JК
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight :: Набоков Владимир Владимирович
Страница: 47 из 124I would unobtrusively take up my position at the corner of her street, wait for her husband's departure to the city, wait for her to come out and then accost her. But things did not work out quite as I had expected.
I had still some little way to go when suddenly Clare Bishop appeared. She had just crossed from my side of the street to the opposite pavement. I knew her at once although I had seen her only once for a short half-hour years before. I knew her although her face was now pinched and her body strangely full. She walked slowly and heavily, and as I crossed towards her I realized that she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. Owing to the impetuous strain in my nature, which has often led me astray, I found myself walking towards her with a smile of welcome, but in those few instants I was already overwhelmed by the perfectly clear consciousness that I might neither talk to her nor greet her in any manner. It had nothing to do with Sebastian or my book, or my words with Mr Bishop, it was solely on account of her stately concentration. I knew I was forbidden even to make myself known to her, but as I say, my impetus had carried me across the street and in such a way that I nearly bumped into her upon reaching the pavement. She sidestepped heavily and lifted her near-sighted eyes. No, thank God, she did not recognize me. There was something heart-rending in the solemn expression of her pale sawdusty face. We had stopped short. With ridiculous presence of mind I brought out of my pocket the first thing my hand met with, and I said: 'I beg your pardon, but have you dropped this?'
'No,' she said, with an impersonal smile. She held it for a moment close to her eyes, 'no,' she repeated, and giving it back to me went on her way. I stood with a key in my hand, as if I had just picked it up off the pavement. It was the latchkey of Sebastian's flat, and with a queer pang I now realized that she had touched it with her innocent blind fingers….
9
Their relationship lasted six years. During that period Sebastian produced his two first novels: The Prismatic Bezel and Success. It took him some seven months to compose the first (April-October 1924) and twenty-two months to compose the second (July I925-April 1927). Between autumn 1927 and summer 1929 he wrote the three stories which later (1932) were republished together under the tide The Funny Mountain. In other words, Clare intimately witnessed the first three-fifths of his entire production (I skip the juvenilia – the Cambridge poems for instance – which he himself destroyed); and as in the intervals between the above-mentioned books Sebastian kept twisting and laying aside and re-twisting this or that imaginative scheme it may be safely assumed that during those six years he was continuously occupied.
I had still some little way to go when suddenly Clare Bishop appeared. She had just crossed from my side of the street to the opposite pavement. I knew her at once although I had seen her only once for a short half-hour years before. I knew her although her face was now pinched and her body strangely full. She walked slowly and heavily, and as I crossed towards her I realized that she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. Owing to the impetuous strain in my nature, which has often led me astray, I found myself walking towards her with a smile of welcome, but in those few instants I was already overwhelmed by the perfectly clear consciousness that I might neither talk to her nor greet her in any manner. It had nothing to do with Sebastian or my book, or my words with Mr Bishop, it was solely on account of her stately concentration. I knew I was forbidden even to make myself known to her, but as I say, my impetus had carried me across the street and in such a way that I nearly bumped into her upon reaching the pavement. She sidestepped heavily and lifted her near-sighted eyes. No, thank God, she did not recognize me. There was something heart-rending in the solemn expression of her pale sawdusty face. We had stopped short. With ridiculous presence of mind I brought out of my pocket the first thing my hand met with, and I said: 'I beg your pardon, but have you dropped this?'
'No,' she said, with an impersonal smile. She held it for a moment close to her eyes, 'no,' she repeated, and giving it back to me went on her way. I stood with a key in my hand, as if I had just picked it up off the pavement. It was the latchkey of Sebastian's flat, and with a queer pang I now realized that she had touched it with her innocent blind fingers….
9
Their relationship lasted six years. During that period Sebastian produced his two first novels: The Prismatic Bezel and Success. It took him some seven months to compose the first (April-October 1924) and twenty-two months to compose the second (July I925-April 1927). Between autumn 1927 and summer 1929 he wrote the three stories which later (1932) were republished together under the tide The Funny Mountain. In other words, Clare intimately witnessed the first three-fifths of his entire production (I skip the juvenilia – the Cambridge poems for instance – which he himself destroyed); and as in the intervals between the above-mentioned books Sebastian kept twisting and laying aside and re-twisting this or that imaginative scheme it may be safely assumed that during those six years he was continuously occupied.