The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

Eyewitness Description:  “Then I found myself in darkness and kept bumping into unknown furniture until I finally saw a red light and walked out onto a platform that clanged under me – and, suddenly, beyond it, there was a bright parlour, tastefully furnished in Empire style, but not a living soul, not a living soul.”

Author:  Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) the Russian-born author and academic is best known for his notorious novel, Lolita (1955) which records the obsession of a middle aged intellectual for a twelve-year-old girl and coined the term, “nymphet”. Nabokov studied at Trinity College, Cambridge in the late Thirties where he became aware of the work of M. R. James and wrote several fantasy stories. Among his relevant books from this time are The Enchanter (1928), The Eye (1930) and The Waltz Invention (1938), all written in Russian and not translated until Nabokov moved to America in 1940. Here he worked as a research fellow in entomology at Harvard before becoming professor of Russian literature at Cornell in 1948. Among Nabokov’s excellent fantasy stories must be mentioned “The Vane Sisters”, “Signs and Symbols” and “Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster,” with the nearest to a traditional ghost story being “The Visit to the Museum”. It can, though, be regarded as a significant step in the development of the genre and an outstanding contribution to the “Golden Era”. In praise of the story, Robert Aickman wrote in 1971, “Mr Nabokov’s genius unites the searchlight with the microscope.”

Several years ago a friend of mine in Paris – a person with oddities, to put it mildly – learning that I was going to spend two or three days at Montisert, asked me to drop in at the local museum where there hung, he was told, a portrait of his grandfather by Leroy. Smiling and spreading out his hands, he related a rather vague story to which I confess I paid little attention, partly because I do not like other people’s obtrusive affairs, but chiefly because I had always had doubts about my friend’s capacity to remain this side of fantasy. It went more or less as follows: after the grandfather died in their St Petersburg house back at the time of the Russo-Japanese War, the contents of his apartment in Paris were sold at auction. The portrait, after some obscure peregrinations, was acquired by the museum of Leroy’s native town. My friend wished to know if the portrait was really there; if there, if it could be ransomed; and if it could, for what price. When I asked why he did not get in touch with the museum, he replied that he had written several times, but had never received an answer.

I made an inward resolution not to carry out the request –I could always tell him I had fallen ill or changed my itinerary. The very notion of seeing sights, whether they be museums or ancient buildings, is loathsome to me; besides, the good freak’s commission seemed absolute nonsense. It so happened, however, that, while wandering about Montisert’s empty streets in search of a stationery store, and cursing the spire of a long-necked cathedral, always the same one, that kept popping up at the end of every street, I was caught in a violent downpour which immediately went about accelerating the fall of the maple leaves, for the fair weather of a southern October was holding on by a mere thread. I dashed for cover and found myself on the steps of the museum.

It was a building of modest proportions, constructed of many-coloured stones, with columns, a gilt inscription over the frescoes of the pediment, and a lion-legged stone bench on either side of the bronze door. One of its leaves stood open, and the interior seemed dark against the shimmer of the shower. I stood for a while on the steps, but, despite the overhanging roof, they were gradually growing speckled. I saw that the rain had set in for good, and so, having nothing better to do, I decided to go inside. No sooner had I trod on the smooth, resonant flagstones of the vestibule than the clatter of a moved stool came from a distant corner, and the custodian – a banal pensioner with an empty sleeve – rose to meet me, laying aside his newspaper and peering at me over his spectacles. I paid my franc and, trying not to look at some statues at the entrance (which were as traditional and as insignificant as the first number in a circus programme), I entered the main hall.