Bruce Stone:" ...Perhaps the problem has received
little attention because no Nabokovian has yet seen the wisdom of insisting so
inflexibly on the meaning of the phrase "days ago" (which rings of
literal-mindedness)....
JM: Bruce Stone is right about VN's registered annoyance
with literal-mindedness and stupidity (like Mr. Teste's*). He was
also irritated by a reader's wish to find out if a story is
"true." However, certain depictions of a disturbed mind (about those who suffer
from obsessive or concrete thinking) are not derisive, disrespectful
although he isn't particularly compassionate either. As we can
read in the example below, in Luzin's precise answer. "...Then, fully
aware of the stupidity of the question but incapable of stopping herself, she
asked how long he had been playing chess. He gave no answer and turned away and
she felt so embarrassed that she began to reel off a list of all the
meteorological indications for yesterday, today and tomorrow. He continued
silent and she also fell silent, and then she began to rummage in her handbag,
searching agonizingly for a topic and finding only a broken comb. Suddenly he
turned his face to her and said: 'Eighteen years, three months and four
days.' For her this was an exquisite relief, and furthermore she was
somehow flattered by the elaborate circumstantiality of his reply. Subsequently,
however, she began to grow a little annoyed that he in his turn never asked any
questions, taking her, as it were, for granted."
...................................................................................................
* - Valèry: "La bêtise
n'es pas mon fort"