Just read Naboko's "The Door Bell". In contrast with a review I read which strongly suggested that the son is self centered or arrogant, also, that he's dismissive or somewhat indifferent to the obvious signs that her mother's age and her experiences in the years they spent apart combined with the shock of their unforeseen reunion had little effect on him. I think Nabokov refrained from going deeper into the son's mind when he was examining the room in order to allow the reader to engage, as he always does. So this is not a sign that the son is not concerned about the mother, he did ask how she was.
But he talked about himself and his travels instead, Perhaps knowing that he wasn't going to like what she had to say and she wasn't going to tell him the truth anyways, simply a comment on the mother and son relationship. But I admit, in the end after the incident at the doorway with the lover, again another conclusion Nabokov left to the reader, the son was laughing while talking about his future plans which seems apathetic, but maybe he was trying to divert the situation for the sake of his tearful mother.
The ending, a recurrent theme of subtle pain and abandonment in Nabokov's work resurrected, with the son walking out with a promise and the mother running to the phone to call her young lover.
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