Chapter 11 first quarter

During the eight years he taught at Wendell College, Pnin changed his residence almost every term—for one reason or another, chiefly because of the sound.Now in his memory, those rooms are accumulated, just like in a furniture store, regardless of the difference in time and space, under the soft light, those furniture are randomly mixed together for exhibition, a group of armchairs, beds There were lamps and hearth-things of all kinds, and outside the shop it was snowing, it was dusk, and no one really loved anyone.Some of the rooms he lived in at Wendale looked much neater than the one he lived in uptown New York, between the swollen (central) Park and the black (river) promenade On a block in , the most memorable thing is the waste paper strewn all over the roadside, the pile of dog poop that someone has stepped on inadvertently, and the high and dark porch steps that are hard to climb. A tireless boy who throws balls; even this room is in Pnin's mind (a small ball is still bouncing back) than the old residence that he lived in in Central Europe when he only took Nansen's passport Both are indeed much cleaner.

But as he grew older, Pnin became picky, and beautiful decorations were no longer enough.Wendale was a quiet little town, and the village of Wendale was quieter in the hollow; but Pnin felt that nowhere was quiet enough to live in.He began life here in the College's well-thought-out, furnished dormitories for single teachers, and had a decent set of rooms to himself, despite the disadvantages of communal living ("Pnin, How about a ping-pong ball?" "I don't play with baby stuff anymore."), until some workers came to this street—Pningrad, Skull Street—and started drilling hole, because they drilled and filled and filled and drilled, with an evil jerk like a saw, and a surprising pause, for weeks on end, and they never seemed to be able to find the piece again. Like a misplaced valuable tool.He moved again to the famous secluded Duke's flats in Wendale Village (to single out particular offenders here and there), and rented a pleasant little room, but every night, Upstairs there was a cascade of water and slamming doors in the bathroom, and in between were two monsters with stony legs like statues walking around with annoyingly heavy feet— This imaginary figure hardly reconciled with the slender bodies of the two upstairs neighbors who turned out to be the Starrs from the art department (“My name is Christopher and this is Louise”), An angelic and gentle couple, both very interested in Dostoevsky and Shostakovich.He moved to a more comfortable one-bedroom-study house—a one-room apartment again—where no one would pop in and ask for a free Russian lesson.However, as soon as the terrible Wendale winter began, the sharp and pervasive wind whizzed in through the window cracks, and even burst out from the toilet and toilet bowl, so a series of crazy or wicked things happened in that cozy cabin. Son—Pnin's silver-painted radiator emits an endless humming music, more or less classical.He tried to cover it with a blanket, as if it were a song bird in a cage, but the song would not stop until Mrs. Thayer's old mother was taken to the hospital, where she died, and the radiator Only then did he switch to the French language that Canadians speak.

He also experimented with another type of dwelling: rented rooms in private houses, which, although they differ in many respects (not all have wainscoting, for example; some are whitewashed, or at least partly painted). white ash), but they have a common feature, that is, there must be masterpieces by Van Loon and Dr. Cronin in the living room or in the floor-to-ceiling bookcase; they may be replaced by a pile of magazines, or some bright historical romance novels Or even a certain Mrs. Garnett's translation (in such a home there would certainly be a Toulouse-Lautrec poster somewhere on the wall), but you'd be sure to find the room The pair of writers, Long and Cronin, are exchanging friendly glances at each other, like two old friends who meet at a boisterous banquet.