10.10.13

Nabókov i la passió

Aquest estiu que tot just ha acabat, després d'uns quants anys rodant per les prestatgeries de casa sense que n'hi fessin gaire cas, ha estat rescatada "Parla, memòria", autobiografia de Vladímir Nabókov. El dia en què la vaig rescatar, marxant de viatge un dels seus mèrits va ser el seu escàs pes, que permetia encabir-lo a la bossa de ma i passar pel sedàs de la dictadura restrictiva de pes de les companyies aèries low cost.

Qui m'havia parlat de Nabókov, primer de tots va ser, com sempre amb bon criteri, en Ton Barnils. Ell sabia de la meva afició a les autobiografies, i en destacà dues, recordo: la de Dalí, i la de Nabókov. Qui em va parlar, i amb qui he estat parlant molt de Nabókov aquests dies, és amb la meva sogra, autèntica especialista en la matèria. L'abandó a les prestatgeries ha estat una joia en el retrobament. Descobrir el món de Nabókov, la seva infància perduda que mai més no va tornar, la de la Rússia liberal benestant prèvia a la revolució, és entendre la gran i terrible diàspora que varen patir els que lluitaren primer contra la opressió tsarista i després contra la bolxevic. He descobert un personatge fi, i pedant, cal dir-ho, que a través de les seves llargues frases de puntuació exquisida et guia i t'enriqueix amb les seves vivències.

Aquest estiu he envejat malèvolament el Nabókov infant per les seves comoditats i luxes infantils (xofers, institutrius angleses, vacances d'estiu a Biarritz); he volgut bufetejar el jove Nabókov que, indolent, refusa enfangar-se per rebutjar una pilota amb els punys, jugant amb el seu equip de futbol a Cambridge; he rigut amb la seva aguda crítica del Marxisme: "Besides dreams of velocity, or in connection with them, there is in every child the essentially human urge to reshape the earth, to act upon a friable environment (unless he is born Marxist or a corpse, and meekly waits for the environment to fashion him). This explains a child's delight in digging, in making roads and tunnels for his favourite toys."

Aquest estiu, Nabókov m'ha sotmès amb la seva manera elegant i directa de parlar de les seves passions: la passió pel seus pares, pels escacs, per les papallones. Un passatge quedarà en la meva memòria per sempre, la descripció de la seva passió preadolescent:

That summer I would always ride by a certain isba, golden in the low sun, in the doorway of wich Polenka, the daughter of our head coachman Zahar, a girl of my age, would stand, leaning against the jamb, her bare arms folded on her breast in a soft, comfortable manner peculiar to rural Russia. She would watch me approach with a wonderful welcoming radiance on her face, but as I rode nearer, this would dwindle to a half smile, then to a faint light at the corners of her compressed lips, and, finally, this, too, woud fade, so that when I reached her, there would be no expression at all on her round, pretty face. As soon as I had passed, however, and had turned my head for an instant to take a last look before sprinting uphill, the dimple would be back, the enigmatic light would be playing again on her dear features. I never spoke to her, but long after I had stopped riding by at that hour, our ocular relationship was renewed from time to time during two or three summers. She would appear from nowhere, always standing a little apart, always barefoot, rubbing her left instep against her right calf or scratching with her fourth finger the parting in her light brown hair, and always leaning against things — against the stable door while my horse was being saddled, against the trunk of a tree when the whole array of country servitors would be seeing us off to town for the winter on a crisp September morning. Every time, her bosom seemed a little softer, her forearms a little stronger, and once or twice I discerned, just before she drifted out of my ken (at 16 she married a blacksmith in a distant village), a gleam of gentle mockery in her wide-set hazel eyes. Strange to say, she was the first to have the poignant power, by merely not letting her smile fade, of burning a hole in my sleep and jolting me into clammy consciousness, whenever I dreamed of her, although in real life I was even more afraid of being revolted by her dirt-caked feet and stale-smelling clothes than of insulting her by the triteness of quasi-seignioral advances. 

I he recordat la primera vegada que, amb dotze anys, una noia que s'asseia al banc darrere meu, em va fer perdre la son.