Wife
Vladimir Nabokov
THE GRAND-DAD
Drama in One Act
Introductory Note: The Grand-dad (Dedushka)
was completed on
June 30, 1923, at the Domaine de Beaulieu. It was published
in
Rul'
in Berlin on October 14 of the same year. The English
translation is based on a collation of the published text and two
almost identical handwritten versions recorded by Nabokov's
mother in her albums. What few discrepancies and lapses there
were generally had resulted from oversights in copying.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Wife
Husband
Passerby (de Merival)
Juliette
Grand-dad
The action takes place in 1816 in France, in the house of a well-off
peasant family. A spacious room, with windows giving on a garden.
Slanting rain. Enter the owners and a stranger- a passerby.
. . . Come in. Our living room
is over here.
Husband
. . . One moment- we'll have wine
for you.
(to his daughter)
Passerby
(looking around)
Juliette, run to the cellar, quickly!
How cozy it is here.
Editor's Note: Copyright
c
1984 by Article 3B Trust under the Will of Vladimir
Nabokov. Excerpted from
The Man from the USSR and Other Plays
by Vladimir Nabo–
kov . To be published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
