Vladimir Nabokov - The Tragedy of Mister Morn

finger back in affectation, when shaking

off his snot? No, you were mistaken!…

ELLA:

Move your head to the right a little… I’ll pull

the astrakhan fur on for you…

Papa,

sit down, I beg you… You are dizzying me

with your movements.

TREMENS:

You were mistaken!

Revolts there may have been, Ganus… Time and again,

in city squares across the ages, have gathered

low-browed criminality, mediocrity,

and baseness… Their words I was repeating,

but I meant something more—and I had thought

that through those blunt words you felt my true fire,

and that your fire answered mine. But now,

your flame has tapered, it has turned to passion

for a woman… I feel great pity for you.

GANUS:

But what is it you want? Ella, don’t get

in the way while I’m talking…

TREMENS:

Did you see,

one windy night, by moonlight, the shadows

of ruins? That is the ultimate beauty—

and towards it I lead the world.

ELLA:

Don’t protest…

Sit still!… Press your lips together. A little

touch of arrogance… There. Some carmine

inside the nostrils—no, don’t sneeze! Passion—

in the nostrils. Now yours are like those

of Arabian horses. There we go.

Please be quiet. After all, my father

is absolutely right.

TREMENS:

You say:

the King is a great sorcerer. Agreed.

The sun has swollen the taut granaries,

the wonders of science are accessible to all,

labour is lightened by the play of hidden forces,

and the air is clean in the warbling workshops—

with all this I agree. But why do we

always want to grow, to climb uphill

from one to a thousand, when the downward path—

from one to zero—is faster and sweeter? Life

itself is the example—it rushes headlong

into ash, it destroys everything in its way:

first it gnaws through the umbilical cord,

then tears up plants and birds into shreds,

and our heart beats inside us like a greedy hoof,

till it smashes through our chest… And the poet,

who breaks up his thoughts into sounds? Or

the maiden, who prays for the blow of a man’s love?

Everything, Ganus, is destruction. And

the faster it is, the sweeter, the sweeter…

ELLA:

Now

for the frock-coat, the gloves—and you’re ready!

Really, Othello, I am pleased with you…

[ declaims ]

“But yet I fear you; for you are fatal then

when your eyes roll so: why should I fear I know not,

since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel fear…”

Oh, your boots are shabby—well, never mind…

GANUS:

Thank you, Desdemona…

[ looking at himself in the mirror ]

Well, look at me!

It’s been a while, it’s been a while… Midia…

a masquerade… Lights, perfume… quick, quick!

Hurry, Ella!

ELLA:

We’re going, we’re going…

TREMENS:

So,

you’ve decided to betray me, my friend?

GANUS:

Don’t, Tremens! We’ll talk some other time…

It’s hard for me to argue now… Perhaps

you are right. Farewell, dear friend… You

understand…

ELLA:

I won’t be late…

TREMENS:

Go, go.

Klian has long been cursing you, himself

and everything else. Ganus, don’t forget…

GANUS:

Hurry up, hurry up, Ella…

[ They leave together .]

TREMENS:

So, you

and I are left alone, my serpent chill?

They’re gone—my fugitive slave and poor

twirling Ella… Yes, seized and exhausted

by the simplest passion, Ganus seems to have

forgotten his true calling… But somehow

I sense that hidden within him is that spark,

that scarlet comma of contamination,

which will spread the wondrous cold and fire

of tormenting illness across my country:

deathly revolts; hollow destruction;

bliss; emptiness; non-existence.

CURTAIN

A party at MIDIA ’s house. The drawing room: to the left the entrance to the salon; to the right [ at the back ] a lighted niche by a tall window . [MIDIA with ] several GUESTS [ including KLIAN, DANDILIO, and the FOREIGNER].

FIRST GUEST:

Morn says—though he himself is not a poet—

“It should be thus: in the flicker of daily life,

unexpectedly, in the chance combination

of light and shadow, you feel within yourself

the divine happiness of conception:

it grabs you and is gone; but the muse knows

that in a quiet hour, in the seclusion

of the night, the poem will begin to beat

and fly off the tongue, fiery and babbling…”

KLIAN:

I have never felt like that… I myself

create differently: with persistence, disgust,

tying a wet rag around my head… Perhaps

that’s why I am the genius…

[ Both of them pass on .]

FOREIGNER:

Who is that—

the one that looks like a horse?

SECOND GUEST:

The poet Klian.

FOREIGNER:

Talented?

SECOND GUEST:

Shh… He’s listening…

FOREIGNER:

And that one,

the silvery one, with the bright eyes—speaking,

at the doorway, to the mistress of the house?

SECOND GUEST:

You don’t know? You sat beside him at dinner—

it is the carefree Dandilio, the grey-haired

lover of antiquity.

MIDIA [ to DANDILIO]:

But why? It is

a sin: Morn, Morn and only Morn,

and the blood sings out…

DANDILIO:

There is no sin on earth.

Loves, sorrows—all are necessary, all

are beautiful… One must snatch the hours of fire,

the hours of love from life, as a slave grasps

at shells underwater—blindly, hungrily:

there is no time to prise them open, to choose

the sick one, with its precious tumour… They

shimmer, suddenly turn up, so grab at them

in handfuls, whatever’s there, however you can—

and at that very moment when your heart

is bursting, you push off with your heel

convulsively, and, stumbling and panting,

empty out the treasure on the sunlit shore

at the feet of the Creator—he’ll sort them out,

he knows… So let the broken shells be empty,

for the whole sea hums with mother of pearl.

And he who seeks only pearls, setting aside

shell after shell, that man shall come to

the Creator, to the Master, with empty hands—

and he will find that he is deaf and dumb

in heaven…

FOREIGNER [ approaching ]:

I often heard your voice

in my childhood dreams…

DANDILIO:

Really, I never

can remember who has dreamt me. But

your smile I do remember. I meant to ask you,

courteous traveller, where have you come from?

FOREIGNER:

I have come from the Twentieth Century, from

a northern country, called…

[ Whispers .]

MIDIA:

Which one is it?

I don’t know that one…

DANDILIO:

How can you say that!

Don’t you remember, from children’s fairy tales?

Visions… bombs… churches… golden princes…

revolutionaries in raincoats… blizzards…

MIDIA:

But I thought it didn’t exist?

FOREIGNER:

Perhaps. I

entered a dream, but are you sure that I

have left that dream?… So be it, I’ll believe

in your city. Tomorrow I shall call it

a dream…