JК
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight :: Набоков Владимир Владимирович
Страница: 19 из 124And the more I pondered on it, the more I perceived that I had yet another tool in my hand: when I imagined actions of his which I heard of only after his death, I knew for certain that in such or such a case I should have acted just as he had. Once I happened to see two brothers, tennis champions, matched against one another; their strokes were totally different, and one of the two was far, far better than the other; but the general rhythm of their motions as they swept all over the court was exactly the same, so that had it been possible to draft both systems two identical designs would have appeared.
I daresay Sebastian and I also had some kind of common rhythm; this might explain the curious 'it-has-happened-before-feeling' which seizes me when following the bends of his life. And if, as often was the case with him, the 'whys' of his behaviour were as many Xs, I often find their meaning disclosed now in a subconscious turn of this or that sentence put down by me. This is not meant to imply that I shared with him any riches of the mind, any facets of talent. Far from it. His genius always seemed to me a miracle utterly independent of any of the definite things we may have both experienced in the similar background of our childhood. I may have seen and remembered what he saw and remembered, but the difference between his power of expression and mine is comparable to that which exists between a Bechstein piano and a baby's rattle. I would never have let him see the least sentence of this book lest he should wince at the way I manage my miserable English. And wince he would. Nor do I dare imagine his reactions had he learnt that 'before starting on his biography, his half-brother (whose literary experience had amounted till then to one or two chance English translations required by a motor-firm) had decided to take up a 'be-an-author' course buoyantly advertised in an English magazine. Yes, I confess to it – not that I regret it. The gentleman, who for a reasonable fee was supposed to make a successful writer of my person – really took the utmost pains to teach me to be coy and graceful, forcible and crisp, and if I proved a hopeless pupil – although he was far too kind to admit it – it was because from the very start I had been hypnotized by the perfect glory of a short story which he sent me as a sample of what his pupils could do and sell. It contained among other things a wicked Chinaman who snarled, a brave girl with hazel eyes, and a big quiet fellow whose knuckles turned white when someone really annoyed him.
I daresay Sebastian and I also had some kind of common rhythm; this might explain the curious 'it-has-happened-before-feeling' which seizes me when following the bends of his life. And if, as often was the case with him, the 'whys' of his behaviour were as many Xs, I often find their meaning disclosed now in a subconscious turn of this or that sentence put down by me. This is not meant to imply that I shared with him any riches of the mind, any facets of talent. Far from it. His genius always seemed to me a miracle utterly independent of any of the definite things we may have both experienced in the similar background of our childhood. I may have seen and remembered what he saw and remembered, but the difference between his power of expression and mine is comparable to that which exists between a Bechstein piano and a baby's rattle. I would never have let him see the least sentence of this book lest he should wince at the way I manage my miserable English. And wince he would. Nor do I dare imagine his reactions had he learnt that 'before starting on his biography, his half-brother (whose literary experience had amounted till then to one or two chance English translations required by a motor-firm) had decided to take up a 'be-an-author' course buoyantly advertised in an English magazine. Yes, I confess to it – not that I regret it. The gentleman, who for a reasonable fee was supposed to make a successful writer of my person – really took the utmost pains to teach me to be coy and graceful, forcible and crisp, and if I proved a hopeless pupil – although he was far too kind to admit it – it was because from the very start I had been hypnotized by the perfect glory of a short story which he sent me as a sample of what his pupils could do and sell. It contained among other things a wicked Chinaman who snarled, a brave girl with hazel eyes, and a big quiet fellow whose knuckles turned white when someone really annoyed him.