Pnin

- haw - that what he is trying to do - haw - practically in all his novels - haw - is - haw - to express the fantastic recurrence of certain situations?' Betty remained her controlled little self, and expertly looked after the refreshments. In the bay end of the room, Clements kept morosely revolving the slow globe as Hagen, carefully avoiding the traditional intonations he would have used in more congenial surroundings, told him and grinning Thomas the latest story about Mrs Idelson, communicated by Mrs Blorenge to Mrs Hagen. Pnin came up with a plate of nougat.
    'This is not quite for your chaste ears, Timofey,' said Hagen to Pnin, who always confessed he never could see the point of any' scabrous anecdote'. 'However -'
    Clements moved away to rejoin the ladies. Hagen began to retell the story, and Thomas began to re-grin. Pnin waved a hand at the raconteur in a Russian disgusted 'oh-go-on-with-you' gesture and said:
    'I have heard quite the same anecdote thirty-five years ago in Odessa, and even then I could not understand what is comical in it.'

10
    At a still later stage of the party, certain rearrangements had again taken place. In a corner of the davenport, bored Clements was flipping through an album of Flemish Masterpieces that Victor had been given by his mother and had left with Pnin. Joan sat on a footstool, at her husband's knee, a plate of grapes in the lap of her wide skirt, wondering when would it be time to go without hurting Timofey's feelings. The others were listening to Hagen discussing modern education:
    'You may laugh,' he said, casting a sharp glance at Clements - who shook his head, denying the charge, and then passed the album to Joan, pointing out something in it that had suddenly provoked his glee.
    'You may laugh, but I affirm that the only way to escape from the morass - just a drop, Timofey: that will do - is to lock up the student in a soundproof cell and eliminate the lecture room.'
    'Yes, that's it,' said Joan to her husband under her breath, banding the album back to him.
    'I am glad you agree, Joan,' continued Hagen. 'However, I have been called an enfant terrible for expounding this theory, and perhaps you will not go on agreeing so easily when you hear me out. Phonograph records on every possible subject will be at the isolated student's disposal...'
    'But the personality of the lecturer,' said Margaret Thayer. 'Surely that counts for something.'
    'It does not!' shouted Hagen. 'That is the tragedy! Who, for example, wants him' - he pointed to radiant Pnin - 'who wants his personality? Nobody! They will reject Timofey's wonderful personality without a quaver. The world wants a machine, not a Timofey.'
    'One could have Timofey televised,' said Clements.
    'Oh, I would love that,' said Joan, beaming at her host, and Betty nodded vigorously. Pnin bowed deeply to them with an 'I-am-disarmed' spreading of both hands.
    'And what do you think of my controversial plan?' asked Hagen of Thomas.
    'I can tell you what Tom thinks,' said Clements, still contemplating the same picture in the book that lay open on his knees. 'Tom thinks that the best method of teaching anything is to rely on discussion in class, which means letting twenty young blockheads and two cocky neurotics discuss for fifty minutes something that neither their teacher nor they know. Now, for the last three months,' he went on, without any logical transition. 'I have been looking for this picture, and here it is. The publisher of my new book on the Philosophy of Gesture wants a portrait of me, and Joan and I knew we had seen somewhere a stunning likeness by an Old Master but could not even recall his period. Well, here it is, here it is. The only retouching needed would be the addition of a sport shirt and the deletion of this warrior's hand.'
    'I must really protest,' began Thomas.
    Clements passed the open book to Margaret Thayer, and she burst out laughing.
    'I must protest, Laurence,' said Tom. 'A relaxed discussion in an atmosphere of broad generalizations is a more realistic approach to education than the old-fashioned formal lecture.'
    'Sure, sure,' said Clements.
    Joan scrambled up to her feet and covered her glass with her narrow palm when Pnin offered to replenish it. Mrs Thayer looked at her wrist-watch, and then at her husband. A soft yawn distended Laurence's mouth. Betty asked Thomas if he knew a man called Fogelman, an expert in bats, who lived in Santa Clara, Cuba. Hagen asked for a glass of water or beer.