Chapter 3 third chapter

In November 1918, my mother decided to take me and Sebastian to flee Russia and escape danger.By then the revolution was at its height and the borders were closed.She got in touch with a person who specializes in organizing refugees to smuggle across the border, and the agreement was: we pay a certain fee, half of it in advance, and then he will send us to Finland.Before the train reached the border, we disembarked at a place where we could enter legally, and crossed the border by secret trails; those trails were doubly secret because of the heavy snowfall in that quiet area.Just as the train journey was about to start, somehow we - Mom and I - were still waiting for Sebastian, who was pushing his luggage from home with the help of the brave Captain Belov TRAIN STATION.The train is scheduled to leave at 8:40 am.It was half past eight and there was no sign of Sebastian.Our guide was already on the train, and was sitting quietly reading a newspaper; he had warned my mother not to speak to him in public under any circumstances.As time ticked by and the train was about to start, I felt numb and panicked, a nightmarish feeling that took hold of me.We know that if the action goes wrong in the first place, the man will never do it a second time, according to professional tradition.We also know that we don't have the money to pay for another escape.The minutes passed by, and I felt something deep inside me desperately gurgling.The idea of ​​the train leaving in a minute or two, and then we'd have to go back to our dark and cold attic (our house had been nationalized a few months ago), I thought, was horrific.On the way to the train station, we passed Sebastian and Belov, who were pushing a trolley full of heavy luggage on the snow, and the snow creaked under their feet.Now the image appeared before my eyes, motionless (I was a boy of thirteen with a fertile imagination), as if something had been enchanted to freeze forever.My mother, with her hands tucked in her sleeves and a lock of gray hair sticking out from under her woolen kerchief, walked up and down, trying to catch the guide's eye every time she passed the window of his car.8:45, 8:50... The train didn't move, but at last the whistle blew, and a puff of warm white smoke raced across the brown snow on the platform, chasing its own shadow.Just then Sebastian appeared, running, the flaps of his leather hat fluttering in the wind.The three of us hurriedly climbed onto the starting train.It took a while before Sebastian regained his composure. He told us that Captain Belov was arrested when passing by the former house, and he immediately dropped his luggage and ran desperately towards the station.We learned a few months later that our poor friend Belov was brutally shot, along with twenty others arrested at the same time, and that he fell shoulder to shoulder with Palchin, who died an equally heroic death.

In Sebastian's last published work, "The Suspicious Periwinkle" (1936), he describes an occasional character who has just fled from an unknown country that is both terrible and impoverished. come out.Said the man: "Gentlemen, what can I tell you about my past? I was born in a country that coldly despises and savagely outlaws the ideas of liberty, rights, and human benevolence. From time to time in the process a government of hypocrites paints the national prisons a prettier shade of yellow, and declares loudly that it grants to the people those rights familiar to happier nations; or contain some secret defect which makes them more painful than the laws of an openly dictatorial state... where all are slaves if they are not bullies; The soul of man, and all that pertains, thinks that the infliction of physical pain on man is sufficient to control and direct humanity.... A thing called a revolution happens from time to time, turning slaves into bullies and bullies into slaves... Mister It's a dark country, folks, a hellish place, and if there's one thing I've believed in in my life, it's this: I'll never give up my freedom in exile for that wicked fake home..."

Owing to the incidental reference to "great forests and snowy plains" in this character's remark, Mr. Goodman at once infers that the whole passage is consistent with Sebastian Knight's own attitude towards Russia.This is an absurd misinterpretation; it should be clear to any unbiased reader that the quoted text refers to the sum total of the evils of various despotisms, is imagined, and does not refer to any particular country or any particular history fact.If I have attached this passage to the part of my story of how Sebastian escaped from revolutionary Russia, it is because I would like to make a quick addition, borrowing a few words from his most biographical work. sentence.He writes (quoted in Lost Belongings): "I have always believed that one of the purest emotions in the world is that of an exile for the land from which he was born. memory to activate and accentuate the visions of his past: the remembered blue hills and pleasant roads, the hedges where roses grew carelessly and fields where hares ran, the distant church steeples and near blue Bellflowers... But because the subject has been expressed by many more intelligent writers, and because I don't trust in my heart what I find easy to express, I will never allow any sentimental vagabond to board my Rocks - my nonchalant prose work."

