Eyes or eye?

——《俄国文学讲座》小识

纳博科夫对翻译质量十分苛刻，小说家康拉德对Garnett夫人的《安娜·卡列尼娜》英译本的赞赏有加，在纳博科夫看来是不可原谅的，因为她的翻译实际上“糟糕透了”：

P.97
Joseph Conrad, a British novelist of Polish descent, writing to Edward Garnett, a writer of sorts, in a letter dated the 10th of June, 1902, said: “Remember me affectionately to your wife whose translation of Karenina is splendid. Of the thing itself I think but little, so that her merit shines with the greater lustre.” I shall never forgive Conrad this crack. Actually the Garnett translation is very poor.

书中展示了纳博科夫对该英译本四处修改的图片，最有趣的在沃伦斯基赛马受伤的那个情节里， Mrs. Garnett translates, [the horse] “gazed at her master with her speaking eyes,” to which VN[Vladimir Nabokov] adds the note in his teaching copy, “A horse can’t look at you with both eyes, Mrs. Garnett.” （P.112 编者脚注，[]内为我所注。）或许这不能怪 Garnett夫人，因为赛马是贵族的游戏，不可能人人都像托尔斯泰或者纳博科夫那样对马性如此了解。

还有一个小故事，以前没听过：

P.93

What troubles one, is merely that he did not always recognize his own self when confronted with truth. I like the story of his picking up a book one dreary day in his old age, many years after he had stopped writing novels, and starting to read in the middle, and getting interested and very much pleased, and then looking at the title and seeing:Anna Karenin by Leo Tolstoy.

纳博科夫最让人崇敬的是他对教学的关注，在他开始美国的教授生涯之前，他就已经写了关于俄国文学总共2000多页的一百课讲义，除自己的小说外，还出版了“欧洲小说大师”课堂讲义（即国内出版的《文学讲稿》）、《唐·吉诃德讲稿》以及这本《俄国文学讲座》。我一向喜欢由小说家气质的教师来讲授小说，不像一般的经院学者，他们有着对小说最直接、最热情的阅读经验，对于初入文学殿堂的人来说，这是非常可贵的。而现在的大学教师一般不会或者说不能花这么多时间在学生身上，评职称、生产论文已经够忙的了。

读纳博科夫的讲稿的时候，我心里常常会不由自主地泛起嫉妒的酸意，为那些得其亲炙的学生。

（完）