The Wood-Sprite

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The Wood-Sprite is a story by Vladimir Nabokov, originally published in Russian in 1921. It was his first published story.

Summary

The story is told in first-person narration and recounts the narrator's experience when he was visited, at his desk, by a "hunched, gray" wood-sprite, "powdered with the pollen of the frosty, starry night." The creature tells of his own exile from Russia and the hardships he has endured as a result. After a candle blows out, the narrator turns on the light only to be left alone with a "subtle scent in the room, of birch, of humid moss..." [1]

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References

  1. Nabokov, Vladimir (2008). The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov. Vintage Books. p. 3-5.