Chapter 12 Chapter Twelve

Sheldon asked nothing from Sebastian.The little information he learned was from Claire himself, and it was of little value.When Sebastian returned to London, he kept receiving letters in Russian from a woman he had met in Blobel.She had lived in the hotel where he stayed.Other circumstances are unknown. Six weeks later (in September 1929) Sebastian left England again and did not return until January of the following year.No one knows where he went.Sheldon guessed he might have gone to Italy, "because lovers usually go there." He didn't stick to his guess. Whether Sebastian made a final explanation to Claire, or left Claire a letter when he left, is unclear.Claire left, as silently as she had come.She moved because it was too close to Sebastian's apartment.Walking home from a life insurance office on a gloomy day in November, Miss Pratt met Claire on a foggy road.Since then, the two girls have seen each other often, but Sebastian's name is rarely mentioned.Five years later, Claire married.

Sebastian has been writing Lost Property ever since.This book seems to be a kind of pause in his voyage of literary discovery: summarizing, counting and bearing the lost things and lost people in the road of life; the crunching sound of a bonfire; the flash of a campfire; the stars you can see above.There is a short chapter in the book about a plane crash (only one passenger survived, the pilot and all the other passengers were killed); the survivor, an elderly Englishman, was killed by a The farmer found out when he was sitting on a rock.He sat there curled up—a picture of misery and agony. "Are you badly hurt?" asked the farmer. "Nothing," replied the Englishman, "just a toothache. It hurt all the way." They found half a dozen letters scattered in the fields, the remnants of an airmail bag.Two of these were official letters of great importance; the third, addressed to a woman, began: "Dear Mr. Mortimer: Now to answer your question about the sixth installment . . . " It was about placing an order; the fourth was a letter of congratulations on a birthday; the fifth was a letter from a spy with grimly secret messages hidden in sloppy gossip; the last envelope was addressed to a family It's from a trading company, but the stationery is wrongly loaded, it's a love letter. "My poor love, this letter will make you miserable. Our picnic is over; the dark road is potholed, and the smallest child in the car is about to vomit. A nasty fool will tell you: You must be brave. But, All I can say to you in support or comfort is sure to be like panna cotta—you know what I mean. You always know what I mean. Life is lovely when you're around—and when I say lovely I mean Doves and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink 'v' in the middle, and the drawn [l] sound when your tongue rolls up. Our life together is poetic, when When I think about all the little things that are going to die because we can no longer share, I feel as if we are dying too. Maybe we are. Do you understand that the greater our happiness is, the more blurred its edges, its outlines It seems to be melting, it's completely dissolved now. I haven't stopped loving you; but something in me is dead and I can't see you in the mist... These are poems. I'm lying to you. I lack courage There's nothing more cowardly than a poet talking around the corner. I think you've guessed what's going on: Damn cliché - 'another woman'. I'm very unhappy with her - —That's the truth. I don't think I have much more to say about the other side of the story.

"I can't help feeling that there's something inherently wrong with love. Friends can quarrel or drift apart, and close relatives can do the same, but there's none of this pain, this contagion, this bondage that is bound up with love. Dying. Friendships never look like they're dying. Hey, what's going on? I didn't stop loving you, but because I couldn't keep kissing your dim darling face, we had to part, we had to part. Why is that? What's with this mystical exclusivity? You can have a thousand friends and only one lover. Crowds of wives and concubines have nothing to do with it: I'm talking about dance, not gymnastics. Or, Can you imagine a tall Turk loving every one of his four hundred wives the way I love you? Because if I say 'two' I've already started counting and it's going to be endless. There's only one true number, that is 'one.' Clearly, love is the advocate of this singularity.

"Goodbye, my poor lover. I will never forget you, and I will never let anyone else take your place in my heart. If I try to convince you, you are the true lover, and my love for that woman Passion is nothing but a comedy of the flesh, and then I am absurd. All is flesh, all is innocence. But one thing is certain: I was happy with you, and now I am happy with another Sad. Life is going to go on like this. I'm going to joke around with the boys in the office, eat my big meals (until I get indigestion), read novels, write poetry, keep an eye on the stock market—in general, I Will do things the way I've always behaved. But that doesn't mean I'll be happy without you...every little thing that reminds me of you - how you feel about the room (where you used to slap the cushions and dial the man who spoke to the fire) the disapproving look of the furniture, every little thing we've seen together - will always be to me like half a shell, half a penny, the other half of which you keep Goodbye. You go, go. Don't write. Marry Charlie or some other nice man with a pipe. Forget me now, but remember me later, while you forget our love After the bitter part. The stain on this stationery is not from tears. My fountain pen broke and I used a dirty one from this filthy hotel. It's so hot I haven't made it yet That business that should be 'satisfactorily closed' (as that fellow Mortimer used to say). I think you've got a book or two of mine in there - but that's not very important. Please don't write .L"

