Vladimir Nabokov. Un hombre ocupado : Клуб изучающих испанский языкVladimir Nabokov. Un hombre ocupado
Vladimir Nabokov. A BUSY MAN
the temptation of celebrating his birthday one day earlier, as slyly advised by the imps of the calendar (he was born in the previous century when there were twelve, not thirteen, days between the Old Style and the New, by which he lived now); but he did write to his mother in Pskov asking her to apprise him of the exact hour of his birth. Her reply, however, was rather evasive: "It hap pened at night. I remember being in great pain."
The nineteenth dawned. All morning, his neighbor could be heard walking up and down in his room, displaying unusual agitation, and even running out into the corridor whenever the front-door bell rang, as if he awaited some message. Graf did no