The Tragedy of Mister Morn (20 page)

onto the terrace. Only the stars will see me.

I am happy and lucid; I could not speak

more truthfully … Edmin, I’ll lightly kiss

your light brow … Silence, silence … Your

silence is sweeter than any known songs.

So. Thank you.

[
walks towards the glass door
]

The blue night takes me away!

[
He goes out onto the terrace. His figure, illuminated by the night rays, can be seen through the glass door
.]

EDMIN:

… No one must see how

my King presents to the heavens,

the death of Mister Morn.

CURTAIN

*
Lines missing in the original Russian text.

†
“KING” changes back to “MORN” in the Russian (Azbuka) edition of the play.

The Tragedy of Mister Morn
was first published in 1997 in
Zvezda
, a Russian literary journal, as “Tragediia Gospodina Morna” (“The Tragedy of Mister Morn”), edited by Serena Vitale and Ellendea Proffer and with an introduction by Vadim Stark (
Zvezda
, no. 4 [1997], pp. 6–98). This translation is based on the play as it subsequently appeared in book form:
Tragediia Gospodina Morna
(St. Petersburg: Azbuka Press, 2008), edited by Andrei Babikov and containing the Russian text of Nabokov’s other plays.

Many if not all of Nabokov’s other writings cast light on
Morn
. Of especial interest, however, are the early Russian writings, included in the volumes of his collected works in Russian:
Sobranie sochinenii russkogo perioda v piati tomakh
(
Collected Works of the Russian Period in Five Volumes
), with various editors and an introduction to each volume by Alexander Dolinin (St. Petersburg: Symposium, 1999–2000). For readers without Russian, many of Nabokov’s other early plays are translated by Dmitri Nabokov in
The Man from the USSR & Other Plays
(San Diego: Bruccoli Clark/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), which also contains his important essay on drama, “The Tragedy of Tragedy.” Early poems which offer comparisons with
Morn
are translated in Nabokov,
Selected Poems
, edited by Thomas Karshan (New York: Knopf, 2012). Early short stories, many of which bear on
Morn
, are translated in
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
(New York: Knopf, 1995). This last volume contains two short stories, “Ultima Thule” and “Solus Rex,” which Nabokov wrote in 1939–40 and which are the only surviving remnants of a novel that would clearly have re-developed the themes of
Morn
. Traces of that project are also to be found in Nabokov’s novel
Bend Sinister
, and still more so in the
Pale Fire
, the work in which Nabokov most directly re-addressed the images, themes, and ideas of
Morn
.

The definitive biography of Nabokov is the two-volume work by Brian Boyd, whose first volume deals with the period in which Nabokov was writing
Morn
and contains a critical analysis of the play:
Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1990). Critical analysis is also offered, for those who read Russian, in Andrei Babikov and Vadim Stark’s introductions to their respective editions of
Morn
. Apart from these, there has been little critical analysis of
Morn
to date. Exceptions are: Gennady Barabtarlo, “Nabokov’s Trinity: On the Movement of Nabokov’s Themes,” in
Nabokov and His Fiction: New Perspectives
, edited by Julian Connolly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 109–38; Siggy Frank, “Exile in Theatre/Theatre in Exile: Nabokov’s Early Plays,
Tragediia Gospodina Morna
and
Chelovek iz SSSR
,” in the
Slavonic and East European Review
, vol., no. (October 2007), pp. 629–57; A. Iu. Meshchanskii,
“ ‘Tragediia Gospodina Morna’ kak predtecha russkoiazychnoi prozy V. V. Nabokova,”
in
Voprosy filologii
, no. 11 (2002), pp. 100–108; and R. V. Novikov,
“ ‘Tragediia Gospodina Morna’ V. Nabokova: k poetike ‘p’esy-snovideniia,’ ”
in
Maloizvestnye stranitsy i novye kontseptsii istorii russkoi literatury XX v.: Materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, Moskva
, edited by L. F. Alekseeva and V. A. Skripkina (Moscow: Moscow State Open University, 2003), pp. 181–87.

