"Bachmann" is a short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 written in Russian by Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...

 under his nom-de-plume V. Sirin in Berlin in 1924. It was first published in Rul, a Russian émigré paper founded by his father, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov

Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov

Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov was a Russian criminologist, journalist, and progressive statesman during the last years of the Russian Empire. He was the father of Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov.- Life :Nabokov was born in Tsarskoe Selo, into a wealthy and aristocratic family...

, and later included in a number of short story collections: Vozvrashchenie Chorba, Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories

Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories

Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories is a collection of thirteen short stories by Vladimir Nabokov. All but the last one were written in Russian by Nabokov between 1924 and 1939 as an expatriate in Berlin, Paris, and Menton, and later translated into English by him and his son, Dmitri Nabokov. These...

(1975), and The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov is a posthumous collection of every known short story that Vladimir Nabokov ever wrote, with the exception of "The Enchanter"...

(1995). He and his son, Dmitri Nabokov

Dmitri Nabokov

Dmitri Vladimirovich Nabokov is an American opera singer and translator. He is the only child of writer Vladimir Nabokov and his wife Vera Nabokov, and is currently executor of his father's literary estate.-Background:...

, provided the English translation.

Plot summary

The story has an outer narrator who receives the story by Sack, the inner narrator. Sack is the impresario of Bachmann, but he is callous, and does not care for him. The core story deals with the love relationship between Mme. Perov and Bachmann. Bachmann is an awkward and eccentric pianist and composer to whom she is introduced at a party where she (like the reader) first mistakes Sack for Bachmann. Sack speaks disparagingly of B, who has "no brains". Sack has to track him down frequently as he being an alcoholic tends to disappear before his performances. Mme Perov becomes a necessary and enhancing facilitator for the musical genius; he always made sure that she was sitting in the first row when he was performing. One night, when she was sick and absent, Bachmann refused to play and insulted the audience (Sack complained that he was showing them "the fig - instead of the fugue"). Sack dragged her out of her bed to the theatre, but Bachmann had left already. Sack made her look for Bachmann in a cold and rainy night, and when she finally returned to the hotel, she found Bachmann in the room. The outer narrator described their togetherness:" The deranged musician and the dying women, that night found words the greatest poets never dreamed of". She died the next day. Bachmann disappeared after the funeral and became insane. Sack saw him later in a deplorable state and avoided him.

Comments

The complex construction of the story shows a tension between the unfeeling and callous inner narrator who may well carry some responsibility for Mme Perov's death and Bachmann's madness, and the more sympathetic outer narrator who shows two unique individuals who find inner fulfillment in their relationship and transform themselves. The outer narrator has no direct involvement in the events but knows more than what Sack tells him. The portrait of the artist as a unique and vulnerable person who does not fit in and is eccentric and close to madness is later picked up in the figure of Luzhin in his novel The Defense

The Defense

The Defense is a Russian novel written by Vladimir Nabokov during his emigration in Berlin and published in 1930.-Plot summary:The plot concerns the title character, Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin. As a boy, he is considered unattractive, withdrawn, and an object of ridicule by his classmates...

. A reference to the famous contemporary pianist Pachmann

Vladimir de Pachmann

Vladimir von Pachmann or Pachman was a pianist of Russian-German ethnicity, especially noted for performing the works of Chopin, and also for his eccentric on-stage style.-Biography:...

 is present in the name, but also in the early recording ("in wax") of the performances, and the use of gestures towards the audience. The description of the female character as a stabilizing and uplifting factor for the genius was written shortly after Nabokov met his future wife who in a way had a similar enhancing effect upon Nabokov's life. Vera

Vera Nabokov

Véra Nabokova was the wife, muse, editor, and translator of Vladimir Nabokov.-Early life and immigration:...

, too, was always sitting in the front row when he was lecturing.