunusual seems absolutely natural, while in Nabokov’s, thenmost usual and mundane often seems heavily contrived.nThus in his short story Christmas a father is sitting in thenroom of his recently deceased son. Shattered, depressed, hensorts out his son’s things, when suddenly he hears a strangensound. His son had been a lepidopterist and now one of thencocoons in his collection hatches, and a beautiful butterflynemerges, flapping its wings.nHow incomparably more moving the same idea of deathnovercome is expressed in Nabokov’s letter to his mother!nOr his short story Bachman, about a liaison between anneurotic pianist Bachman and a lame married woman,nPerova. When their platonic liaison is finally consummatednphysically, Perova dies. The story concludes with thenfollowing author’s {Nabokov’s) comments: “I think this wasnthe sole happy night in the whole of Perova’s life. I thinknthat these two, a semi-demented musician and a dyingnwoman, discovered during this night words which thengreatest poets of the world have not dreamt of” A passagenlike this speaks for itself. One can only add that reading it,none wants to crawl under his chair.nBut these are Nabokov’s short stories. In his novels,nwhere he has more “space,” Nabokov’s real voice could benheard more often. Thus, in Pnin, whenever Nabokov speaksnnnabout something which truly touches him, all the forcednhumor, all the parochialism of an emigre novel, all “riddles”nand literary “chess problems” suddenly disappear, and hisnvoice once again sounds natural and transparent. And younimmediately forgive him the neurotic pianist Bachman andna married woman Perova for one sentence when he speaksnabout Pnin’s first sweetheart — Mira Belochkin.n”In order to exist rationally, Pnin had taught himself,nduring the last ten years, never to remember MiranBelochkin . . . because one could not live with the thoughtnthat this graceful, fragile, tender woman with those eyes,nthat smile, those gardens and snows in the background, hadnbeen brought in a cattle car to an extermination camp.”nAnd when in a sentence like this Nabokov includes a littlenwordplay, naming the girl Belochkin (which phonetically isnvery tender to a Russian ear, and which also means a littlensquirrel), then all “those gardens and snows in the background”nacquire a still additional dimension.nAn interviewer once observed that whenever he mentionednto Nabokov Nazism and Nazi atrocities, Nabokovnreacted very emotionally. “I will go to those German campsnand look at those places and write a terrible, terriblenindictment!” he exclaimed passionately. Nazism and Nazinatrocities touched and disturbed Nabokov immensely. Butnwhat separated him from many other Western intellectualsnwas that he felt exactly the same about Communism andnCommunist atrocities. He saw no real distinction betweennNazism and Communism. Subscribing fully to Orwell’sndictum that people who claim there is a substantial differencenbetween Nazism and Communism most often are innsympathy with either one or the other, and that only thosenwho realize that there is no difference between the two arenready to stand against both, Nabokov, the true humanist,nstood firmly against both.nAt Wellesley College, where he taught off and onnbetween 1940 and 1947, Nabokov openly expressed hisnfeelings toward Stalinism, which prompted the collegenpresident—a certain Miss McAffee — to order him “not tonmake these remarks about Soviet Russia.” Nabokov refused,nwhich contributed significantly to his financial hardship and,neventually, cost him his teaching job at Wellesley, where, asnhe recalled, he “was happiest of all.”nAll his life—from his first emigre days in Berlin to hisncelebrity years in Switzerland—Nabokov never changed hisnattitude toward the Soviet Union. Unlike many Westernnintellectuals of Russian descent, he didn’t change it when, atnthe beginning of the Second World War, the Soviets werenlosing to the Nazis; and he didn’t change it later, and alwaysnrebutted them, when, at the peak of Brezhnev’s detente,nthey were making overtures toward him and tried to invitenhim to visit the Soviet State. “More vodochka (diminutivenfor vodka) dear Vladimir Vladimirovich?” Nabokov wouldnmock an imaginary KGB operative who, pretending to be anwriter (actually, there are quite a few of those in the SovietnUnion who are both, and it is hard to say which one is theirnhobby — writing or KGB work) would try to make himndrunk at some party thrown in Nabokov’s honor in Moscownor in Leningrad.nIn the West, Nabokov’s unwavering resentment of thenSoviet State, as one critic noted, “won him few friends innour literary establishment.” Some attempted to educaten