JК
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight :: Набоков Владимир Владимирович
Страница: 83 из 124Dark bluedragonflies in a slow skipping flight pass hither and thither and alight on the flat waterlily leaves. Names, dates, and even faces have been hewn in the red clay of the steeper bank and swifts dart in and out of holes therein. Sebastian's teeth glisten. Then, as he pauses and looks back, the boat with a silky swish slides into the rushes.
'You're a very poor cox,' he says.
The picture changes: another bend of that river. A path leads to the water edge, stops, hesitates, and turns to loop around a rude bench. It is not quite evening yet, but the air is golden and midges are performing a primitive native dance in a sunbeam between the aspen leaves which are quite, quite still at last, forgetful of Judas.
Sebastian is sitting upon the bench and reading aloud some English verse from a black copybook. Then he stops suddenly: a little to the left a naiad's head with auburn hair is seen just above the water, receding slowly, the long tresses floating behind. Then the nude bather emerges on the opposite bank, blowing his nose with the aid of his thumb; it is the long-haired village priest. Sebastian goes on reading to the girl beside him. The painter has not yet filled in the white space except for a thin sunburnt arm streaked from wrist to elbow along its outer side with glistening down.
As in Byron's dream, again the picture changes. It is night. The sky is alive with stars. Years later Sebastian wrote that gazing at the stars gave him a sick and squeamish feeling, as for instance when you look at the bowels of a ripped-up beast. But at the time, this thought of Sebastian's had not yet been expressed. It is very dark. Nothing can be discerned of what is possibly an alley in the park. Sombre mass on sombre mass and somewhere an owl hooting. An abyss of blackness where all of a sudden a small greenish circle moves up: the luminous dial of a watch (Sebastian disapproved of watches in his riper years).
'Must you go?' asks his voice.
A last change: a V-shaped flight of migrating cranes; their tender moan melting in a turquoise-blue sky high above a tawny birch-grove. Sebastian, still not alone, is seated on the white-and-cinder-grey trunk of a felled tree. His bicycle rests, its spokes a-glitter among the bracken. A Camberwell Beauty skims past and settles on the kerf, fanning its velvety wings. Back to town tomorrow, school beginning on Monday.
'Is this the end? Why do you say that we shall not see each other this winter?' he asks for the second or third time. No answer.
'You're a very poor cox,' he says.
The picture changes: another bend of that river. A path leads to the water edge, stops, hesitates, and turns to loop around a rude bench. It is not quite evening yet, but the air is golden and midges are performing a primitive native dance in a sunbeam between the aspen leaves which are quite, quite still at last, forgetful of Judas.
Sebastian is sitting upon the bench and reading aloud some English verse from a black copybook. Then he stops suddenly: a little to the left a naiad's head with auburn hair is seen just above the water, receding slowly, the long tresses floating behind. Then the nude bather emerges on the opposite bank, blowing his nose with the aid of his thumb; it is the long-haired village priest. Sebastian goes on reading to the girl beside him. The painter has not yet filled in the white space except for a thin sunburnt arm streaked from wrist to elbow along its outer side with glistening down.
As in Byron's dream, again the picture changes. It is night. The sky is alive with stars. Years later Sebastian wrote that gazing at the stars gave him a sick and squeamish feeling, as for instance when you look at the bowels of a ripped-up beast. But at the time, this thought of Sebastian's had not yet been expressed. It is very dark. Nothing can be discerned of what is possibly an alley in the park. Sombre mass on sombre mass and somewhere an owl hooting. An abyss of blackness where all of a sudden a small greenish circle moves up: the luminous dial of a watch (Sebastian disapproved of watches in his riper years).
'Must you go?' asks his voice.
A last change: a V-shaped flight of migrating cranes; their tender moan melting in a turquoise-blue sky high above a tawny birch-grove. Sebastian, still not alone, is seated on the white-and-cinder-grey trunk of a felled tree. His bicycle rests, its spokes a-glitter among the bracken. A Camberwell Beauty skims past and settles on the kerf, fanning its velvety wings. Back to town tomorrow, school beginning on Monday.
'Is this the end? Why do you say that we shall not see each other this winter?' he asks for the second or third time. No answer.