The Real Life of Sebastian Knight   ::   Набоков Владимир Владимирович

These eyes and the face itself are painted in such a manner as to convey the impression that they are mirrored Narcissus-like in clear water – with a very slight ripple on the hollow cheek, owing to the presence of awater-spider which has just stopped and is floating backward. A withered leaf has settled on the reflected brow, which is creased as that of a man peering intently. The crumpled dark hair over it is partly suffused by another ripple, but one strand on the temple has caught a glint of humid sunshine. There is a deep furrow between the straight eyebrows, and another down from the nose to the tightly shut dusky lips. There is nothing much more than this head. A dark opalescent shade clouds the neck, as if the upper part of the body were receding. The general background is a mysterious blueness with a delicate trellis of twigs in one corner. Thus Sebastian peers into a pool at himself.

'I wanted to hint at a woman somewhere behind him or over him – the shadow of a hand, perhaps… something…. But then I was afraid of story-telling instead of painting.'

'Well, nobody seems to know anything about her. Not even Sheldon.'

'She smashed his life, that sums her up, doesn't it?'

'No, I want to know more. I want to know all. Otherwise he will remain as incomplete as your picture. Oh, it is very good, the likeness is excellent, and I love that floating spider immensely. Especially its club-footed shadow at the bottom. But the face is only a chance reflection. Any man can look into water.

'But don't you think that he did it particularly well?'

'Yes, I can see your point. But all the same I must find that woman. She is the missing link in his evolution, and I must obtain her – it's a scientific necessity.'

'I'll bet you this picture that you won't find her,' said Roy Carswell.



13

The first thing was to learn her identity. How should I start upon my quest? What data did I possess? In June 1929, Sebastian had dwelt at the Beaumont Hotel at Blauberg, and there he had met her. She was Russian. No other clue was available.

I have Sebastian's aversion for postal phenomena. It seems easier to me to travel a thousand miles than to write the shortest letter, then find an envelope, find the right address, buy the right stamp, post the letter (and rack my brain trying to remember whether I have signed it). Moreover, in the delicate affair I was about to tackle, correspondence was out of the question. In March 1936, after a month's stay in England, I consulted a tourist office and set out for Blauberg.

So here he has passed, I reflected, as I looked at wet fields with long trails of white mist where upright poplar trees dimly floated. A small red-tiled town crouched at the foot of a soft grey mountain.