Vladimir Nabokov. Bachmann
Bachmann suddenly sensed that everybody was looking at him. He slowly turned his face and, raising his bushy eyebrows, smiled a wonderful, timid smile that made his entire face break out in soft little wrinkles.
The hostess hurried toward him.
"Maestro," she said, "allow me to present another of your admirers, Mme. Perov."
He thrust out a boneless, dampish hand. "Very glad, very glad indeed."
And once again he immersed himself in his newspaper.
Mme. Perov stepped away. Pinkish spots appeared on her cheekbones. The joyous to-and-fro flicker of her black fan, gleaming with jet, made the fair curls on her temples flutter. S