History of The House
It is a medium to large townhouse, built in the 19th century, in the Neo-Renaissance style. Between 1897 and the October Revolution the house was the property of the Nabokovs, who had obtained it as a dowry of Elena Rukavishnikova (Vladimir Nabokov's mother). Vladimir Vladimirovich lived in the house until November 1917. The house is meticulously described in his autobiography The Other Shores and Speak, Memory. For Vladimir the house remained the only house in the world. Subsequently, even when he grew rich, he never acquired any other house and preferred to live in hotels.
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“The history of philosophy is to a great extent that of a certain clash of human temperaments.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
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“The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)