The original of Laura

CHAPTER FOUR

Mrs. Lanskaya died on the day her daughter graduated from Sutton College. A new fountain had just been bequeathed to its campus by a former student, the widow of a shah. Generally speaking, one should carefully preserve in transliteration the feminine ending of a Russian surname (such as — aya, instead of the masculine — iy or — oy) when the woman in question is an artistic celebrity. So let it be

"Landskaya" — land and sky and the melancholy echo of her dancing name. The fountain took quite a time to get correctly erected after an initial series of unevenly spaced spasms. The potentate had been potent till the absurd age of eighty. It was a very hot day with its blue somewhat veiled. A few photographers] moved among the crowd, as indifferent to it as specters doing their spectral job. And certainly for no earthly reason does this passage resemble in rhythm another novel, My Laura, where the mother appears as "Maya Umanskaya," a fabricated film actress. Anyway, she suddenly collapsed on the lawn in the middle of the beautiful ceremony. A remarkable picture commemorated the event in "File." It showed Flora kneeling belatedly in the act of taking her mother's non-existent pulse, and it also showed a man of great corpulence and fame, still unacquainted with Flora: he stood just behind her, head bared and bowed, staring at the white of her legs under her black gown and at the fair hair under her academic cap.