Chapter 17 Section VII

Pnin took his second bottle of beer unhurriedly, thinking about what to do next, or rather there were two Pnins at this moment, one who had not been sleeping well lately and was dizzy and wanted to rest, the other He was reconciling between studying tirelessly, wanting to go home and continue reading as usual, and staying up until the freight train whistling into the ravine at two o'clock in the night.In the end, he decided to go to an evening party, and immediately go home to bed, which the kind-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Christopher and Louise Starr put on every fortnight on Tuesdays in the new building, and the program was more refined music. And a rare movie to see, Dean Ball called the shows "perhaps the most exciting and inspired audacity in the entire district" in response to some of the ridiculous criticism last year.

Meanwhile, the volume of The Literary Treasury lay on Pnin's lap.To his left sat two Indian students, and to his right was Professor Hagen's daughter, a naughty girl majoring in drama.Thankfully, Kaomarov was sitting far in the back, talking about things that were not interesting at all. The first part of the program consisted of three corny short films that bored our friend: the walking stick, the bowler hat, the white face, the arched black eyebrows, the twitching Nose, it means nothing to him.The incomparable comedian, whether dancing in the sun with some nymphs in flower crowns next to a cactus waiting to pierce him, or dressing up as a prehistoric wild man (a soft thick stick at this point) instead of the limp walking stick) or being glared at by a burly Mike Swain in a rowdy nightclub doesn't appeal to the old-fashioned, humorless Pnin. "Joker," he snorted, "Even Grubishkin and Max Linda used to be funnier than him."

The second part of the program is an impressive Soviet documentary filmed in the late 1940s, which is said to contain no tinge of propaganda, but pure art, a joyous, proud euphoria of labor.Pretty girls not dressed up at an old spring festival with signs like "Ruki proch ot Korei" "Bas les mains devant la Coree" "La paz vencera a la guerra" "Der Friede besiegt den krief" such old Russian Banners with fragments of folk songs paraded in the streets.An air ambulance flies over a snow-covered mountain range in Tajikistan.Kyrgyz actors visit a sanatorium for coal miners nestled in a palm grove, where they stage a spontaneous performance.In a legendary mountain pasture in Ossetia, a shepherd used a portable radio to report to the Ministry of Agriculture of the local republic that a lamb had been born.The Moscow Metro, with its columns and statues, gleamed, and the half-dozen passengers who were about to board sat on three granite benches.A working family, all dressed in finery, spends a quiet evening sitting under a large silk lampshade in the living room, complete with scented flowers for display.Eight thousand football fans watched a game between Torpedoes and Dynamo.Eight thousand citizens of the Moscow Electric Factory unanimously agreed to nominate Stalin as the candidate for the Moscow Stalin constituency.The latest model of the Jim brand tourist car took the family members of the factory workers and some other people to the countryside for a picnic.and also--

"I shouldn't, I shouldn't, oh, that's absurd," muttered Pnin, feeling incomprehensible, absurd, and disgraceful with the uncontrollable, childish discharge from his tear ducts. A primeval Russian forest encloses the wanderer, misty and misty, and the sun, like smoking shafts, falls between the birch trees, bathing the overhanging leaves and shining and quivering eyelets, which lighted the long green grass, shone in the shade of the pale-blossoming wild cherry bushes, and made steam rise slowly.The obstacle comes from an old road in the forest, with soft furrows on both sides, and a continuous growth of mushrooms and daisies along the way.The wanderer returned wearily to his anachronistic dwelling, the forest path still in his mind, and he was again the lad who walked through the forest with a book under his arm; To a romantic, free and splendid wilderness that time can't erase (several fine horses with their silvery manes are galloping among the tall flowers).At this time, Pnin was already comfortably lying on the bed, drowsy, two alarm clocks, one set to 7:30 in the morning and the other to 8:00, were ticking on the small table beside the bed.

Komarov, wearing an azure shirt, was bending over the strings of a guitar.A birthday party was going on, and a staid Stalin slammed his vote into the ballot box for the election of the government executive.On the battlefield, on the road... on the rough seas, or at Wendel... "Brilliant!" said Dr. Budd von Faternfuss, looking up from his pen. Pnin was about to fall into a gentle dream and forget everything, when suddenly something terrible happened outside: a statue frowned, grunted, and made a fuss noisily because of a cracked copper wheel—Pnin suddenly Waking up, the light of a caravan and several raised shadows passed the curtains.A car outside slams its doors and drives away.A key was at the door of the flimsy, translucent house, and there came the chattering of three persons; and the whole house, down to the crack under Pnin's door, was suddenly lit.Don't have a high fever, don't be an outbreak of an infectious disease.Pnin, without dentures and in pajamas, frightened and helpless, heard a suitcase being dragged briskly up the stairs, and the footsteps of a young man who knew the way Then I could even hear the sound of wheezing and wheezing... Really, if Isabel's mother hadn't stopped in time, Isabel would have kicked the happy mood that appeared naturally as if returning home from a dull and boring summer camp. Open--the door of Pnin's room.