The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (21 page)

I know that the common pebble you find in your fist after having thrust your arm shoulder deep into water, where a jewel seemed to gleam on pale sand, is really the coveted gem though it looks like a pebble as it dries in the sun of everyday. Therefore I felt that the nonsensical sentence which sang in my head as I awoke was really the garbled translation of a striking disclosure; and as I lay on my back listening to the familiar sounds in the street and to the inane musical hash of the wireless brightening somebody's early breakfast in the room above my head, the prickly cold of some dreadful apprehension produced an almost physical shudder in me and I decided to send a wire telling Sebastian I was coming that very day. Owing to some idiotic piece of commonsense (which otherwise was never my forte), I thought I'd better find out at the Marseilles branch of my office whether my presence might be spared. I discovered that not only it might not, but that it was doubtful whether I could absent myself at all for the weekend. That Friday I came home very late after a harassing day. There was a telegram waiting for me since noon — but so strange is the sovereignty of daily platitudes over the delicate revelations of a dream that I had quite forgotten its earnest whisper, and was simply expecting some business news as I burst the telegram open.

'Sevastian's state hopeless come immediately Starov.' It was worded in French; the 'v' in Sebastian's name was a transcription of its Russian spelling; for some reason unknown, I went to the bathroom and stood there for a moment in front of the looking-glass. Then I snatched my hat and ran downstairs. The time was a quarter to twelve when I reached the station, and there was a train at 0.02, arriving at Paris about half past two p.m. on the following day.

Then I discovered that I had not enough cash about me to afford a second-class ticket, and for a minute I debated with myself the question whether generally it would not be better to go back for some more and fly to Paris as soon as I could get a plane. But the train's near presence proved too tempting. I took the cheapest opportunity, as I usually do in life. And no sooner had the train moved than I realized with a shock that I had left Sebastian's letter in my desk and did not remember the address he had given.

