A Quick Nabokovian Interlude
Excerpt from a biography of Vera Nabokov:
Vera Nabokov attended every one of her husband’s classroom lectures; and Vladimir’s students came up with various speculations as to the reason:
* Mrs. Nabokov was there to remind us we were in the presence of greatness, and should not abuse that privilege with our inattention.
* Nabokov had a heart condition, and she was at hand with a phial of medicine to jump up at a moment’s notice.
* That wasn’t his wife, that was his mother.
* She was there because Nabokov was allergic to chalk dust, and because he didn’t like his handwriting.
* To shoo away the coeds.
* Because she was his encyclopedia, if he ever forgot anything.
* Because he had no idea what was going to come out of his mouth– and no memory of it after he did– so she had to write it all down so that he would remember what to ask on exams.
* He was blind, and she was his Seeing Eye dog, which explained why they always arrived arm in arm.
* She was intended as living proof that he had a fan club.
* She graded his performance, in order to review it with him in the evenings.
* She had a gun in her purse, and was there to defend him.
* We all knew that she was a ventriloquist.
