April 22, 1899

Vladimir Nabokov (April 22, 1899 to July 2, 1977) was a refugee from two violent governments. The Russian novelist did not keep a cat in the family circle. We find in Pnin, (1957) an account of a magazine ad, which shows a cartoon: a shipwrecked sailor, a cat, and a mermaid, on a desert island. A thought balloon shows the sailor wants the mermaid to be a full woman. The cat though, dreams the mermaid is a full fish. 

His aversion to any cruelty to animals was a point Nabokov made publicly.  We probably should cut him a little slack on the butterfly killing. 

April 22, 1899

I only recently learned that Nabokov's mastery of English was not the feat often presented: the author learned it in his cradle, and it was perhaps even his first language. And I would not have described Vladimir Nabokov (April  22, 1899 to July 2,1977) as a cat lover, but one source presents that picture:

[H]e doted on...May Sarton’s [cat], a tom named Tom Jones whom he renamed Tomski. According to Sarton, when the Nabokovs sublet her house and kept the cat one year:

Tom Jones soon learned that he was welcome to install himself at the very heart of genius on Nabokov’s chest, there to make starfish paws, purr ecstatically, and sometimes — rather painfully for the object of his pleasure — knead.

The Nabokovs became so attached to him that they later arranged for a reunion tea in a hotel suite. Unfortunately, the guest of honor spent the hour hiding under the sofa.

Not that this makes up for the butterflies.