The Christmas Story

[Dave Monroe]

The Christmas Story
By Vladimir Nabokov
November 16, 1995
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1722

Silence fell. Pitilessly illuminated by the lamplight,
young and plump-faced, wearing a side-buttoned Russian
blouse under his black jacket, his eyes tensely
downcast, Anton Goliy began gathering the manuscript
pages that he had discarded helter-skelter during his
reading. His mentor, the critic from Red Reality,
stared at the floor as he patted his pockets in search
of some matches. The writer Novodvortsev was silent
too, but his was a different, venerable, silence.
Wearing a substantial pince-nez, exceptionally large
of
forehead, two strands of his sparse dark hair pulled
across his bald pate, gray streaks on his
close-cropped temples, he sat with closed eyes as if
he were still listening, his heavy legs crossed and
one hand compressed between a kneecap and a hamstring.
This was not the first time he had been subjected to
such glum, earnest rustic fictionists.

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