The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov by Paul Russell

New England meadow. Not just any butterfly, mind you; one particular butterfly.”
    â€œBut what about classification?” asked Yuri. “Aren’t there species, not just individuals? Besides, there’s so much in our lives that’s simply indescribable. Wouldn’t you agree?”
    â€œNothing’s indescribable. To hold that the world’s indescribable—well, there lies futility, despair, defeat, all those things I refuse to have anything to do with. The universe is most certainly describable—its designer would have it no other way. And I think it’s our duty to engage that intricate task of description—but then we’re intricate creatures ourselves, don’t you think? Or at least some of us are. I don’t mean the common idiot in the street, the man who thinks that giving bread to everyone and flying red banners and turning the factories over to the workers and that sort of rot will solve anything. I mean those of us blessed with the ability to puzzle out the puzzle, so to speak: those of us grateful for that gift, and honor-bound—here’s your true honor, Yuri—to make use of it.”
    â€œThat’s very well put,” Yuri conceded. “I agree with all you’ve said. And yet, we who defend with our swords and bayonets your ability to puzzle out the puzzle in peace, aren’t we to be valued as well? The Tsar may be of no interest to you whatsoever, but it’s his Empire that allows you the freedom to nab your butterflies and compose your poems and solve your infernal chess problems, and, I daresay, fall in love with that particular girl. I fear all that will go by the wayside should Bolshevik instability ever prevail.”

    â€œThe poet travels lightly,” returned Volodya. “He’ll always manage to go on doing what he does.”
    How grown up we sounded, as we ate cherries, sipped tea from the samovar whose magical warmth the servants kept renewing. What did they think of our talk? Did they think anything, or only long for bed? Where were my muzhiks from the scythed field of last summer? Had they been sent off to war? Were they giving each other miserable comfort in a gore-splattered trench somewhere? Were they lying dead and unburied in some muddy field? Or were they among the throngs of deserters who filled Petrograd, and on whom the Bolsheviks were said to prey? It grieved me not to know such simple, human things about the world I lived in. The puzzle had far too many pieces; whenever I attempted to focus my thoughts on the whole, it dispersed before my eyes.
    Yuri turned to me. “And what do you believe, O silent one?”
    In the light of the spirit lamp his gray eyes met my own and held there—as if, after long hiatus, he had mysteriously elected to kiss me once more on the lips.
    â€œI don’t know,” I confessed. “I only know what I value. Friendship and beauty. I value those far more than honor itself. The love of a friend for a f—” I stalled humiliatingly on that final “friend.”
    Yuri laughed. “Sorry,” he said. “That was rude of me. One mustn’t make fun of someone’s impediment.”
    â€œThe sound of an argument running aground,” murmured Volodya. “Seryosha’s usually silent for a reason.”
    My stutter had once again made comical the most serious of moments. Nonetheless I forged on, much to my brother’s eye-rolling impatience.
    â€œThere’s fearlessness of all sorts in the world,” I said. “Soldiers have it, and explorers, and poets, no doubt, but especially lovers. There. That’s what I believe. I’d die for my friend.”

    â€œWho’s this friend?” Yuri asked—whether tenderly or mockingly I could not tell. “And is he a friend or a lover? You seem to confuse the two terms, which in my book are quite distinct.”
    â€œI’ve not yet met him,” I said, ignoring