Free The Eye by Vladimir Nabokov

eternity. I stood away from the street light; and the shadows afforded me a kind of hectic protection. Suddenly a yellow glow appeared in the glass ofthe front door, and in my excitement I loosened my grip on the brim of my hat. In the next instant I was gyrating on one spot, both hands raised, as if the hat just snatched from me were still flying around my head. With a light thump, the derby fell and rolled away on the sidewalk. I dashed in pursuit, trying to step on the thing to stop it—and almost collided on the run with Roman Bogdanovich, who picked up my hat with one hand, while holding with the other a sealed envelope that looked white and enormous. I think my appearance in his neighborhood at that late hour puzzled him. For a moment the wind enveloped us in its violence; I yelled a greeting, trying to out-shout the din of the demented night, and then, with two fingers, lightly and neatly plucked the letter from Roman Bogdanovich’s hand. “I’ll mail it, I’ll mail it,” I shouted. “It’s on my way, it’s on my way …” I had time to glimpse an expression of alarm and uncertainty on his face, but I immediately made off, running the 20 yards to the mailbox into which I pretended to thrust something, but instead squeezed the letter into my inside breast pocket. Here he overtook me. I noticed his carpet slippers. “What manners you have,” he said with displeasure.“Perhaps I had no intention to post it. Here, take this hat of yours … Ever see such a wind? …”
    “I’m in a hurry,” I gasped (the swift night took my breath away). “Goodbye, goodbye!” My shadow, as it plunged into the aura of the street lamp, stretched out and passed me, but then was lost in the darkness. No sooner had I left that street, than the wind ceased; all was startlingly still, and amid the stillness a streetcar was groaning around a turn.
    I hopped on it without glancing at its number, for what lured me was the festive brightness of its interior, since I had to have light immediately. I found a cozy corner seat, and with furious haste ripped open the envelope. Here someone came up to me and, with a start, I placed my hat over the letter. But it was only the conductor. Feigning a yawn, I calmly paid for my ticket, but kept the letter concealed all the time, so as to be safe from possible testimony in court—there is nothing more damning than those inconspicuous witnesses, conductors, taxi drivers, janitors. He went away and I unfolded the letter. It was ten pages long, in a round hand and without a single correction. The beginning was not very interesting. I skipped several pages and suddenly,like a familiar face amid a hazy crowd, there was Smurov’s name. What amazing luck!
    “I propose, my dear Fyodor Robertovich, to return briefly to that rascal. I fear it may bore you, but, in the words of the Swan of Weimar—I refer to the illustrious Goethe—(there followed a German phrase). Therefore allow me to dwell on Mr. Smurov again and treat you to a little psychological study …”
    I paused and looked up at a milk chocolate advertisement with lilac alps. This was my last chance to renounce penetrating into the secret of Smurov’s immortality. What did I care if this letter would indeed travel across a remote mountain pass into the next century, whose very designation—a two and three zeros—is so fantastic as to seem absurd? What did it matter to me to what kind of portrait a long-dead author would “treat,” to use his own vile expression, his unknown posterity? And anyway, was it not high time to abandon my enterprise, to call off the hunt, the watch, the insane attempt to corner Smurov? But alas, this was mental rhetoric: I knew perfectly well that no force on earth could prevent me from reading that letter.
    “I have the impression, dear friend, that I have already written you of the fact thatSmurov belongs to that curious class of people I once called ‘sexual lefties.’ Smurov’s entire appearance,