Vladimir Nabokov. Mademoiselle O : Клуб изучающих испанский языкVladimir Nabokov. Mademoiselle O
Vladimir Nabokov. MADEMOISELLE O
to swagger while the familiar axe is coming out of its great velvet-lined case, initially I had no such com fort or defense: I had nothing—save a door left slightly ajar into Ma demoiselle's room. Its vertical line of meek light was something 1 could cling to, since in absolute darkness my head would swim, just as the soul dissolves in the blackness of sleep.
Saturday night used to be a pleasurable prospect because that was the night Mademoiselle indulged in the luxury of a weekly bath, thus granting a longer lease to my tenuous gleam. But then a subtler tor ture set in. The nursery bathroom in our St. Petersburg house was at the end of a Z-shaped corridor some twenty heartbeats' di