It was the thirtieth of October. Yellow leaves fell
down from the grey trees. She was going to a party. Beautiful handmade female
mask hides her face. She has the book by Nabokov in her hands - "Camera
Obscura". I used it as an reason to talk to her. The novel was first
published by "Modern Notes" and "Parabola" (Berlin - Paris)
in December 1933.
She was twenty years old, and she loved Russian
literature. It's so nice when people from another country tells you that the
first association that comes to them when they hears the word
"Russia" is Russian literature. She read most of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky
and Turgenev.
She wore a light beige coat and a red knit
cap. Long blonde hair penetrated beneath her cap.
She had very good English and a light French accent. I
amused the English «cool», which she, like many French, pronounced softening
end.
Her bus stopped at the traffic lights. Autumn
frenchmen crowd held at a pedestrian crossing in front of the bus. I asked her
mobile phone number. She did not have a pen. Me too. She wrote a number by red
nail polish on the surface of the book and gave it to me. It was paperback and
French text .
