''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

- 178
-
of "a murderer who had
such a garden as this"
to him that "once upon
because he could write
It is only then that V
Mme Lecerf who "smashe,
buried his victim in just
(158), Mme Lecerf confesses
a time... I kissed a man just
his name upside down" (160).
understands that it is indeed
3 [his brother's] life" (112).
The man who can write his name upside down is Rechnoy's
cousin, whom V has met and seen perform some
more tricks at the Rechnoy flat (134-135); Mme Lecerf
is Rechnoy's first wife.
The purely detective part of V's quest has almost
come to an end. The "mysterious person" (not a murderer
strictly speaking) has been found, even though
all the classical rules of how this should be done
have been violated in the course of the hunt. Now
would be the time for revelations, for explanations,
for the unveiling of all the mysteries that still
cling to the relation between Sebastian and Nina
Rechnoy-Lecerf; time to learn something about the
real Sebastian. But the formula is inverted until
the very end. When the questioning of this important
witness should begin, V takes his leave and walks
away. For the third time, as when he burnt the letters
and when he let Clare go by, he forfeits a
unique chance. Or has he heard enough?
When V breaks off his quest, he has cgllected the
main data for a curriculum vitae of Sebastian Knight.
One can follow him through the main stations of his
life. One knows about his flight from Russia, his
time at Cambridge, his visit to Paris in 1924; about