If we extract from this fictional letter all the information about the private life of the hypothetical author, I believe that much of it is what Sebastian felt, or even wrote, to Claire.He had a strange habit of adding to his characters, even the most grotesque ones, some thought or impression or wish of his own.His hero's letters are probably a kind of cipher by which he expresses something real about his relationship with Claire.But I can't name any other writer who has presented his art in such a confusing way--confusing in my opinion, because I'd like to see what is hidden behind the author's back. the real person.In the twilight of an imaginative nature, it is difficult to see the light of personal truth, but even more difficult to understand is the amazing fact that a writer who writes what he really feels when he writes can use The painful things in his heart, while creating a fictional and somewhat absurd character image.

When Sebastian returned to London in early 1930, he collapsed after suffering a severe heart attack.Somehow he was able to go on with Lost Property, which I think is the easiest book he's ever written.Claire alone was in charge of his literary affairs at the time, and we should understand this in relation to what happened afterwards.After Claire left, these affairs quickly became chaotic.In many cases, Sebastian had no idea how things were going, or his specific relationship with this or that publisher.He was so confused, so incompetent, so forgetful and helpless, he couldn't remember names or addresses, he couldn't remember where things were kept, and now he was in the most ridiculous predicament.Strangely enough, Claire's girlish forgetfulness during Sebastian's affairs had been replaced by utter clarity and steady purpose; but now everything was out of control.Sebastian had never learned to use a typewriter and was too nervous to learn now. "Mountain of Interest" was published in two American magazines at the same time, and Sebastian was at a loss, unable to remember how he sold the novel to two groups of people.Then there was another complication. A man who wanted to make a movie of the film had already paid Sebastian a deposit in advance (Sebastian didn't know it, because he was always absent-minded when he read the letter), and asked To shoot a shortened "enhanced" version, which Sebastian never intended to do. "Slant of the Prism" is back on the market, but Sebastian doesn't know about it.He didn't even reply to any invitations.Phone numbers became elusive for him, and he often had to rummage around looking for envelopes with this or that phone number on them, which exhausted him more than writing a chapter of a novel.Later—his heart drifted away again, following a lover who was not around, waiting for her to call——the call would come soon, otherwise he himself could no longer bear this state of being in suspense and here comes what Roy Caswell once saw: a gaunt man in a wide coat and bedroom slippers boards a Pullman.

It was at the beginning of this phase that Mr. Goodman appeared.Sebastian gradually turned over his literary affairs to him, and was very relieved to have such an able secretary.Goodman writes: "I usually find him lying in bed like an angry leopard (somewhat reminiscent of the wolf in the nightcap in Little Red Riding Hood)..." Goodman In another paragraph, Mr. De Man goes on to say: "I have never seen anyone in my life who looked so depressed... I have heard that the French writer, Mar Proust, whom Knight is consciously or unconsciously imitating, also likes to make Some sort of listless 'funny' gesture..." He also said, "Nate was thin, pale, and had sensitive hands, which he liked to show like a woman flirting. Once he admitted to me that he He likes to fill the tub with half a bottle of French perfume in the morning when he takes a bath, but despite all this he looks queer and inappropriate... Knight is very pompous, like most modern writers. Once or twice, I I happened to see him pasting clippings to a beautiful and expensive book, most of which must have been comments on his work. He locked this clipping book in a desk drawer, maybe he was a little ashamed and didn't want my criticism Seeing the results of his human frailty... He goes abroad a lot, twice a year, I dare say he goes to Gay Paree...but he keeps it secret and shows Byronic lethargy. I can't help but feel that his many trips to the Continent form part of his artistic project...he's a total 'poseur'."

