Онлайн книга «Бледный огонь»
Tennis, or badminton. Less starch, more fruit! She may not be a beauty, but she's cute.» It was no use, no use. The prizes won In French and history, no doubt, were fun; At Christmas parties games were rough, no doubt, And one shy little guest might be left out; But let's be fair: while children of her age [310] Were cast as elves and fairies on the stage That she'd helped paint for the school pantomime, My gentle girl appeared as Mother Time, A bent charwoman with a slop pail and broom, And like a fool I sobbed in the men's room. Another winter was scrape-scooped away. The Toothwort White haunted our woods in May. Summer was power-mowed, and autumn, burned. Alas, the dingy cygnet never turned Into a wood duck. And again your voice: [320] «But this is prejudice! You should rejoice That she is innocent. Why overstress The physical? She wants to look a mess. Virgins have written some resplendent books. Lovemaking is not everything. Good looks Are not that indispensable!» And still Old Pan would call from every painted hill, And still the demons of our pity spoke: No lips would share the lipstick of her smoke; The telephone that rang before a ball [330] Every two minutes in Sorosa Hall For her would never ring; and, with a great Screeching of tires on gravel, to the gate Out of lacquered night, a white-scarfed beau Would never come for her; she'd never go, A dream of gauze and jasmine, to that dance. We sent her, though, to a château in France. And she returned in tears, with new defeats, New miseries. On days when all the streets Of College Town led to the game, she'd sit [340] On the library steps, and read or knit; Mostly alone she'd be, or with that nice Frail roommate, now a nun; and, once or twice, With a Korean boy who took my course. She had strange fears, strange fantasies, strange force Of character — as when she spent three nights Investigating certain sounds and lights In an old barn. She twisted words: pot, top, Spider, redips. And «powder» was «red wop.» She called you a didactic katydid. [350] She hardly ever smiled, and when she did, It was a sign of pain. She'd criticize Ferociously our projects, and with eyes Expressionless sit on her tumbled bed Spreading her swollen feet, scratching her head With psoriatic fingernails, and moan, Murmuring dreadful words in monotone. She was my darling: difficult, morose — But still my darling. You remember those Almost unruffled evenings when we played [360] Mah-jongg, or she tried on your furs, which made Her almost fetching; and the mirrors smiled, The lights were merciful, the shadows mild. Sometimes I'd help her with a Latin text, Or she'd be reading in her bedroom, next To my fluorescent lair, and you would be In your own study, twice removed from me, And I would hear both voices now and then: «Mother, what's grimpen?» «What is what?» «Grim Pen.» Pause, and your guarded scholium. Then again: [370] «Mother, what's chtonic?» That, too, you'd explain, Appending: «Would you like a tangerine?» «No. Yes. And what does sempiternal mean?» You'd hesitate. And lustily I'd roar The answer from my desk through the closed door. It does not matter what it was she read (some phony modern poem that was said In English Lit to be a document «Engazhay and compelling» — what this meant Nobody cared); the point is that the three [380] Chambers, then bound by you and her and me, Now form a tryptich or a three-act play In which portrayed events forever stay. I think she always nursed a small mad hope. I'd finished recently my book on Pope. Jane Dean, my typist, offered her one day To meet Pete Dean, a cousin. Jane's fiancé Would then take all of them in his new car A score of miles to a Hawaiian bar. The boy was picked up at a quarter past [390] Eight in New Wye. Sleet glazed the roads. At last They found the place — when suddenly Pete Dean Clutching his brow exclaimed that he had clean Forgotten an appointment with a chum Who'd land in jail if he, Pete, did not come, Et cetera. She said she understood. After he'd gone the three young people stood Before the azure entrance for awhile. Puddles were neon-barred; and with a smile She said she'd be de trop, she'd much prefer [400] Just going home. Her friends escorted her To the bus stop and left; but she, instead Of riding home, got off at Lochanhead. You scrutinized your wrist: «It's eight fifteen. [And here time forked.] I'll turn it on.» The screen In its blank broth evolved a lifelike blur, And music welled. He took one look at her, And shot a death ray at well-meaning Jane. A male hand traced from Florida to Maine |