JК
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight :: Набоков Владимир Владимирович
Страница: 75 из 124Why was the past so rebellious?
'And whatshall I do now?' The stream of the biography on which I longed so to start, was, at one of its last bends, enshrouded in pale mist; like the valley I was contemplating. Could I leave it thus and write the book all the same? A book with a blind spot. An unfinished picture – uncoloured limbs of the martyr with the arrows in his side.
I had the feeling that I was lost, that I had nowhere to go. I had pondered long enough the means to find Sebastian's last love to know that there was practically no other way of finding her name. Her name! I felt I should recognize it at once if I got at those greasy black folios. Ought I to give it , up and turn to the collection of a few other minor details concerning Sebastian which I still needed and which I knew where to obtain?
It was in this bewildered state of mind that I got into the slow local train which was to take me back to Strasbourg. Then I would go on to Switzerland perhaps…. But no, I could not get over the tingling pain of my failure; though I tried hard enough to bury myself in an English paper I had with me: I was in training, so to speak, reading only English in view of the work I was about to begin…. But could one begin something so incomplete in one's mind?
I was alone in my compartment (as one usually is in a f second-class carriage on that sort of train), but then, at the next station, a little man with bushy eyebrows got in, greeted me continentally, in thick guttural French, and sat down opposite. The train ran on, right into the sunset. All of a sudden, I noticed that the passenger opposite was beaming at me.
'Marrvellous weather,' he said and took off his bowler hat disclosing a pink bald head. 'You are English?' he asked nodding and smiling.
'Well, yes, for the moment,' I answered.
'I see, saw, you read English djornal,' he said pointing with his finger – then hurriedly taking off his fawn glove and pointing again (perhaps he had been told that it was rude to point with a gloved index). I murmured something and looked away: I do not like chatting in a train, and at the moment I was particularly disinclined to do so. He followed my gaze. The low sun had set aflame the numerous windows of a large building which turned slowly, demonstrating one huge chimney, then another, as the train clattered by.
'Dat,' said the little man, 'is "Flambaum and Roth", great fabric, factory. Paper.'
There was a little pause. Then he scratched his big shiny nose and leaned towards me.
'I have been,' he said, 'London, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle.' He looked at the thumb which had been left uncounted.
'And whatshall I do now?' The stream of the biography on which I longed so to start, was, at one of its last bends, enshrouded in pale mist; like the valley I was contemplating. Could I leave it thus and write the book all the same? A book with a blind spot. An unfinished picture – uncoloured limbs of the martyr with the arrows in his side.
I had the feeling that I was lost, that I had nowhere to go. I had pondered long enough the means to find Sebastian's last love to know that there was practically no other way of finding her name. Her name! I felt I should recognize it at once if I got at those greasy black folios. Ought I to give it , up and turn to the collection of a few other minor details concerning Sebastian which I still needed and which I knew where to obtain?
It was in this bewildered state of mind that I got into the slow local train which was to take me back to Strasbourg. Then I would go on to Switzerland perhaps…. But no, I could not get over the tingling pain of my failure; though I tried hard enough to bury myself in an English paper I had with me: I was in training, so to speak, reading only English in view of the work I was about to begin…. But could one begin something so incomplete in one's mind?
I was alone in my compartment (as one usually is in a f second-class carriage on that sort of train), but then, at the next station, a little man with bushy eyebrows got in, greeted me continentally, in thick guttural French, and sat down opposite. The train ran on, right into the sunset. All of a sudden, I noticed that the passenger opposite was beaming at me.
'Marrvellous weather,' he said and took off his bowler hat disclosing a pink bald head. 'You are English?' he asked nodding and smiling.
'Well, yes, for the moment,' I answered.
'I see, saw, you read English djornal,' he said pointing with his finger – then hurriedly taking off his fawn glove and pointing again (perhaps he had been told that it was rude to point with a gloved index). I murmured something and looked away: I do not like chatting in a train, and at the moment I was particularly disinclined to do so. He followed my gaze. The low sun had set aflame the numerous windows of a large building which turned slowly, demonstrating one huge chimney, then another, as the train clattered by.
'Dat,' said the little man, 'is "Flambaum and Roth", great fabric, factory. Paper.'
There was a little pause. Then he scratched his big shiny nose and leaned towards me.
'I have been,' he said, 'London, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle.' He looked at the thumb which had been left uncounted.