Chapter 10 Section VII

At 5:15 p.m., Joan came home with a bag full of food, two magazines, and three small bags, and found an air express letter from her daughter in the porch mailbox.It had been a little over three weeks since Isabelle had sent her parents a note that she had arrived safely in her husband's hometown after her honeymoon in Arizona.Joan held the crooked packet between her arms, and hurriedly opened the letter.It was a letter full of joy and happiness, and she read it all at once, with a relief and joy in her heart, as if everything danced before her eyes.She felt something hanging on the door, and she couldn't help but be surprised when she looked carefully. It turned out that it was the bunch of keys that Pnin had always regarded as her heart, hanging on the door lock together with a small leather clip.She opened the door with it, and as soon as she was inside she heard a banging sound from the pantry -- cupboards being opened and closed one by one.

She put the bundles on the kitchen sideboard and said to the pantry, "What are you looking for, Timurphy?" He came out from inside, his face was flushed, his eyes were wide open, and she was surprised to find that his face was still stained with tears that hadn't been wiped away. "Jiang (Joan), I'm looking for Whiscus and Su Daste," he said sadly. "No soda, I'm afraid," she replied with sober Anglo-Saxon restraint. "There's plenty of whiskey in that cupboard in the dining room. But I suggest we get some good hot tea." He made a Russian "give up" gesture.

"No, I don't really want anything to drink," he said with a long sigh, taking a seat at the kitchen table. She sat down beside him and opened a magazine she had bought. "Then let's take a look at the pictures, Timofey." "I don't want to watch it, Jiang. You know I've never been able to figure out what is and isn't an advertisement in it." "You rest, Timofey, let me tell you. Look, I like this one. Oh, it's wonderful, here's the combination of two concepts-the desert island and the girl in the smoke. You Look, Timofey—take a look,'—he had no choice but to put on his reading spectacles—"this is a deserted island with only one palm tree, Raft, here's a shipwrecked sailor, here's a kitten from the boat he saved, and here, on that rock—"

"Impossible," Pnin said. "A tiny island, with palm trees, can't exist in an ocean that big." "But it does exist here." "Insufferable loneliness," said Pnin. "Yes, but—really, you're being unfair, Timofey. You know you agree with Lauer that the field of thought is founded on a basis consistent with logic." "I have reservations about that," said Pnin, "in the first place, logic itself—" "Well, we're going too far out of our fun business. Now, look at this picture. Here's the sailor, and here's the cat, and here's a loafing and rather sad mermaid, And look at the smoke rising above the sailor and the cat."

"Let the atomic bomb go off," Pnin said sadly. "No, not at all. It's much more interesting than that. You see, people see these round puffs of smoke as projections of their minds. Now we've finally gotten to the fun part. Sailors imagine mermaids with two legs, The cat imagined she was a fish through and through." "Lermontov," said Pnin, holding out two fingers, "depicts the mermaid perfectly in only two poems. I can't stand American humor even when I am happy, I should say..." He He took off his glasses with trembling hands, pushed the magazine away with his elbow, lay his head on his arm, and sobbed loudly.

She heard someone opening and closing the gate.After a while, Laurence, with a funny face, peeped furtively into the kitchen.Joan told him to go away with her right hand, and with her left she showed him the colorful lace envelope on top of the package.The understanding smile that flashed on her face simply reflected the content of Isabel's letter; he reached out and grabbed the letter, stopped joking, and walked out on tiptoe. Pnin's overly strong shoulders were still twitching.She closed the magazine and looked at the cover: a group of schoolchildren romping around like dolls, Isabel and the Hagans, bare shade trees, a white spire, the clock tower at Wendale.

"Doesn't she want to come back?" Joan asked softly. Pnin, with his head still on his arms, struck the table with his not too tightly clenched fists. "I don't have any Buddha (anything)," Pu Ning gasped loudly with a runny nose, and cried, "I have no Buddha, Buddha, Buddha left!"