Herring-Hawker's Cry

I have never derived the least joy from my legs. In fact I strongly object to the bipedal condition. The fatter and wiser I grew the more I abominated the task of grappling with long drawers, trousers and pyjama pants. Had I been able to bear the stink and stickiness of my own unwashed body I would have slept with all my clothes on and had valets—preferably with some experience in the tailoring of corpses—change me, say, once a week. But then, I also loathe the proximity of valets and the vile touch of their hands. The last one I had was at least clean but he regarded the act of dressing his master as a battle of wits, he was doing his best to turn the wrong outside into the right inside and I undoing his endeavors by working my right foot into my left trouser leg. Our complicated exertions, which to an onlooker might have seemed some sort of exotic wrestling match, would take us from one room to another and end by my sitting on the floor, exhausted and hot, with the bottom of my trousers mis-clothing my heaving abdomen.

Finally, in my sixties, I found the right person to dress and undress me: an old illusionist who is able to go behind a screen in the guise of a cossack and instantly come out at the other end as Uncle Sam. He is tasteless and rude and altogether not a nice person, but he has taught me many a subtle trick such as folding trousers properly and I think I shall keep him despite the fantastic wages the rascal asks.

(Nabokov, The Original of Laura (Knopf, 2009), 255-61. Editorial brackets around added punctuation/spelling corrections removed.)

Posted March 4, 2010 at 11:44am || home

Comments