Vladimir Nabokov. En memoria de L. I. Shigaev : Клуб изучающих испанский языкVladimir Nabokov. En memoria de L. I. Shigaev
Vladimir Nabokov. IN MEMORY OF L. I. SHIGAEV
surely fashion, their sticky bellies crepitating and smacking against the wood, made their way up the desk legs, in a parody of climbing sailors. I tried smearing their route with Vaseline but this did not help, and only when I happened to select some particularly appetizing little rotter, intently clambering upward, and swatted him with the whip or with my shoe, only then did he fall on the floor with a fat-toad thud; but a minute later there he was again, on his way up from a different corner, his violet tongue hanging out from the strain, and once over the top he would join his comrades. They were numerous, and at first they all seemed alike to me: dark little creatures with puffy, ba