Too often they told a story she chose not to acknowledge. Though her husband maintained that his novels were "refractions" of his life, Vera insisted that they were "fictions." No wonder. And in "Look at the Harlequins!" his flirtation with Peebles is even more directly recounted. But in "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" (which she carefully typed), Nabokov describes how the Vera-like Clare is left for the Other Woman. It is unclear whether Vera suspected him of this infidelity. This, while Vera worked hard to provide him with the freedom to do his work by answering his correspondence, researching his lectures, organizing his course notes and running their household. Or, more chillingly, as Vladimir's instructing Vera in what her role in their marriage must be for him to remain faithful.Įven so, later, while teaching at Wellesley, Vladimir strayed again, with a student, Katherine Reese Peebles. "The Gift" can be read as peace offering and testimony to Vera's fidelity. Lawrence did in writing of his marriage to Frieda in "Women in Love." In "The Gift," Nabokov created the superbly well-mated Fyodor and Zina, but it is Zina's "confidence and unerring support" of Fyodor's talent that forms the bedrock of their marriage, just as it was Vera's that maintained the Nabokovs'. Soon after his and Irina's separation, Nabokov wrote "The Gift," which has been described as his "ode to fidelity." He created, on paper, a standard for marriage he hadn't yet lived up to, just as D.H.
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