JК
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight :: Набоков Владимир Владимирович
Страница: 37 из 124'The War', says Mr Goodman without so much as a blush, 'had changed the face of the universe.' And with much gusto he goes on to describe those special aspects of post-war life which met a young man at 'the troubled dawn of his career': a feeling of some great deception; weariness of the soul and feverish physical excitement (such as the 'vapid lewdness of the foxtrot'); a sense of futility – and its result: gross liberty. Cruelty, too; the reek of blood still in the air; glaring picture palaces; dim couples in dark Hyde Park; the glories of standardization; the cult of machinery; the degradation of Beauty, Love, Honour, Art… and so on. It is really a wonder that Mr Goodman himself who, as far as I know, was Sebastian's coeval, managed to live through those terrific years.
But what Mr Goodman could stand, his Sebastian Knight apparently could not. We are given a picture of Sebastian restlessly pacing the rooms of his London flat in .1923, after a short trip to the Continent, which Continent 'shocked him indescribably by the vulgar glamour of its gambling hells'. Yes, 'pacing up and down… clutching at his temples… in a passion of discontent… angry with the world… alone… eager to do something, but weak, weak….' The dots are not Mr Goodman's tremolos, but denote sentences I have kindly left out. 'No,' Mr Goodman goes on, 'this was not the world for an artist to live in. It was all very well to flaunt a brave countenance, to make a great display of that cynicism which so irritates one in Knight's earlier work and so pains one in his last two volumes… it was all very well to appear contemptuous and ultrasophisticated, but the thorn was there, the sharp, poisonous thorn.' I don't know why, but the presence of this (perfectly mythical) thorn seems to give Mr Goodman a grim satisfaction.
It would be unfair of me if I let it seem that this first chapter of The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight consists exclusively of a thick flow of philosophical treacle. Word-pictures and anecdotes which form the body of the book (that is, when Mr Goodman arrives at the stage of Sebastian's life when he met him personally) appear here too, as rock cakes dotting the syrup. Mr Goodman was no Boswell; still, no doubt, he kept a notebook where he jotted down certain remarks of his employer – and apparently some of these related to his employer's past. In other words, we must imagine that Sebastian in between work would say: Do you know, my dear Goodman, this reminds me of a day in my life, some years ago, when… Here would come the story. Half a dozen of these seem to Mr Goodman sufficient to fill out what is to him a blank – Sebastian's youth in England.
But what Mr Goodman could stand, his Sebastian Knight apparently could not. We are given a picture of Sebastian restlessly pacing the rooms of his London flat in .1923, after a short trip to the Continent, which Continent 'shocked him indescribably by the vulgar glamour of its gambling hells'. Yes, 'pacing up and down… clutching at his temples… in a passion of discontent… angry with the world… alone… eager to do something, but weak, weak….' The dots are not Mr Goodman's tremolos, but denote sentences I have kindly left out. 'No,' Mr Goodman goes on, 'this was not the world for an artist to live in. It was all very well to flaunt a brave countenance, to make a great display of that cynicism which so irritates one in Knight's earlier work and so pains one in his last two volumes… it was all very well to appear contemptuous and ultrasophisticated, but the thorn was there, the sharp, poisonous thorn.' I don't know why, but the presence of this (perfectly mythical) thorn seems to give Mr Goodman a grim satisfaction.
It would be unfair of me if I let it seem that this first chapter of The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight consists exclusively of a thick flow of philosophical treacle. Word-pictures and anecdotes which form the body of the book (that is, when Mr Goodman arrives at the stage of Sebastian's life when he met him personally) appear here too, as rock cakes dotting the syrup. Mr Goodman was no Boswell; still, no doubt, he kept a notebook where he jotted down certain remarks of his employer – and apparently some of these related to his employer's past. In other words, we must imagine that Sebastian in between work would say: Do you know, my dear Goodman, this reminds me of a day in my life, some years ago, when… Here would come the story. Half a dozen of these seem to Mr Goodman sufficient to fill out what is to him a blank – Sebastian's youth in England.