revenge - vladimir nabokov

P.46 A delirium, stormy and powerful as the surge of bells, took hold of her. Mountains of multicoloured eggs scattered with rotund tapping sounds. The sun — or was it a golden-horned sheep made of creamery butter? — came tumbling through the window and began to grow, filling the room with torrid yellow. Meanwhile, the eggs scurried up and roiled down glossy little strips of wood, knocking against each other, their shells cracking, their whites streaked with crimson.

P.78 But we, representatives of a more sober generation, are inclined to decipher for ourselves a deeper, more vital, more human, and more social sense in such lines of his as

⠀⠀⠀ When the last snow hides in the shade of the cemetery wall
⠀⠀⠀ and the coat of my neighbour’s black horse
⠀⠀⠀ shows a swift blud sheen in the swift April sun,
⠀⠀⠀ and the puddles are as many heavens cupped in the Negro-hands of the Earth,
⠀⠀⠀ then my heart goes out in its tattered cloak
⠀⠀⠀ to visit the poor, the blind, the foolish,
⠀⠀⠀ the round backs slaving for the round bellies,
⠀⠀⠀ all those whose eyes dulled by care or lust do not see
⠀⠀⠀ the holes in the snow, the blue horse, the miraculous puddle.

P.136 His thought fluttered and walked up and down the glass pane which for as long as he lived would prevent him from having direct contact with he world. He had a passionate desire to experience everything, to attain and touch everything, to let the dappled voices, the bird calls, filter through his being and to enter for a moment into a passerby’s soul as one enters the cool shade of a tree.

P.146 Still it would be a shame to complain; this alien world is beautiful, and I would feel happy right now if only I could recall that wonderful, wonderful — what? What was it?