Much has been written about Nabokov more generally. Excellent starting points are
The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov
,
edited by Julian Connolly (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) and the encyclopaedic
Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov
, edited by Vladimir Alexandrov (New York: Routledge, 1995). Other recent critical studies include: Vladimir Alexandrov,
Nabokov’s Otherworld
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991); Julian Connolly,
Nabokov’s Early Fiction: Patterns of Self and Other
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Leland de la Durantaye,
Style Is Matter: The Moral Art of Vladimir Nabokov
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007); Alexander Dolinin,
Istinnaia zhizn’ pisatelia Sirina
(St. Petersburg: Academic Project, 2004); Thomas Karshan,
Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of Play
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Leona Toker,
Nabokov: The Mystery of Literary Structures
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989); and Michael Wood,
The Magician’s Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).

A Note About the Author and the Translators

VLADIMIR NABOKOV studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, writing prolifically in Russian under the pseudonym Sirin. In 1940, he left France for America, where he wrote some of his greatest works—
Bend Sinister
(1947),
Lolita
(1955),
Pnin
(1957), and
Pale Fire
(1962)—and translated his earlier Russian novels into English. He taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Cornell. He died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977.

THOMAS KARSHAN is the author of
Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of Play
and editor of Nabokov’s
Selected Poems
. Previously a research fellow at Christ Church, Oxford, and Queen Mary, University of London, he is now a lecturer in literature at the University of East Anglia. ANASTASIA TOLSTOY is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oxford, where she is writing a thesis on Nabokov. She is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy.

Other titles by Vladimir Nabokov available in eBook format

Ada, or Ardor •
978-0-307-78801-6

The Annotated Lolita •
978-0-307-78808-5

Bend Sinister •
978-0-307-78788-0

Despair • 978
-0-307-78766-8

The Enchanter •
978-0-307-78730-9

The Eye •
978-0-307-78756-9

The Gift •
978-0-307-78777-4

Glory •
978-0-307-78757-6

Invitation to a Beheading •
978-0-307-78735-4

King, Queen, Knave •
978-0-307-78764-4

Laughter in the Dark •
978-0-307-78767-5

Lolita •
978-0-307-74402-9

Lolita: A Screenplay •
978-0-307-78760-6

Look at the Harlequins! •
978-0-307-78778-1

The Luzhin Defense •
978-0-307-78755-2

Mary •
978-0-307-78729-3

The Original of Laura •
978-0-307-27325-3

Pale Fire •
978-0-307-78765-1

Pnin •
978-0-307-78747-7

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight •
978-0-307-78758-3

Selected Poems •
978-0-307-95755-9

Speak, Memory •
978-0-307-78773-6

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov •
978-0-307-78809-2

Strong Opinions •
978-0-307-78807-8

Transparent Things •
978-0-307-78732-3

Vintage Nabokov •
978-0-307-78724-8

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ALSO BY VLADIMIR NABOKOV

NOVELS

Mary

King, Queen, Knave

The Defense

The Eye

Glory

Laughter in the Dark

Despair

Invitation to a Beheading

The Gift

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Bend Sinister

Lolita

Pnin

Pale Fire

Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

Transparent Things

Look at the Harlequins

SHORT FICTION

Nabokov’s Dozen

A Russian Beauty and Other Stories

Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories

Details of a Sunset and Other Stories

The Enchanter

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

DRAMA

The Waltz Invention

Lolita: A Screenplay

The Man from the USSR and Other Plays

AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND INTERVIEWS

Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited

Strong Opinions

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM

Nikolai Gogol

Lectures on Literature

Lectures on Russian Literature

Lectures on Don Quixote

TRANSLATIONS

Three Russian Poets: Translations of Pushkin
,

Lermontov, and Tyutchev

A Hero of Our Time
(Mikhail Lermontov)

The Song of Igor’s Campaign
(Anon.)

Eugene Onegin
(Alexander Pushkin)

LETTERS

Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya

The Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 1940–1971

Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters, 1940–1977

POETRY

Selected Poems