Vladimir Nabokov. Una mala noticia
Vladimir Nabokov. BREAKING THE NEWS
His wife wept, smoked, scraped her head through her sparse gray hair, telephoned the Lipshteyns, Lenochka, Dr. Orshanski—and could not make herself go to Eugenia Isakovna first. Their lodger, a woman pianist with a pince-nez, big-bosomed, very compassionate and experienced, advised the Chernobylskis not to hurry too much with the telling—"All the same there will be that blow, so let it be later."
"But on the other hand," cried Chernobylski hysterically, "neither can one postpone it!