“There is something I must tell you, Natasha. You see, I have never been to Africa or to India. It’s all a lie. I am now nearly thirty, but, apart from two or three Russian towns and a dozen villages, and this forlorn country, I have not seen anything. Please forgive me.”
…
“How I dream, Natasha, how I dream,” he was saying, waving a small, whistling stick. “Am I really lying when I pass off my fantasies as truth? I had a friend who served for three years in Bombay. Bombay? My God! The music of geographical names. That word alone contains something gigantic, bombs of sunlight, drums. Just imagine, Natasha—that friend of mine was incapable of communicating anything, remembered nothing except work-related squabbles, the heat, the fevers, and the wife of some British colonel. Which of us really visited India? … It’s obvious—of course, I am the one. Bombay, Singapore … I can recall, for instance …”
Natasha by Valdmire Nabakov
