Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov, John Banville

was his host and was rubbing his hands as though he were soaping them.
    “Delighted to see you at last,” said Albinus. “Do you know, I had formed quite a different picture of you in my mind—short, fat, with hornrimmed glasses, though on the other hand your name always reminds me of an axe. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the man who makes two continents laugh. Let us hope he is back in Germany for good.”
    Rex, his eyes twinkling, made little bows, rubbing his hands all the time. He sported a striking lounge suit in a world of badly cut German dinner jackets.
    “Please, be seated,” said Albinus.
    “Haven’t I met your sister once?” queried Dorianna in her lovely bass voice.
    “My sister is in Heaven,” answered Rex gravely.
    “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Dorianna.
    “Never was born,” he added—and sat down on a chair next to Margot.
    Laughing pleasantly, Albinus let his eyes stray back to her. She was bending toward her neighbor, Sonia Hirsch, the plain-faced, motherly cubist, in a queer childlike attitude, her shoulders a little hunched and talking unusually fast, with moist eyes and fluttering eyelids. He looked down at her small, flushed ear, the vein on her neck, the delicate shadow between her breasts. Hurriedly, feverishly, she was pouring out a stream of complete nonsense, with her hand pressed to her flaming cheek.
    “Menservants steal far less,” she jabbered, “though, of course, no one would lift a really big picture, and at one time I adored big ones with men on horseback, but when one sees such a lot of pictures—”
    “Fräulein Peters,” said Albinus in a soothing tone, “this is the man who makes two continents—”
    Margot started and swerved round.
    “Oh, really, how do you do?”
    Rex bowed and, turning to Albinus, remarked quietly:
    “I happened to read on the boat your excellent biography of Sebastiano del Piombo. Pity, though, you didn’t quote his sonnets.”
    “Oh, but they are very poor,” answered Albinus.
    “Exactly,” said Rex. “That’s what is so charming.”
    Margot jumped up and with swift, almost bounding steps dashed toward the last guest—a long-limbed, withered female, who looked like a plucked eagle. Margot had taken elocution lessons with her.
    Sonia Hirsch shifted to Margot’s place and turned to Rex:
    “What d’you think of Cumming’s work?” she asked. “I mean, his last series—the Gallows and Factories, you know?”
    “Rotten,” said Rex.
    The door of the dining room opened. The gentlemen looked round for their ladies. Rex stood aloof. His host, who already had Dorianna on his arm, gazed about in search of Margot. He saw her right in front squeezing among the couples who were streaming into the dining room.
    “She is not at her best tonight,” he thought anxiously, and handed over his lady to Rex.
    By the time the lobsters were being tackled, the talk at the head of the table where (the following string of names would be best arranged in a curve) Dorianna, Rex, Margot, Albinus, Sonia Hirsch and Baum were seated, was in full swing although rather incoherent. Margot had emptiedher third wineglass at one gulp and was now sitting very erect with bright eyes, staring straight in front of her. Rex paid no attention either to her or to Dorianna, whose name annoyed him, but was arguing across the table with Baum, the author, concerning the means of artistic expression.
    “A writer for instance,” he remarked, “talks about India which I have never seen, and gushes about dancing girls, tiger hunts, fakirs, betel nuts, serpents: the Glamour of the mysterious East. But what does it amount to? Nothing. Instead of visualizing India I merely get a bad toothache from all these Eastern delights. Now, there’s the other way as, for instance, the fellow who writes: ‘Before turning in I put out my wet boots to dry and in the morning I found that a thick blue forest had grown on them’ (“Fungi, Madam,” he explained to Dorianna who had raised one