Cars

"This informal contact between train and city was one part of the thrill. The other was putting myself in the place of some passer-by who, I imagined, was moved as I would be moved myself to see the long, romantic, auburn cars, with their intervestibular connectiong curtains as black as bat wings and their metal lettering copper-bright in the low sun, unhurriedly negotiate an iron bridge across an everyday thoroughfare and then turn, with all windows suddenly ablaze, around a last block of houses." (Chatper 7, page 144)

1. Periodic sentence?

2. I found this particular passage to be of greater significance than it may seem because of its implications. Nabokov, once again proving his great imagination, places himself in the mind of a stranger and assumes to know, or pretends to know, what they are thinking. The reason I find this so interesting is because I tend to do this myself. Often times, while driving down the interstate, I'll see all different cars: different makes and models, different license plates, different conditions, bumper stickers, and different people inside. Sometimes I can't help but imagine where they might be either going to or coming from, or what their lives might be like. This passage also mentions cars, but cars of a train connecting different countries rather than automobiles without a known destination. I also find it interesting that this is something his memory has captured and retained all these years as an exciting moment in his life, and with so much detail. Cars are literal objects that take us from one physical location to another (whether train or automobile), but can also be used in this instance as a metaphorical transition from one part of his life to another.