Vladimir Nabokov - The Gift

The monarchist organ The Throne devoted to The Life of Chernyshevski a few lines in which it pointed out that any sense or value in the unmasking of “one of the ideological mentors of Bolshevism” was completely undermined by “the cheap liberalizing of the author, who goes wholly over to the side of his sorry, but pernicious hero as soon as the long-suffering Russian Tsar finally has him safely tucked away…. And in general,” added the reviewer, Pyotr Levchenko, “it is high time one ceased writing about so-called cruelties of ‘the tsarist regime’ with regard to ‘pure souls’ who are of no interest to anybody. The Red Freemasonry will only rejoice over Count Godunov-Cherdyntsev’s work. It is lamentable that the bearer of such a name should engage in hymning ‘social ideals’ which have long since turned into cheap idols.”

The pro-Communist Russian-language daily in Berlin, Up! (this was the one which Vasiliev’s Gazeta invariably termed “the reptile”), had an article devoted to the celebration of the centenary of Chernyshevski’s birth, and concluded thus: “They have also bestirred themselves in our blessed emigration: a certain Godunov-Cherdyntsev with swashbuckling brashness has hurried to concoct a booklet—for which he has dragged in material from all over the place—and has given out his vile slander as The Life of Chernyshevski . Some Prague professor or other has hastened to find this work ‘talented and conscientious’ and everyone chummily joined in. It is dashingly written and in no way differs in its internal style from Vasiliev’s leaders about ‘The imminent end of Bolshevism.’ ” The last dig was particularly amusing in view of the fact that in his Gazeta Vasiliev resolutely opposed the slightest reference to Fyodor’s book, telling him honestly (although the other had not asked) that had he not been on such friendly terms with him he would have printed a devastating review—“not even a damp spot would have remained” of the author of The Life of Chernyshevski . In short, the book found itself surrounded by a good, thundery atmosphere of scandal which helped sales; and at the same time, in spite of the attacks, the name of Godunov-Cherdyntsev immediately came to the fore, rising over the motley storm of critical opinion, in full view of everyone, vividly and firmly. But there was one man whose opinion Fyodor was no longer able to ascertain. Alexander Yakovlevich Chernyshevski had died not long before the book appeared.

When the French thinker Delalande was asked at somebody’s funeral why he did not uncover himself (ne se découvre pas) , he replied: “I am waiting for death to do it first” (qu’elle se découvre la première) . There is a lack of metaphysical gallantry in this, but death deserves no more. Fear gives birth to sacred awe, sacred awe erects a sacrificial altar, its smoke ascends to the sky, there assumes the shape of wings, and bowing fear addresses a prayer to it. Religion has the same relation to man’s heavenly condition that mathematics has to his earthly one: both the one and the other are merely the rules of the game. Belief in God and belief in numbers: local truth and truth of location. I know that death in itself is in no way connected with the topography of the hereafter, for a door is merely the exit from the house and not a part of its surroundings, like a tree or a hill. One has to get out somehow, “but I refuse to see in a door more than a hole, and a carpenter’s job” (Delalande, Discours sur les ombres , p. 45). And then again: the unfortunate image of a “road” to which the human mind has become accustomed (life as a kind of journey) is a stupid illusion: we are not going anywhere, we are sitting at home. The other world surrounds us always and is not at all at the end of some pilgrimage. In our earthly house, windows are replaced by mirrors; the door, until a given time, is closed; but air comes in through the cracks. “For our stay-at-home senses the most accessible image of our future comprehension of those surroundings which are due to be revealed to us with the disintegration of the body is the liberation of the soul from the eye-sockets of the flesh and our transformation into one complete and free eye, which can simultaneously see in all directions, or to put it differently: a supersensory insight into the world accompanied by our inner participation.” (Ibid. p. 64). But all this is only symbols—symbols which become a burden to the mind as soon as it takes a close look at them….

Is it not possible to understand more simply, in a way more satisfying to the spirit without the aid of this elegant atheist and equally without the aid of popular faiths? For religion subsumes a suspicious facility of general access that destroys the value of its revelations. If the poor in spirit enter the heavenly kingdom I can imagine how gay it is there. I have seen enough of them on earth. Who else makes up the population of heaven? Swarms of screaming revivalists, grubby monks, lots of rosy, shortsighted souls of more or less Protestant manufacture—what deathly boredom! I am running a high temperature for the fourth day now, and can no longer read. Strange—I used to think before that Yasha was always near me, that I had learned to communicate with ghosts, but now, when I am perhaps dying, this belief in ghosts seems to me something earthly, linked with the very lowest earthly sensations and not at all the discovery of a heavenly America.

Somehow simpler. Somehow simpler. Somehow at once! One effort—and I’ll understand all. The search for God: the longing of any hound for a master; give me a boss and I shall kneel at his enormous feet. All this is earthly. Father, headmaster, rector, president of the board, tsar, God. Numbers, numbers—and one wants so much to find the biggest number, so that all the rest may mean something and climb somewhere. No, that way you end up in padded dead ends—and everything ceases to be interesting.

Of course I am dying. These pincers behind and this steely pain are quite comprehensible. Death steals up from behind and grasps you by the sides. Funny that I have thought of death all my life, and if I have lived, have lived only in the margin of a book I have never been able to read. Now who was it? Oh, years ago in Kiev… Goodness, what was his name? Would take out a library book in a language he didn’t know, make notes in it and leave it lying about so visitors would think: He knows Portuguese, Aramaic. Ich habe dasselbe getan . Happiness, sorrow—exclamation marks en marge , while the context is absolutely unknown. A fine affair.

It is terribly painful to leave life’s womb. The deathly horror of birth. L’enfant qui naît ressent les affres de sa mère . My poor little Yasha! It is very queer that in dying I get further away from him, when the opposite should have been true—ever nearer and nearer…. His first word was muha , a fly. And immediately afterwards there was a telephone call from the police: to come and identify the body. How will I leave him now? In these rooms… He will have nobody to haunt… Because she would not notice… Poor girl. How much? Five thousand eight hundred… plus that other money… which makes, let me see… And afterwards? David might help—but then he might not.

…In general, there has been nothing in life except getting ready for an examination—which all the same nobody can get ready for. “Dreadful is death to man and mite alike.” Will all my friends go through it? Incredible! Eine alte Geschichte: the name of a film Sandra and I went to see the day before his death.

Oh, no. Under no circumstances. She can keep talking about it as much as she pleases. Was it yesterday that she talked about it? Or ages ago? No, they won’t be taking me to any hospital. I’ll lie here. I’ve had enough of hospitals. It would mean to go mad again just before the end. No, I’ll stay here. How difficult it is to turn one’s thoughts over: like logs. I feel much too ill to die.