Vladimir Nabokov. Perfección
Vladimir Nabokov. PERFECTION
Look about you: you'll presently see the rarest of birds fly past, Prince Albert's paradise bird, whose head is adorned with a pair of long plumes consisting of blue oriflammes." "Ach, quatsch," responded David dejectedly.
"In Russian you ought to say 'erundd.} Of course, it's nonsense, we are not in the mountains of New Guinea. But the point is that with a bit of imagination—if, God forbid, you were someday to go blind or be imprisoned, or were merely forced to perform, in appalling poverty, some hopeless, distasteful task, yo