Part 47 (1/2)

A FORGOTTEN POET.

”A Forgotten Poet” is from Nabokov's Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).

TIME AND EBB.

”Time and Ebb” is from Nabokov's Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).

CONVERSATION PIECE, 1945.

”Conversation Piece, 1945” is from Nabokov's Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).

SIGNS AND SYMBOLS.

”Signs and Symbols” is from Nabokov's Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).

FIRST LOVE.

”First Love” is from Nabokov's Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).

SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF A DOUBLE MONSTER.

”Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster” is from Nabokov's Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).

THE VANE SISTERS.

Written in Ithaca, New York, in February 1951. First published in the Hudson Review, New York, Winter 1959, and in Encounter, London, March 1959. Reprinted in the collection Nabokov's Quartet, Phaedra, New York, 1966.

In this story the narrator is supposed to be unaware that his last paragraph has been used acrostically by two dead girls to a.s.sert their mysterious partic.i.p.ation in the story. This particular trick can be tried only once in a thousand years of fiction. Whether it has come off is another question.

V.N., Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories, 1975

LANCE.

”Lance” is from Nabokov's Dozen, 1958 (see Appendix).

EASTER RAIN.

”Easter Rain” was published in the April 1925 issue of the Russian emigre magazine Russkoe Ekho, the only known extant copy of which was discovered in the 1990s. It was translated by Dmitri Nabokov and Peter Constantine.

THE WORD.