JК
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight :: Набоков Владимир Владимирович
Страница: 73 из 124I left my bag in the cloakroom of a forlorn little station where invisible cattle lowed sadly in some shunted truck, and went up a gentle slope towards a cluster of hotels and sanatoriums beyond a damp-smelling park. There were very few people about, it was not 'the height of the season', and I suddenly realized with a pang that I might find the hotel shut.
But it was not; thus far, luck was with me.
The house seemed fairly pleasant with its well kept garden and budding chestnut trees. It looked as if it could not hold more than some fifty people – and this braced me: I wanted my choice restricted. The hotel manager was a grey-haired man with a trimmed beard and velvet black eyes. I proceeded very carefully.
First I said that my late brother, Sebastian Knight, a celebrated English author, had greatly liked his stay and that I was thinking of staying at the hotel myself in the summer. Perhaps I ought to have taken a room, sliding in, ingratiating myself, so to speak, and postponing my special request until a more favourable moment; but somehow I thought that the matter might be settled on the spot. He said yes, he remembered the Englishman who had stayed in 1929 and had wanted a bath every morning.
'He did not make friends readily, did he?' I asked with sham casualness. 'He was always alone?'
'Oh, I think he was here with his father,' said the hotel manager vaguely.
We wrestled for some time disentangling the three or four Englishmen who had happened to have stayed at Hotel Beaumont during the last ten years. I saw that he did not remember Sebastian any too clearly.
'Let me be frank,' I said off-handedly, 'I am trying to find the address of a lady, my brother's friend, who had stayed here at the same time as he.'
The hotel manager lifted his eyebrows slightly, and I had the uneasy feeling that I had committed some blunder.
'Why?' he said. ('Ought I to bribe him?' I thought quickly.)
'Well,' I said, 'I'm ready to pay you for the trouble of finding the information I want.'
'What information?' he asked. (He was a stupid and suspicious old party – may he never read these lines.)
'I was wondering,' I went on patiently, 'whether you would be so very, very kind as to help me to find the address of a lady who stayed here at the same time as Mr Knight, that is in June 1929?'
'What lady?' he asked in the elenctic tones of Lewis Carroll's caterpillar.
'I'm not sure of her name,' I said nervously.
'Then how do you expect me to find her?' he said with a shrug.
'She was Russian,' I said.
But it was not; thus far, luck was with me.
The house seemed fairly pleasant with its well kept garden and budding chestnut trees. It looked as if it could not hold more than some fifty people – and this braced me: I wanted my choice restricted. The hotel manager was a grey-haired man with a trimmed beard and velvet black eyes. I proceeded very carefully.
First I said that my late brother, Sebastian Knight, a celebrated English author, had greatly liked his stay and that I was thinking of staying at the hotel myself in the summer. Perhaps I ought to have taken a room, sliding in, ingratiating myself, so to speak, and postponing my special request until a more favourable moment; but somehow I thought that the matter might be settled on the spot. He said yes, he remembered the Englishman who had stayed in 1929 and had wanted a bath every morning.
'He did not make friends readily, did he?' I asked with sham casualness. 'He was always alone?'
'Oh, I think he was here with his father,' said the hotel manager vaguely.
We wrestled for some time disentangling the three or four Englishmen who had happened to have stayed at Hotel Beaumont during the last ten years. I saw that he did not remember Sebastian any too clearly.
'Let me be frank,' I said off-handedly, 'I am trying to find the address of a lady, my brother's friend, who had stayed here at the same time as he.'
The hotel manager lifted his eyebrows slightly, and I had the uneasy feeling that I had committed some blunder.
'Why?' he said. ('Ought I to bribe him?' I thought quickly.)
'Well,' I said, 'I'm ready to pay you for the trouble of finding the information I want.'
'What information?' he asked. (He was a stupid and suspicious old party – may he never read these lines.)
'I was wondering,' I went on patiently, 'whether you would be so very, very kind as to help me to find the address of a lady who stayed here at the same time as Mr Knight, that is in June 1929?'
'What lady?' he asked in the elenctic tones of Lewis Carroll's caterpillar.
'I'm not sure of her name,' I said nervously.
'Then how do you expect me to find her?' he said with a shrug.
'She was Russian,' I said.