The Real Life of Sebastian Knight   ::   Набоков Владимир Владимирович

Clare having some business in London said she would join him a week or two later. When she eventually arrived at the German seaside resort which Sebastian had decided upon, she was unexpectedly informed at the hotel that he had left for an unknown destination but would be back in a couple of days. This puzzled Clare, although, as she afterwards told Miss Pratt, she did not feel unduly anxious or distressed. We may picture her, a thin tall figure in a blue mackintosh (the weather was overcast and unfriendly) strolling rather aimlessly on the promenade, the sandy beach, empty except for a few undismayed children, the three-coloured flags flapping mournfully in a dying breeze, and a steely grey sea breaking here and there into crests of foam. Farther down the coast there was a beech wood, deep and dark with no undergrowth except bindwood patching the undulating brown soil; and a strange brown stillness stood waiting among the straight smooth tree-trunks: she thought she might find at any moment a red-capped German gnome peeping bright-eyed at her from among the dead leaves of a hollow. She unpacked her bathing things and passed a pleasant though somewhat listless day lying on the soft white sand. Next morning was rainy again and she stayed in her room until lunch time, reading Donne, who for ever after remained to her associated with the pale grey light of that damp and hazy day and the whine of a child wanting to play in the corridor. And presently Sebastian arrived. He was certainly glad to see her but there was something not quite natural in his demeanour. He seemed nervous and troubled, and averted his face whenever she tried to meet his look. He said he had come across a man he had known ages ago, in Russia, and they had gone in the man's car to – he named a place on the coast some miles away. 'But what is the matter, my dear?' she asked peering into his sulky face.

'Oh, nothing, nothing,' he cried peevishly, 'I can't sit and do nothing, I want my work,' he added and looked away.

'I wonder if you are telling me the truth,' she said.

He shrugged his shoulders and slid the edge of his palm along the groove of the hat he was holding.

'Come along,' he said. 'Let's have lunch and then go back to London.'

But there was no convenient train before evening. As the weather had cleared they went out for a stroll. Sebastian tried once or twice to be as bright with her as he usually was, but it somehow fizzled out and they were both silent. They reached the beech wood. There was the same mysterious and dull suspense about it, and he said, though she had not told him she had been there before: 'What a funny quiet place.