Mr. Goodman becomes very eloquent when he begins to speak of deeper matters.His idea was to show and explain "the fatal cleavage between the artist Knight and the flourishing world around him". (Obviously a circular fissure.) "Knight's inability to get along with people is what made him a failure," Goodman explained, typing three dots on his typewriter. the sins of a bewildered human being to urgently appeal to writers and thinkers to heed, if not heal, human pain and wounds... One cannot bear the 'ivory tower' unless it is transformed into a lighthouse or a radio station... In an era...full of burning problems when...recession...abandoned...deceived...homeless...totalitarian growth...unemployment...next super war...family New features of life...sex...the structure of the universe." Mr. Goodman's interests, as we have seen, were rather wide-ranging.He went on: "Note that Knight absolutely refuses to focus on contemporary issues...someone asks him to join this or that movement, to attend some important conference, or just to be in some revealing important event signed by a number of famous people. Manifestos of truth or of condemnation of injustice...He flatly refused, despite my repeated persuasions and even my repeated pleas...Indeed, in his last (and least known) The world is indeed examined in this book...but the angles he chooses and the aspects he notices are quite different from what the serious reader must expect from the serious author...It is like a serious investigation of the workings and machinery of a large enterprise. The installer, being coaxed to see a dead bee on the windowsill... I sometimes call his attention to this or that book just published, which fascinates me because it has universal or important meaning, At this time he always replied childishly: that book is 'worthless stupid talk', or else it is saying something completely irrelevant... He often confuses 'solitude' with 'altitude' and the Latin word for 'sun' .He didn't realize it was just a dark corner... However, due to his extreme sensitivity (I remember the old days when I stretched my fingers and made my knuckles snap--a bad habit I have when I think about things), he would immediately wrinkle frowning), he couldn't help feeling that something was wrong...feeling that he was gradually cutting off the connection with 'life'...feeling that the switch of his solarium was not working. Sebastian was initially a sincere The young man who reacted to the world as his irascible youth was thrown into the rough world began to suffer. Then he became a writer and succeeded, and his pain continued, as a Fashionable mask, now this pain has become a new ugly reality. The plaque he wore as a decoration on his chest has lost the words 'I am a lonely artist'; Changed to 'I'm blind'."

I would offend the reader's understanding and judgment if I commented on Mr. Goodman's clever but superficial diction.If Sebastian had been blind, his secretary would have played the part of the guide dog, barking and pulling him away, with a strong desire anyway.Roy Caswell, who painted Sebastian in 1933, told me that he remembered hearing Sebastian talk about his relationship with Mr. Zeng laughed.If Mr. Goodman hadn't become a little too ambitious, Sebastian would probably never have pulled himself together to get rid of this pompous man.In 1934, Sebastian wrote to Roy Caswell from Cannes that he had stumbled upon (he seldom rereads his own work) that Goodman had changed the "Swan" version of "Mountain Funny". A modifier in . "I fired him," Sebastian added.Mr. Goodman was careful not to mention this minor detail.After exhausting all the impressions he had accumulated over the years, he concluded that Sebastian's real cause of death was that he had finally realized that he was "a failure in life and therefore in art."Goodman then gleefully mentioned that he left his secretarial job because he moved on to something else.I will no longer refer to Goodman's book.That book is obsolete.

But when I look at the portrait painted by Roy Caswell, I seem to see a twinkle in Sebastian's eyes, despite the sadness in them.The painter magically painted the dark gray-green iris of the eye, which gives people a wet feeling; the color around the eyeball is darker, and it seems to be decorated with gold flakes.The eyelids were thick, maybe a little red and swollen, and there seemed to be a streak or two of blood on the shiny eyeball.The eyes and face are drawn in this way to give the impression of a reflection in clear water, like that of Narcissus - and there is a small ripple in the flatter part of the cheek, which is due to a water spider Just parked on it and floated backwards.A dead leaf fell on the reflection's forehead, and there were wrinkles on the forehead, just like the frown of a person who is concentrating on something.The tousled brunette hair on the forehead was partly parted in another ripple, and a lock at the temple glowed dimly in the damp sun.There is a deep groove between the two straight eyebrows, and another deep groove extends from the nose to the dark, closed lips.Only the head is on the screen.The neck area is covered by an opal shade, as if the upper part of the body is fading away.The general background is a mystical blue colour, and in one corner there is a delicate botanical climbing stand made of tree branches.That's how Sebastian looked at his own reflection in the pool.

"I was thinking of drawing something behind him or over his head, suggesting a woman,—maybe a hand shadow, maybe...something...but then I thought it would be storytelling rather than painting painted." "Well, no one seems to know that woman. Not even Sheldon." "She ruined his life, and that sums up her role, doesn't it?" "That's not enough, I want to know more. I want to know all the circumstances. Otherwise, Sebastian's image will never be complete, like your portrait. Ah, you draw very well, simply It's so resembling, I like the spider floating on the water. Especially the shadow of its clubfoot underwater, but the face is just an accidental reflection. Anyone could look into the water." "But don't you think he looks very carefully?" "Yeah, I see what you mean. But anyway, I have to find that woman. She's a lost link in Sebastian's development, and I have to find her - it's essential for scientific research .” "I'll bet you the picture you won't find her," said Roy Caswell.