No matter how the passage ends, its meaning is clear: Only someone who knows what it is like to leave a dear country can be so drawn to nostalgic images.I can't believe Sebastian didn't feel the pain that we've all been through, no matter how horrible the situation in Russia was when we fled.Russia had been his homeland in general, and he was one of those kind, well-meaning, suave people whose innocents were tortured to death or forced into exile simply because of their existence.I believe that his youthful broodings, his romantic passion--a somewhat artificial one, I may add--for his mother's country could not have excluded him from a genuine love for the country of his birth and upbringing.

After we sneaked into Finland, we lived in Helsinki for a while.Then we split into two paths.My mother took me to Paris on the advice of a friend, where I continued my studies.Sebastian went to London and Cambridge.His mother had left him a generous income, so that in spite of all his troubles in later life he was never short of money.Before he left, the three of us sat down and said a minute of silent prayer, according to the Russian tradition.I still remember how my mother was sitting: her hands in her lap, she kept turning my father's wedding ring on her finger (as she usually does when she's not busy), and she put his ring on the same finger as her own , her father's ring was larger, so she tied it with her own ring with a black thread.I also remember Sebastian's posture: he was sitting there in a dark blue suit, his legs crossed, his feet swaying slightly.I got up first, then him, then mom.He asked us to promise not to take him aboard, so we said goodbye in the whitewashed room.My mother made a quick sign of the sign of the cross in front of his lowered face, and after a while, we saw him get into the taxi with his travel bag from the window, his bending over was his last posture when he parted from us .

We hear very little from him, and his letters are not long.In the three years he was at Cambridge, he only visited us in Paris twice - or rather once, because the second time was for my mother's funeral.My mom talked about him a lot, especially in the last few years of her life, when it became clear to her that she was nearing the end of her life.It was my mother who told me about Sebastian's strange adventures in 1917, which I didn't know at the time because I happened to be on vacation in the Crimea.So it seems to go like this: Sebastian befriends the futurist poet Alexis Pahn and his wife Larissa, an odd couple who rent a farmhouse near Luga, a few miles away. Our country estate is not far away.Alexis Pahn was a stocky, rambunctious little man with glimmers of real genius hidden in his incoherent, ambiguous poems.But because he took pains to shock people with a lot of redundant words (the so-called "subconscious grunt" is his invention), so now it seems that his main anger is so empty, so false, so old-fashioned (ultra-modern things have a strange ability to become obsolete more than other things), so that only a few scholars have remembered his true value, and they admired the English poetry translations he made early in his literary career. The first was the miracle of text transmission, which was his translation into Russian of Keats's poem "Relentless Beauty".

