Summary

The novel opens to Nikolai addressing his mother as “mother dear” (3) and the mother finding it endearing. They speak in a state of timelessness, a place of nowhere, a world made up of words. Nikolai asks his mother if the event (as yet unnamed) was a tragedy, but she replies it is sad, and she has no other adjectives left. The mother, instead of divulging that she wishes he could feel as she does, tells the story of a classmate’s mother who became deaf from a fall yet managed to become a pianist and teach in a conservatory. She reports that all her friend’s parents liked her, but Nikolai mentions he could not make the same statement. While the mother muses that she knew little about this friend’s mother except some facts and her smile, she alludes that if she...