"Christmas" by V. Nabokov
written in 1924, published in 1925
Здравствуй. Today I’d like to share with you one святочный рассказ [= a Christmas short story], which isn’t quite ordinary one, written in the XX century. Having read the Christmas story, you expect to find ethical problems, external conflicts and a pretty clear plot. However in Nabokov’s story, you hardly find anything like that, because for the author, it was important to reveal internal emotional state and development of a character.
“Рождество” is the title and I offer you to open it up here and read it all along some comments I marked down here for you.
“он толково, ласково поддерживает тебя” — he comforts/supports you wisely and gently
“ты, пошатываясь, стучишь зубами” — you are reeling <from grief>, your teeth chattering.
Also we use it in such a context, “ты что стучишь зубами? Тебе холодно?”“в наклонённом зеркале отразилось его освещённое ухо и седой ёж” — a tilted mirror reflected his lit ear and cropped gray hair.
“Седой ёж” — literally would mean “an aged hedgehog” but the writer decided to highlight how close-cropped his hair is there“сурово затосковав” — “intense sadness”.
Затосковав —> затосковать —> за+тоск+ов+ть
“За” prefix means a start of the action which the verb means.
“Тосковать” — to long for something/somebody. This is a Russian gerund or an adverbial participle.“я ведь никогда не узнаю” — I’ll never know …
Here I’d like you to stop and make up 2-3 sentences with “никогда не”, a double negative.
Nabokov’s novel written in modernism style: the open ending detail takes place.
What do you think about the meaning of the story? The fundamental idea, I mean. Here is a tad hint for you: Sleptsov repeated it a few times in the end. It’s interesting, how Nabokov decided to point out the feelings and a new state of the main character through his family name. Слепцов —> слепой [= blind].
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It means one cup of good herbal tea with a taste of sympathy to me.
By the way, I’ve scattered a few links over the text, one is in Russian and another is in an English translation. So you may check out yourself how much you comprehended.
До следующего письма!