Free King, Queen, Knave by Vladimir Nabokov

walked back.
    “And how much was it you wanted?” she asked with indifference.
    “Fifty-five,” alertly said the man.
    “Including electricity and morning coffee?”
    “Has the gentleman got a job?” the old man inquired, nodding in the direction of Franz.
    “Yes,” promptly said Franz.
    “Fifty-five for everything,” said the old man.
    “That is expensive,” said Martha.
    “That is not expensive,” said the old man.
    “That is extremely expensive,” said Martha.
    The old man smiled.
    “Oh well,” shrug-sighed Martha and turned toward the door.
    Franz realized that the room was about to float away forever. He squeezed and tortured his hat as he tried to catch Martha’s eye.
    “Fifty-five,” the old man repeated pensively.
    “Fifty,” said Martha.
    The old man opened his mouth, and closed it again firmly.
    “Very well,” he said at last. “But the lights have to be out by eleven.”
    “Naturally,” flowed in Franz. “Naturally—I quite understand.”
    “When do you wish to move in?” asked his landlord.
    “Today, right now,” said Franz. “I just have to get my suitcase from the hotel.”
    “How about a small deposit?” the old man proposed with a subtle smile.
    The room itself seemed to be smiling. How strange to recall the cluttered attic of his youth! His mother at the Singer machine while he tried to sleep. How could he have endured it so long? When they emerged again onto the street, there remained in his consciousness a warm hollow formed as it were by his new room’s sinking into a soft mass of minor impressions. As she bade him good-by at the corner, Martha saw the glitter of gratitude behind his glasses. And as she headed for the photo shop with some undeveloped Tyrol snapshots, she recalled the conversation with legitimate pride.
    A drizzle had set in. The doors of flower shops opened wide to catch the moisture. Now it was really raining. She could not find a taxi; raindrops were managing to get under her umbrella and wash the powder off her nose. A dull restlessness replaced elation. Both yesterday and today were novel and absurd days, and certain not quite intelligible, but significant, outlines were showing through confusedly. And, like that darkish solution in which mountain views would presently float and grow clear, this rain, this delicate pluvial damp, developed shiny images in her soul. Once again a rain-soaked, ardent, strong, blue-eyed man, a vacational acquaintance of her husband’s, took advantage of a cloudburst in Zermatt to bluster her into the recess of a porch and push against her and pant out his passion, his sleepless nights, and she shook her head, and he vanished behind the corner of memory. Once again in her drawing room that fool of a painter, a languid rascal with dirty fingernails, glued his lips to her bare neck and she waited a moment to make out what she felt, and feeling nothing, struck him in the face with her elbow. Once again—and this image was a recent one—a wealthy businessman, an American with bluish-gray hair and a long upper lip, murmured as he played with her handthat certainly she would come to his hotel room, and she smiled and regretted vaguely that he was a foreigner. In the company of these chance phantoms rapidly touching her with cold hands, she reached home, shrugged her shoulders and cast them aside as casually as she did her open umbrella which she left on the porch to dry.
    “I’m an idiot,” she said. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong with me? Why worry? It must happen sooner or later. It is inevitable.”
    Her mood changed again. With pleasure she gave Frieda a dressing down because the dog had somehow got back into the house and tracked dirt on the carpet. She devoured a pile of small sandwiches at tea. She called the garage to find out if Dreyer had rented a car as he had promised. She called the cinema to reserve two tickets for the première on Friday; then called her husband; and then old Mrs. Hertwig when it