Nabokov teaching his Wellesley Russian language class
“Do you know the Russian word for ‘nice’? No? Surely we learned it last time.”
Whatever the word is, no matter how obscure, he is always sure we learned it last time.
“Then I shall tell you. It’s m-ee-la. Lovely word, meela. Beautiful word.”…
After reading the simple, English sentences in dramatic, dashing tone, he follows them with remarks in an undertone, such as,
“How am I supposed to know ‘Where is the book?”
Later he announces,
“And now we come to the saddest story ever told, ‘She is here. He is there.”…
He asks us to read aloud in Russian—“Aloud” proves to be three brave souls muttering under their breath in a confused jumble. After the sentence has fallen, mutilated, he sighs rapturously,
“So good to hear Russian spoken again! I am practically back in Moscow.”…
“I have now something very sad to tell you. We have, in Russian, what we call the instrumental case, and it has different endings that one must memorize. But,” he adds cheerfully and soothingly, “after you have learned those, you will know practically all there is to know about Russian.”
He says that in the Midwest when he is hiking along looking for specimens, every car that goes by screeches to a stop and asks him if he wants a ride.
“Obviously all they want to know is what the devil I am doing with a butterfly net! And in Arizona,” he goes on, “a horse, a total stranger, followed me for five miles. Then in New Mexico I was nearly arrested because I painted a farmer’s trees with sugar to attract a certain type of moth.”
When asked if the people in Europe acted any differently, he replied, “Oh, they are much politer. The peasants pay no attention to me when I pass. But if I look back, I always see them, staring after me rooted to the spot. Old men with hoes balanced on their shoulders, and little children with their fingers in their mouths, wide-eyed and motionless. Really amusing—very amusing.”
He has a habit of repeating the last phrase of sentences. Words fascinate him and he cannot bear to part with them after one utterance. Once he heard someone say that since he had no flashlight, he should have to “stumble and bumble’’ along in the dark. He chanted “stumble and bumble” over and over, delighted with the new sound. He listens carefully to our American slang and snaps at an unfamiliar term. If he likes it, the reward is “Very good. Yes. Very good.”
* “Alias V. Sirin: A Sketch About Wellesley’s Russian Author,” We [Wellesley College] 1, no. 2 (Dec. 1943), 5–7.