Vladimir Nabokov. Aureliana
He walked awkwardly, with a slight limp. His legs seemed too thin for his body. Just before the window of his shop he turned into a pas-sage, where there was a door on the right with a brass plate: PAUL PIL-GRAM. This door led into his tiny dingy apartment, which could also be reached by an inner corridor at the back of the shop. Eleanor was usu-ally asleep when he came home on those festive nights. Half a dozen faded photographs of the same clumsy ship, taken from different angles, and of a palm tree that looked as bleak as if it were growing on Helgoland hung in black frames above the double bed