Владимир Набоков - The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

It was the first time and also the last that I ever heard Sebastian discuss literary matters in my presence. Rarely, too, had I seen him in such a light-hearted mood. He appeared well groomed and fit. His finely-shaped white face with that slight shading on the cheeks – he was one of those unfortunate men who have to shave twice a day when dining out – did not show a trace of that dull unhealthy tinge it so often had. His rather large slightly pointed ears were aflame as they were when he was pleasurably excited. I, for my part, was tongue-tied and stiff. Somehow, I felt that I had barged in.

'Shall we go to a cinema or something,' asked Sebastian diving into his waistcoat pocket, with two fingers.

'Just as you like,' said Clare.

'Gah-song,' said Sebastian. I had noticed before that he tried to pronounce French as a real healthy Britisher would.

For some time we searched under the table and under the plush seats for one of Clare's gloves. She used a nice cool perfume. At last I retrieved it, a grey suйde glove with a white lining and a fringed gauntlet. She put them on leisurely as we pushed through the revolving door. Rather tall, very straight-backed, good ankles, flat-heeled shoes.

'Look here,' I said, 'I don't think I can go with you to the pictures. I'm dreadfully sorry, but I have got some things to attend to. Perhaps…. But when exactly are you leaving?'

'Oh, tonight,' replied Sebastian, 'but I'll soon be over again…. Stupid of me not to have let you know earlier. At any rate we can walk with you a little way….'

'Do you know Paris well?' I asked of Clare….

'My parcel,' she said stopping short.

'Oh, all right, I'll fetch it,' said Sebastian and went back to the cafй.

We two proceeded very slowly up the wide sidewalk. I lamely repeated my question.

'Yes, fairly,' she said. 'I've got friends here – I'm staying with them until Christmas.'

'Sebastian looks remarkably well,' I said.

'Yes, I suppose he does,' said Clare looking over her shoulder and then blinking at me. 'When I first met him he C looked a doomed man.'

'When was that?' I probably asked, for now I remember her answer: 'This spring in London at a dreadful party, but then he always looks doomed at parties.'

'Here are your bongs-bongs,' said Sebastian's voice behind us. I told them I was going to the Йtoile underground station and we skirted the place from the left. As we were about to cross the Avenue Klйber, Clare nearly got knocked down by a bicycle.

'You little fool,' said Sebastian, gripping her by elbow.

'Far too many pigeons,' she said, as we reached the kerb.

'Yes, and they smell,' added Sebastian.

'What kind of smell? My nose is stuffed up,' she asked sniffing and peering at the dense crowd of fat birds strutting about our feet.

'Iris and rubber,' said Sebastian.

The groan of a motor-lorry in the act of avoiding a furniture van sent the birds wheeling across the sky. They settled among the pearl-grey and black frieze of the Arc de Triomphe and when some of them fluttered off again it seemed as if bits of the carved entablature were turned into flaky life. A few years later I found that picture, 'that stone melting into wing', in Sebastian's third book.

We crossed more avenues and then came to the white banisters of the underground station. Here we parted, quite cheerfully…. I remember Sebastian's receding raincoat and Clare's blue-grey figure. She took his arm and altered her step to fall in with his swinging stride.

Now, I learnt from Miss Pratt a number of things which made me wish to learn a good deal more. Her object in applying to me was to find out whether any of Clare Bishop's letters to Sebastian had remained among his things. She stressed the point that it was not Clare Bishop's commission; that in fact Clare Bishop knew nothing of our interview. She had been married now for three or four years and was much too proud to speak of the past. Miss Pratt had seen her a week or so after Sebastian's death had got into the papers, but although the two women were very old friends (that is, knew more about each other than each of them thought the other knew) Clare did not dwell upon the event.

'I hope he was not too unhappy,' she said quietly and then added, 'I wonder if he kept my letters?'

The way she said this, the narrowing of her eyes, the quick sigh she gave before changing the subject, convinced her friend that it would be a great relief for her to know the letters had been destroyed. I asked Miss Pratt whether I could get in touch with Clare; whether Clare might be coaxed into talking to me about Sebastian. Miss Pratt answered that knowing Clare she would not even dare to transmit my request. 'Hopeless,' was what she said. For a moment I was basely tempted to hint that I had the letters in my keeping and would hand them over to Clare provided she granted me a personal interview, so passionate was my longing to meet her, just to see and to watch the shadow of the name I would mention flit across her face. But no – I could not blackmail Sebastian's past. That was out of the question.

'The letters are burnt,' I said. I then continued to plead, repeating again and again that surely there could be no harm in trying; could she not convince Clare, when telling her of our talk, that my visit would be very short, very innocent?

'What is it exactly you want to know?' asked Miss Pratt, 'because, you see, I can tell you lots myself.'

She spoke for a long time about Clare and Sebastian. She did it very well, although, like most women, she was inclined to be somewhat didactic in retrospection.

'Do you mean to say,' I interrupted her at a certain point of her story, 'that nobody ever found out what that other woman's name was?'

'No,' said Miss Pratt.

'But how shall I find her,' I cried.

'You never will.'

'When do you say it began?' I interrupted again, as she referred to his illness.

'Well,' she said, 'I'm not quite sure. What I witnessed wasn't his first attack. We were coming out of some restaurant. It was very cold and he could not find a taxi. He got nervous and angry. He started .to run towards one that had drawn up a little way off. Then he stopped and said he was not feeling well. I remember he took a pill or something out of a little box and crushed it in his white silk scarf, sort of pressing it to his face as he did so. That must have been in twenty-seven or twenty-eight.'

I asked several more questions. She answered them all in the same conscientious fashion and went on with her dismal tale.

When she had gone, I wrote it all down – but it was dead, dead. I simply had to see Clare! One glance, one word, the mere sound of her voice would be sufficient (and necessary, absolutely necessary) to animate the past. Why it was thus I did not understand, just as I have never understood why on a certain unforgettable day some weeks earlier I had been so sure that if I could find a dying man alive and conscious I would learn something which no human being had yet learnt.

Then one Monday morning I made a call.

The maid showed me into a small sitting room. Clare was at home, this at least I learnt from that ruddy and rather raw young female. (Sebastian mentions somewhere that English novelists never' depart from a certain fixed tone when describing housemaids.) On the other hand I knew from Miss Pratt that Mr Bishop was busy in the City on weekdays; queer – her having married a man with the same name, no relation either, just pure coincidence. Would she not see me? Fairly well off, I should say, but not very…. Probably an L-shaped drawing room on the first floor and over that a couple of bedrooms. The whole street consisted of just such close-pressed narrow houses. She was long in roaking up her mind…. Should I have risked telephoning first? Had Miss Pratt already told her about the letters? Suddenly I heard soft footfalls coming down the stairs and a huge man in a black dressing-gown with purple facings came bouncing into the room.