Набоков Владимир - Conversation Piece, 1945

that one could distinguish the specks of dandruff on the collar
of his dinner jacket and admire the whiteness of his clasped
hands, one of which I had found to be incredibly limp and
moist. He was the type of fellow whose weak chin, hollow
cheeks, and unhappy Adam`s apple reveal, a couple of hours
after shaving, when the humble talcum powder has worn off, a
complex system of pink blotches overlaid with a stipple of
bluish gray. He wore a crested ring, and for some odd reason I
recalled a swarthy Russian girl in New York who was so troubled
by the possibility of being mistaken for her notion of a Jewess
that she used to wear a cross upon her throat, although she had
as little religion as brains. The speaker`s English was
admirably fluent, but the hard "djair" in his
pronunciation of "Germany" and the persistently recurring
epithet "wonderful," the first syllable of which sounded like
"wan, -"proclaimed his Teutonic origin. He was, or had
been, or was to become, a professor of German, or music, or
both, somewhere in the Middle West, but I did not catch his
name and so shall call him Dr. Shoe.
"Naturally he was mad!" exclaimed Dr. Shoe in
answer to something one of the ladies had asked. "Look, only a
madman could have messed up the war the way he did. And I
certainly hope, as you do, that before long, if he should turn
out to be alive, he will be safely interned in a sanatorium
somewhere in a neutral country. He has earned it. It was
madness to attack Russia instead of invading England. It was
madness to think that the war with Japan would prevent
Roosevelt from participating` energetically in European
affairs. The worst madman is the one who fails to consider the
possibility of somebody else`s being mad too."
"One cannot help feeling," said a fat little lady called,
I think, Mrs. Mulberry, "that thousands of our boys who have
been killed in the Pacific would still be alive if all those
planes and tanks we gave England and Russia had been used to
destroy Japan."
"Exactly," said Dr. Shoe. "And that was Adolf Hitler`s
mistake. Being mad, he failed to take into account the scheming
of irresponsible politicians. Being mad, he believed that other
governments would act in accordance with the principles of
mercy and common sense."
"I always think of Prometheus," said Mrs. Hall.
"Prometheus, who stole fire and was blinded by the angry gods."
An old lady in a bright blue dress, who sat knitting in a
corner, asked Dr. Shoe to explain why the Germans had not risen
against Hitler.
Dr. Shoe lowered his eyelids for a moment. "The answer is
a terrible one," he said with an effort. "As you know, I am
German myself, of pure Bavarian stock, though a loyal citizen
of this country. And nevertheless, I am going to say something
very terrible about my former countrymen. Germans"-- the
soft-lashed eyes were half-closed again-- "Germans are
dreamers."
By this time, of course, I had fully realized that Mrs.
Hall`s Mrs. Sharp was as totally distinct from my Mrs. Sharp as
I was from my namesake. The nightmare into which I had been
propelled would probably have struck him as a cozy evening with
kindred souls, and Dr. Shoe might have seemed to him a most
intelligent and brilliant causeur. Timidity, and perhaps
morbid curiosity, kept me from leaving the room. Moreover, when
I get excited, I stammer so badly that any attempt on my part
to tell Dr. Shoe what I thought of him would have sounded like
the explosions of a motorcycle which refuses to start on a
frosty night in an intolerant suburban lane. I looked around,
trying to convince myself that these were real people and not a
Punch-and-Judy show.
None of the women were pretty; all had reached or
overreached forty-five. All, one could be certain, belonged to
book clubs, bridge clubs, babble clubs, and to the great, cold
sorority of inevitable death. All looked cheerflilly sterile.
Possibly some of them had had children, but how they had
produced them was now a forgotten mystery; many had found
substitutes for creative power in various aesthetic pursuits,
such as, for instance, the beautifying of committee rooms. As I
glanced at the one sitting next to me, an intense-looking lady
with a freckled neck, I knew that, while patchily listening to
Dr. Shoe, she was, in all probability, worrying about a bit of
decoration having to do with some social event or wartime
entertainment the exact nature of which I could not determine.
But I did know how badly she needed that additional touch.
Something in the middle of the table, she was thinking. I need
something that would make people gasp-- perhaps a great big
huge bowl of artificial fruit. Not the wax kind, of course.
Something nicely marbleized.
It is most regrettable that I did not fix the ladies`
names in my mind when I was introduced to them. Two willowy,
interchangeable maiden ladies on hard chairs had names
beginning with W, and, of the others, one was certainly
called Miss Bissing. This I had heard distinctly, but could not
later connect with any particular face or facelike object.
There was only one other man besides Dr. Shoe and myself. He
turned out to be a compatriot of mine, a Colonel Malikov or
Melnikov; in Mrs. Hall`s rendering it had sounded more like
"Milwaukee."` While some soft, pale drinks were being passed
around, he leaned toward me with a leathery, creaking sound, as
if he wore a harness under his shabby blue suit, and informed
me in a hoarse Russian whisper that he had had the honor of
knowing my esteemed uncle, whom I at once visualized as a ruddy
but unpalatable apple on my namesake`s family tree. Dr. Shoe,
however, was becoming eloquent again, and the Colonel
straightened up, revealing a broken yellow tusk in his