So one morning in early summer, the seventeen-year-old Sebastian disappeared. He only left a note to my mother, saying that he would accompany the Pahns on a trip to the East.At first my mother thought he was joking (Sebastian, though often moody, had some nasty jokes, such as when he asked the conductor on a crowded streetcar to give a The girl sent a hastily written note, which indeed read: I'm only a poor conductor, but I love you); but when my mother went to visit the Pahns, they found that they had indeed gone.We learned later that Pahn's idea for this Marco Polo-style trip was to walk eastward slowly, from town to town, arranging a "lyrical surprise" at each stop, That is to say, renting a hall (if there is no hall, renting a shed), holding poetry performances, and the net profit obtained can be used as expenses on the road, allowing him, his wife, and Sebastian to travel to another town.It's never clear what role Sebastian played, how he helped them, or what responsibilities he took on, or whether they just kept him around, to fetch things when necessary, and to please Larissa, because Larissa has a hot temper and is not easy to appease.Alexis Pahn usually wore a dressing gown when she performed on stage, which would have been appropriate if it hadn't been embroidered with a few large lotus flowers.A constellation (Canis Major) is painted on his bald forehead.He read his poems in a deep voice, so loud that a small man can make people think that a small mouse has built several mountains.Next to him on stage, Larisa, a tall woman in a lavender dress, is there to button buttons or mend old trousers; it is remarkable that she never does this for her husband in everyday life. matter.Between reciting two poems, Pahn sometimes danced a slow-paced dance that combined the Javanese wrist-turning movements of playing the piano with rhythmic movements of his own invention.After several solo shows, he reveled in his success—which is why he failed.Their journey to the East ended in Simbirsk, when Alexis was in a dingy inn, drunk and penniless; So, because she slapped a nosy official who had expressed displeasure at her husband's rowdy genius.Sebastian came home as nonchalant as he had left.And my mother said, "Any other kid would be embarrassed and ashamed of what they did." But Sebastian talked about his travels like something new and interesting , as if he had always been a dispassionate observer.Why he was on that ridiculous show in the first place, and what exactly drove him to befriend the weird couple, has always been a mystery (my mom thinks he might be smitten with Larissa, but the woman was mediocre and old big, and fiercely in love with her weirdo husband).The Parns quickly disappeared from Sebastian's life.Two or three years later, Pahn was artificially touted in the Bolshevik environment and became popular for a short time. I think this is due to the (mainly based on mixed terminology) strangeness of "extreme politics and extreme art have a natural connection" concept.Then, in 1922 or 1923, Alexis Pahn committed suicide with a pair of suspenders.

"I've always felt," my mother said, "that I never really got to know Sebastian. I knew he always got good grades in school, he read a lot, it was amazing, he had a habit of tidiness, he Cold showers every morning, despite his weak lungs - I know all this and many other things, but I can't grasp his nature. Now he lives in a strange country, in English Writing to us, I couldn't help thinking that he'll always be a hard nut to crack—though God knows how much I've put my heart into being kind to this kid." Sebastian came to visit us in Paris at the end of his first year at university, and I was impressed by his foreign attire.He was wearing a tweed jacket over a canary yellow pullover.His flannel trousers were baggy, and his thick socks were baggy because he didn't use garter belts.The stripes on his tie were too bright, and for some odd reason he kept his handkerchief in his sleeve.He smoked his pipe in the street and knocked ashes on the heels of his shoes.He learned a new stance: standing with his back to the fireplace, with his hands deep in his trouser pockets.He was always cautious in speaking Russian, and would speak English whenever he spoke more than a few sentences.He stayed for a whole week.

The next time he comes again, my mother is gone.We sat together for a long time after the funeral.As soon as I saw my mother's glasses alone on the shelf, I started to cry and tremble, and he patted me awkwardly on the shoulder.He was kind and helpful, but somewhat absent-minded, as if he had been thinking about other things.We discussed something and he suggested that I go to the Riviera and then England; I was just out of high school.I said that I would like to stay in Paris and live in peace. I have many friends in Paris.He did not insist on his opinion.We also talked about money, and he said in his usual nonchalant way that he could always provide me with pocket money as much as I wanted - I think he used the word "tin", but I can't be sure.The next day he was going to the South of France.We went for a walk that morning.As usual, whenever we were alone together, I felt inexplicably uncomfortable, and now and again I struggled to find something to talk about.He too was silent.At parting he said: "So be it, then. If you need anything, write to me and send it to my address in London. I wish you as much success at the Sorbonne as I have at Cambridge. , try to find a subject you like, and stick to it—until you get bored." His dark brown eyes shimmered, "Good luck," he said, "and goodbye."—and used his England shook my hand in the soft, deliberate way England had learned.For reasons that are not worldly, I suddenly feel sorry for him, and long to speak the truth, something that will take wings and fly, but the birds I want are delayed, and they land on me later On my shoulders and head, I was the only one left at that time, and there was no need for words.