Vladimir Nabokov. Mademoiselle O
Vladimir Nabokov. MADEMOISELLE O
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A kerosene lamp is steered into the gloaming. Gently it floats and comes down; the hand of memory, now in a footman's white cotton glove, places it in the center of a round table. The flame is nicely ad justed, and a rosy, silk-flounced lamp shade crowns the light. Revealed a warm, bright room in a snow-muffled house—soon to be termed "le chateau"—built by my great-grandfather, who, being afraid of fin, had the staircase made of iron, so that when the house did get burnt to the ground, sometime after the Soviet Revolution, those fretted s