JК
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight :: Набоков Владимир Владимирович
Страница: 89 из 124And if you do find her, I should like to see her before she goes to prison. Or perhaps better not.'
'Well, thank you for our conversation,' I said, as we were, rather too enthusiastically, shaking hands – first in the room, then in the passage, then in the doorway.
'I thank you,' Pahl Pahlich cried. 'You see, I quite like talking about her and I am sorry I did not keep any of her photographs.'
I stood for a moment reflecting. Had I pumped him enough…. Well, I could always see him once more…. Might there not be a chance photo in one of those illustrated papers with cars, furs, dogs, Riviera fashions? I asked about that.
'Perhaps,' he answered, 'perhaps. She got a prize once at a fancy-dress ball, but I don't quite remember where it happened. All towns seemed restaurants and dancing halls to me.
He shook his head laughing boisterously, and slammed the door. Uncle Black and the child were slowly coming up the stairs as I went down.
'Once upon a time,' Uncle Black was saying, 'there was a racing motorist who had a little squirrel; and one day…'
16
My first impression was that I had got what I wanted – that at least I knew who Sebastian's mistress had been; but presently I cooled down. Could it have been she, that windbag's first wife? I wondered as a taxi took me to my next address. Was it really worthwhile following that plausible, too plausible trail? Was not the image Pahl Pahlich had conjured up a trifle too obvious? The whimsical wanton that ruins a foolish man's life. But was Sebastian foolish? I called to mind his acute distaste for the obvious bad and the obvious good; for ready-made forms of pleasure and hackneyed forms of distress. A girl of that type would have got on his nerves immediately. For what could her conversation have been, if indeed she had managed to get acquainted with that quiet, unsociable, absent-minded Englishman at the Beaumont Hotel? Surely, after the very first airing of her notions, he would have avoided her. He used to say, I know, that fast girls had slow minds and that there could be nothing duller than a pretty woman who likes fun; even more: that if you looked well at the prettiest girl while she was exuding the cream of the commonplace, you were sure to find some minute blemish in her beauty, corresponding to her habits of thought. He would not mind perhaps having a bite at the apple of sin because, apart from solecisms, he was indifferent to the idea of sin; but he did mind apple-jelly, potted and patented. He might have forgiven a woman for being a flirt, but he would never have stood a sham mystery.
'Well, thank you for our conversation,' I said, as we were, rather too enthusiastically, shaking hands – first in the room, then in the passage, then in the doorway.
'I thank you,' Pahl Pahlich cried. 'You see, I quite like talking about her and I am sorry I did not keep any of her photographs.'
I stood for a moment reflecting. Had I pumped him enough…. Well, I could always see him once more…. Might there not be a chance photo in one of those illustrated papers with cars, furs, dogs, Riviera fashions? I asked about that.
'Perhaps,' he answered, 'perhaps. She got a prize once at a fancy-dress ball, but I don't quite remember where it happened. All towns seemed restaurants and dancing halls to me.
He shook his head laughing boisterously, and slammed the door. Uncle Black and the child were slowly coming up the stairs as I went down.
'Once upon a time,' Uncle Black was saying, 'there was a racing motorist who had a little squirrel; and one day…'
16
My first impression was that I had got what I wanted – that at least I knew who Sebastian's mistress had been; but presently I cooled down. Could it have been she, that windbag's first wife? I wondered as a taxi took me to my next address. Was it really worthwhile following that plausible, too plausible trail? Was not the image Pahl Pahlich had conjured up a trifle too obvious? The whimsical wanton that ruins a foolish man's life. But was Sebastian foolish? I called to mind his acute distaste for the obvious bad and the obvious good; for ready-made forms of pleasure and hackneyed forms of distress. A girl of that type would have got on his nerves immediately. For what could her conversation have been, if indeed she had managed to get acquainted with that quiet, unsociable, absent-minded Englishman at the Beaumont Hotel? Surely, after the very first airing of her notions, he would have avoided her. He used to say, I know, that fast girls had slow minds and that there could be nothing duller than a pretty woman who likes fun; even more: that if you looked well at the prettiest girl while she was exuding the cream of the commonplace, you were sure to find some minute blemish in her beauty, corresponding to her habits of thought. He would not mind perhaps having a bite at the apple of sin because, apart from solecisms, he was indifferent to the idea of sin; but he did mind apple-jelly, potted and patented. He might have forgiven a woman for being a flirt, but he would never have stood a sham mystery.