The crowded compartment was dark, stuffy, and full of legs. Raindrops trickled down the panes: they did not trickle straight but in a jerky, dubious, zig-zag course, pausing every now and then. The violet-blue night-lamp was reflected in the black glass. The train rocked and groaned as it rushed through the night. What on earth was the name of that sanatorium? It began with an 'M'. It began with an 'M'. It began with an... the wheels got mixed up in their repetitive rush and then found their rhythm again. Of course, I would obtain the address from Doctor Starov. Ring him up from the station as soon as I arrived. Somebody's heavily-booted dream tried to get in between my shins and then was slowly withdrawn. What had Sebastian meant by 'the usual hotel'? I could not recall any special place in Paris where he had stayed. Yes, Starov would know where he was. Mar... Man... Mat.... Would I get there in time? My neighbour's hip pushed at mine, as he switched from one kind of snore to another, sadder one. Would I arrive in time to find him alive... arrive... alive... arrive.... He had something to tell me, something of boundless importance. The dark, rocking compartment, chock-full of sprawling dummies, seemed to me a section of the dream I had had. What would he tell me before he died? The rain spat and tinkled against the glass and a ghost-like snowflake settled in one comer and melted away. Somebody in front of me slowly came to life; rustled paper and munched in the dark, and then lit a cigarette, and its round glow stared at me like a Cyclopean eye. I must, I must get there in time. Why had I not dashed to the aerodrome as soon as I got that letter? I would have been with Sebastian by now! What was the illness he was dying of? Cancer? Angina pectoris — like his mother? As it happens with many people who do not trouble about religion in the ordinary trend of life, I hastily invented a soft, warm, tear-misty God, and whispered an informal prayer. Let me get there in time, let him hold out till I come, let him tell me his secret. Now it was all snow: the glass had grown a grey beard. The man who had munched and smoked was asleep again. Could I try and stretch out my legs, and put my feet up on something? I groped with my burning toes, but the night was all bone and flesh. I yearned in vain for a wooden something under my ankles and calves. Mar... Matamar... Mar.... How far was that place from Paris? Doctor Starov. Alexander Alexandrovich Starov. The train clattered over the points, repeating those x's. Some unknown station. As the train stopped voices came from the next compartment, somebody was telling an endless tale. There was also the shifting sound of doors being moved aside, and some mournful traveller drew our door open too, and saw it was hopeless. Hopeless.
État désespéré.
I must get there in time. How long that train stopped at stations! My right hand neighbour sighed and tried to wipe the window pane, but it remained misty with a faint yellowish light glimmering through. The train moved on again. My spine ached, my bones were leaden. I tried to shut my eyes and to doze, but my eyelids were lined with floating designs — and a tiny bundle of light, rather like an infusoria, swam across, starting again from the same comer. I seemed to recognize in it the shape of the station lamp which had passed by long ago. Then colours appeared, and a pink face with a large gazelle eye slowly turned towards me — and then a basket of flowers, and then Sebastian's unshaven chin. I could not stand that optical paintbox any longer, and with endless, cautious manoeuvring, resembling the steps of some ballet dancer filmed in slow motion, I got out into the corridor. It was brightly lit and cold. For a time I smoked and then staggered towards the end of the carriage, and swayed for a moment over a filthy roaring hole in the train's bottom, and staggered back, and smoked another cigarette. Never in my life had I wanted a thing as fiercely as I wanted to find Sebastian alive — to bend over him and catch the words he would say. His last book, my recent dream, the mysteriousness of his letter — all made me firmly believe that some extraordinary revelation would come from his lips. If I found them still moving. If I were not too late. There was a map on the panel between the windows, but it had nothing to do with the course of my journey. My face was darkly reflected in the window pane.
Il est dangereux... E pericoloso...
a soldier with red eyes brushed past me and for some seconds a horrible tingle remained in my hand, because it had touched his sleeve. I craved for a wash. I longed to wash the coarse world away and appear in a cold aura of purity before Sebastian. He had done with mortality now and I could not offend his nostrils with its reek. Oh, I would find him alive. Starov would not have worded his telegram that way, had he been sure that I would be late. The telegram had come at noon. The telegram, my God, had come at noon I Sixteen hours had already passed, and when might I reach Mar... Mat... Ram... Rat... No, not 'R' — it began with an 'M'. For a moment I saw the dim shape of the name, but it faded before I could grasp it. And there might be another setback: money. I should dash from the station to my office and get some at once. The office was quite near. The bank was farther. Did anybody of my numerous friends live near the station? No, they all lived in Passy or around the Porte St Cloud — the two Russian quarters of Paris. I squashed my third cigarette and looked for a less crowded compartment. There was, thank God, no luggage to keep me in the one I had left. But the carriage was crammed and I was much too sick in mind to go down the train. I am not even sure whether the compartment into which I groped, was another or the old one! it was just as full of knees and feet and elbows — though perhaps the air was a little less cheesy. Why had I never visited Sebastian in London? He had invited me once or twice. Why had I kept away from him so stubbornly, when he was the man I admired most of all men? Those bloody asses who sneered at his genius.... There was, in particular, one old fool whose skinny neck I longed to wring — ferociously. Ah, that bulky monster rolling on my left was a woman; eau-de-Cologne and sweat struggling for ascendancy, the former losing. Not a single soul in that carriage knew who Sebastian Knight was. That chapter out of
Lost Property
so poorly translated in
Cadran.
Or was it
La Vie Littéraire
?
Or was I too late, too late — was Sebastian dead already, while I sat on this accursed bench with a derisive bit of thin leather padding which could not deceive my aching buttocks? Faster, please faster I Why do you think it worth stopping at this station? and why stop so long? Move, move on. So — that's better.

Very gradually the darkness faded to a greyish dimness, and a snow-covered world became faintly perceptible through the window. I felt dreadfully cold in my thin raincoat. The faces of my travelling companions became visible as if layers of webs and dust were slowly brushed away. The woman next to me had a thermos flask of coffee and she handled it with a kind of maternal love. I felt sticky all over and excruciatingly unshaven. I think that if my bristly cheek had come into contact with satin, I should have fainted. There was a flesh-coloured cloud among the drab ones, and a dull pink flushed the patches of thawing snow in the tragic loneliness of barren fields. A road drew out and glided for a minute along the train, and just before it turned away a man on a bicycle wobbled among snow and slush and puddles. Where was he going? Who was he? Nobody will ever know.

