Pnin

they were overtaken by Dr Hagen. Professor Thomas, still looking puzzled, took his leave.
    'Well,' said Hagen.
    It was a fair fall night, velvet below, steel above.
    Joan asked:
    'You're sure you don't want us to give you a lift?'
    'It's a ten-minute walk. And a walk is a must on such a wonderful night.'
    The three of them stood for a moment gazing at the stars.
    'And all these are worlds,' said Hagen.
    'Or else,' said Clements with a yawn, 'a frightful mess. I suspect it is really a fluorescent corpse, and we are inside it.'
    From the lighted porch came Pnin's rich laughter as he finished recounting to the Thayers and Betty Bliss how he, too, had once retrieved the wrong reticule.
    'Come, my fluorescent corpse, let's be moving,' said Joan. 'It was so nice to see you, Herman. Give my love to Irmgard. What a delightful party. I have never seen Timofey so happy.'
    'Yes, thank you,' answered Hagen absent-mindedly.
    'You should have seen his face,' said Joan, 'when he told us he was going to talk to a real-estate man tomorrow about buying that dream house.'
    'He did? You're sure he said that?' Hagen asked sharply.
    'Quite sure,' said Joan. 'And if anybody needs a house, it is certainly Timofey.'
    'Well, good night,' said Hagen. 'Glad you could come. Good night.'
    He waited for them to reach their car, hesitated, and then marched back to the lighted porch, where, standing as on a stage, Pnin was shaking hands a second or third time with the Thayers and Betty.
    ('I would never,' said Joan, as she backed the car and worked the wheel, 'but never have allowed my child to go abroad with that old Lesbian.' 'Careful,' said Laurence, 'he may be drunk but he is not out of earshot.')
    'I shall not forgive you,' said Betty to her merry host, 'for not letting me do the dishes.'
    'I'll help him,' said Hagen, ascending the porch steps and thumping upon them with his cane. 'You, children, run along now.'
    There was a final round of handshakes, and the Thayers and Betty left.

12
    'First,' said Hagen, as he and Pnin re-entered the living-room. 'I guess I'll have a last cup of wine with you.'
    'Perfect. Perfect!' cried Pnin. 'Let us finish my cruchon.'
    They made themselves comfortable, and Dr Hagen said:
    'You are a wonderful host, Timofey. This is a very delightful moment. My grandfather used to say that a glass of good wine should be always sipped and savoured as if it were the last one before the execution. I wonder what you put into this punch. I also wonder if, as our charming Joan affirms, you are really contemplating buying this house?'
    'Not contemplating - peeping a little at possibilities,' replied Pnin with a gurgling laugh.
    'I question the wisdom of it,' continued Hagen nursing his goblet.
    'Naturally, I am expecting that I will get tenure at last,' said Pnin rather slyly. 'I am now Assistant Professor nine years. Years run. Soon I will be Assistant Emeritus. Hagen, why are you silent?'
    'You place me in a very embarrassing position, Timofey. I hoped you would not raise this particular question.'
    'I do not raise the question. I say that I only expect - oh, not next year, but example given, at hundredth anniversary of Liberation of Serfs - Waindell will make me Associate.'
    'Well, you see, my dear friend, I must tell you a sad secret. It is not official yet, and you must promise not to mention it to anyone.'
    'I swear,' said Pnin, raising his hand.
    'You cannot but know,' continued Hagen, 'with what loving care I built our great department. I, too, am no longer young. You say, Timofey, you have been here for nine years. But I have been giving my all for twenty-nine years to this university I My modest all. As my friend, Dr Kraft, wrote me the other day: you, Herman Hagen, have done alone more for Germany in America than all our missions have done in Germany for America. And what happens now? I have nursed this Falternfels, this dragon, in my bosom, and he has now worked himself into a key position. I spare you the details of the intrigue!'
    'Yes,' said Pnin with a sigh, 'intrigue is horrible, horrible. But, on the other side, honest work will always prove its advantage. You and I will give next year some splendid new courses which I have planned long ago. On Tyranny. On the Boot. On Nicholas the First. On all the precursors of modern atrocity. Hagen, when we speak of injustice, we forget Armenian massacres, tortures which Tibet invented, colonists in Africa.... The history of man is the history of pain!'
    Hagen bent over to