In Chapter Four, Nabokov describes the succession of nannies and governesses that accompany Sergey and him through their early childhood. He now picks up that narrative and continues by introducing the string of tutors that instruct the boys during their teenage years. The tutors, mostly young graduate students, always live with the Nabokov family, and are included at the family table and on trips and vacations. Nabokov boasts that three years is all it ever takes him to wear out any one tutor.
Their father seems to intentionally choose tutors with widely varying backgrounds and subjects of expertise. Nabokov mentions first the village schoolmaster, though he is not technically one of the family's regular tutors, who are employed to give the boys a crash course in the Russian language. Nabokov tells of a chance.....
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