The Gift
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
 Fyodor Konstantinovitch Cherdyntsev is a Russian émigré living in Berlin in the 1920s, and the chapter starts with him moving to a boardinghouse on Seven Tannenberg Street. He has recently published a book of poems, and receives a call from Alexander Yakovlevich Chernyshevski congratulating him on the poems and inviting him to come over to a party to read the favorable critique in the newspaper. The poems reach back to Feodor’s childhood that was spent with his sister Tanya in the pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg and the Leshino manor, the country estate of the Godunov-Cherdyntsevs. Fyodor arrives at the party only to learn that he fell victim to a crude April fool’s joke; his book had not received any attention in the literary circle. The Chernyshevskis had a son, Yasha, who "looked like Fyodor" who had loved poetry. Yasha died by suicide when caught in a tragic love triangle. His mother wanted Fyodor to use his story for his writing, but he declined. As a result of Yasha’s death, his father had episodes of insanity. When Fyodor returns to his “new hole” he notices that he had taken the wrong keys, fortunately, after a while a visitor is leaving and he can get back in. Fyodor “dawled away the summer”. In the fall he attends a literary meeting of Russian émigrés where he meets Koncheyev whom he considers a rival. A reading of a new play bores the audience. Upon leaving Fyodor has a lengthy and animated discussion about Russian literature with Koncheyev, a discussion that turns out to be largely fictitious. Fyodor is dreaming about his native Russia as he rides in the tramcar to his language student, but “could not stand it no longer “and returns to his place. His mother, Elizaveta Pavlovna, comes from Paris to visit him and the shadow of his lost father hangs over their encounter, his mother believing that he is still alive. Before her departure they attend a local Russian literary event, and Fyodor is the last almost unnoticed reader to recite one of his poems. Inspired by her visit and his study of Pushkin he seeks her support for his new project, a book about his father Konstantin Kirillovich. He collects material, stumbles over Sushoshchokov’s account of his grand father, Kirill Ilyich (a gambler who made and lost a fortune in America before returning to Russia), and starts to focus on the activities of his father, an explorer, lepidopterist, and scientific writer whose journeys between 1885 and 1918 led him to Siberia and Central Asia. Fyodor who only had come along on local trips and is imbued with the love of butterflies, imagines being a participant on his explorations to the East. In 1916 his father departed for his last journey and remains missing. Fyodor’s difficulty to proceed with his project gets complicated by the need to look for a new lodging. With the help of Mrs. Chernyshevski he finds a place with the Shchyogolevs. As it turns out later, the presence of a short pale blue dress in the adjacent room that he thinks belongs to their daughter makes him take the apartment. This chapters starts by describing a day in the life of the protagonist. In the morning Fyodor hears the Shchyogolevs get up and begins the day with thinking about poetry. He reflects on his development as a poet. Later he joins the family for lunch, Shchyogolev is talking about politics, his wife, Marianna Nikolavna, cooks, and the daughter behaves in an antagonistic way. Fyodor then gives his tutorial lessons, goes to a bookstore where among others he finds Koncheyev’s book of poems Communication and reviews that failed to understand it. He reads an article about Chernyshevski and Chess in the Soviet chess magazine 8x8, and visits his editor Vasiliev. After returning home and having supper in his room, Fyodor leaves the place to meet secretly Zina. Waiting for her he composes a poem embedded in the narrative. Zina Mertz has appeared in the narrative before on occasion,,- she had bought one of the few copies of Fyodor’s poems, and she is the daughter of Marianna Nikolavna, and Shchyogolev’s stepdaughter, living next door to the protagonist). The story of their encounters is recalled and it is learned that Zina knew of Fyodor the poet when he lived at his previous place. Their meetings are in secret and hidden from her parents. Shchyogolev implies that he may have married her mother to get to her which may explain the strain between him and Zina and why she hates him. Zina works for a law firm, Traum, Baum, and Kaesebier. Fyodor gets more involved with Chernyshevski’s work and declares that he wants to write about him for “firing practice”. He reads all by and about him, and passes from “accumulation to creation”. Zina is his muse and reader. The finished manuscript is handed to his publisher who rejects it as a “reckless, antisocial, mischievous improvisation.” However, Fyodor has more luck with another publisher. This chapter is a critical biography within the novel, a book within a book, about the Russian 19th century writer Chernyshevsky - Lenin's favorite author -titled The Life of Chernyshevski written by the protagonist. Fyodor ridicules Chernyshevsky's aesthetics and understanding of literature. The book about Chernyshevski finds itself in a “good, thundery atmosphere of scandal which helped sales”. Most reviews in the literary world of the émigrés are critical as the book debunks its subject as a writer and thinker, Koncheyev ’s review, however, is quite positive. Fyodor is unable to show the book to Alexander Yakovlevich Chernyshevski who had recently died. His death and funeral are described. On his way home, Fyodor walks with the writer Shirin, “a deaf and blind man with blocked nostrils”. Shirin tries to engage Fyodor in the activities of the Committee of the Society of Russian Writers in Germany. Fyodor declines but attends some meetings observing the infighting for control of the society. Shchyogolev is offered a job in Copenhagen, and plans to leave Zina in the Berlin apartment. Fyodor is elated and takes a walk in the Grunewald forest, where he imagines to have a talk with Koncheyev. His clothes including the key to the apartment get stolen, and he has to return in his bathing trunks. At night he dreams that his father has come back. Next morning the Shchyogolevs leave for Copenhagen, and Zina stays behind. Fyodor who is planning to write a "classical novel" (The Gift) and Zina can now live together. They are without money, both at the moment have lost the key to their apartment, but they are happy, they feel that fate brought them together, and Zina declares that he will be “a writer as has never been before“.