The Real Life of Sebastian Knight   ::   Набоков Владимир Владимирович

"But I'm nota grown-up," he replied with a whimper. "That moon is childish, and that wet pavement is childish, and Love is a honey-suckling babe…" "Please stop," she said. "You know I hate when you go on talking like that. It's so silly, so…" "So Willy," he sighed. He kissed her again and they stood like some soft dark statue with two dim heads. A policeman passed leading the night on a leash and then paused to let it sniff at a pillar-box. "I'm as happy as you," she said, "but I don't want to cry in the least or to talk nonsense." "But can't you see," he whispered, "can't you see that happiness at its very best is but the zany of its own mortality?" "Good-night," said Anne. "Tomorrow at eight," he cried as she slipped away. He patted the door gently and presently was strolling down the street. She is warm and she is pretty, he mused, and I love her, and it's all no good, no good, because we are dying. I cannot bear that backward glide into the past. That last kiss is already dead and The Woman in White [a film they had been to see that night] is stone dead, and the policeman who passed is dead too, and even the door is as dead as its nail. And that last thought is already a dead thing by now. Coates (the doctor) is right when he says that my heart is too small for my size. And sighs. He wandered on talking to himself, his shadow now pulling a long nose, now dropping a curtsy, as it slipped back round a lamp-post. When he reached his dismal lodgings he was a long time climbing the dark stairs. Before going to bed he knocked at the conjuror's door and found the old man standing in his underwear and inspecting a pair of black trousers. "Well?" said William…."They don't kinda like my accent," he replied, "but I guess I'm going to get that turn all the same." William sat down on the bed and said: "You ought to dye your hair." "I'm more bald than grey," said the conjuror. "I sometimes wonder," said William, "where the things we shed are – because they must go somewhere, you know – lost hair, fingernails…." "Been drinking again," suggested the conjuror without much curiosity. He folded his trousers with care and told William to quit the bed, so that he might put them under the mattress. William sat down on a chair and the conjuror went on with his business; the hairs bristled on his calves, his lips were pursed, his soft hands moved tenderly. "I am merely happy," said William. "You don't look it," said the solemn old man. "May I buy you a rabbit?" asked William. "I'll hire one when necessary," the conjuror replied drawing out the "necessary" as if it were an endless ribbon.