I think I must have dozed for an hour or so — or at least I managed to keep my inner vision dark. My companions were talking and eating when I opened my eyes and I suddenly felt so sick that I scrambled out and sat on a strapontin for the rest of the journey, my mind as blank as the wretched morning. The train, I learnt, was very late, owing to the night blizzard or something, so it was only at a quarter to four in the afternoon that we reached Paris. My teeth chattered as I walked down the platform and for an instant I had a foolish impulse to spend the two or three francs jingling in my pocket on some strong liquor. But I went to the telephone instead. I thumbed the soft greasy book, looking for Dr Starov's number and trying not to think that presently I should know whether Sebastian was still alive. Starkaus,
cuirs, peaux;
Starley,
jongleur, humoriste;
Starov... ah, there it was: Jasmin 61-93. I performed some dreadful manipulations and forgot the number in the middle, and struggled again with the book, and redialled, and listened for a while to an ominous buzzing. I sat for a minute quite still: somebody threw the door open and with an angry muttering retreated. Again the dial turned and clicked back, five, six, seven times, and again there was that nasal drone: donne, donne, donne.... Why was I so unlucky? 'Have you finished?' asked the same person — a cross old man with a bulldog face. My nerves were on edge and I quarrelled with that nasty old fellow. Fortunately a neighbouring booth was free by now; he slammed himself in. I went on trying. At last I succeeded. A woman's voice replied that the doctor was out, but could be reached at half past five — she gave me the number. When I got to my office I could not help noticing that my arrival provoked a certain surprise. I showed the telegram I had got to my chief and he was less sympathetic than one might have reasonably expected. He asked me some awkward questions about the business in Marseilles. Finally I got the money I wanted and paid the taxi which I had left at the door. It was twenty minutes to five by then so that I had almost an hour before me.

I went to have a shave and then ate a hurried breakfast. At twenty past five I rang up the number I had been given, and was told that the doctor had gone home and would be back in a quarter of an hour. I was too impatient to wait and dialled his home number. The female voice I already knew answered that he had just left. I leant against the wall (the booth was in a café this time) and knocked at it with my pencil. Would I never get to Sebastian? Who were those idle idiots who wrote on the wall 'Death to the Jews' or
'Vive le front populaire',
or left obscene drawings? Some anonymous artist had begun blacking squares — a chess board,
ein Schachbrett, un damier....
There was a flash in my brain and the word settled on my tongue: St Damier! I rushed out and hailed a passing taxicab. Would he take me to St Damier, wherever the place was? He leisurely unfolded a map and studied it for some time. Then he replied that it would take two hours at least to get there — seeing the condition of the road. I asked him whether he thought I had better go by train. He did not know.

'Well, try and go fast,' I said, and knocked my hat off as I plunged into the car.

We were a long time getting out of Paris. Every kind of known obstacle was put in our way, and I think I have never hated anything so much as I did a certain policeman's arm at one of the crossroads. At last we wriggled out of the traffic jam into a long dark avenue. But still we did not go fast enough. I pushed the glass open and implored the chauffeur to increase his speed. He answered that the road was far too slippery — as it was we badly skidded once or twice. After an hour's drive he stopped and asked his way of a policeman on a bicycle. They both pored at length over the policeman's map, and then the chauffeur drew his own out, and they compared both. We had taken a wrong turning somewhere and now had to go back for at least a couple of miles. I tapped again on the pane: the taxi was positively crawling. He shook his head without as much as turning round. I looked at my watch, it was nearing seven o'clock. We stopped at a filling-station and the driver had a confidential talk with the garage man. I could not guess where we were, but as the road now ran along a vast expanse of fields, I hoped that we were getting nearer my goal. Rain swept and swished against the window-panes and when I pleaded once more with the driver for a little acceleration, he lost his temper and was volubly rude. I felt helpless and numb as I sank back in my seat. Lighted windows blurredly passed by. Would I ever get to Sebastian? Would I find him alive if I did ever reach St Damier? Once or twice we were overtaken by other cars and I drew my driver's attention to their speed. He did not answer, but suddenly stopped and with a violent gesture unfolded his ridiculous map. I inquired whether he had lost his way again. He kept silent but the expression of his fat neck was vicious. We drove on. I noticed with satisfaction that he was going much faster now. We passed under a railway bridge and drew up at a station. As I was wondering whether it was St Damier at last, the driver got out of his seat and wrenched open the door. 'Well,' I asked, 'what's the matter now?'