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

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tangible double of himself, and definitely falling
victim to the illusion that there are two of him.
Another factor is most certainly at the root of it
all. Hermann's obsession with Felix can be explained
by the fact that Felix is everything that Hermann is
not. He is not just Hermann's second self, but his
complementary self. He is "that side of human nature
that society has forced the businessman to submerge. "22
He is free, uninhibited, unrestrained, vaguely artistic,
and he has a telling name: he is "the happy
one" (23). Hermann is certainly not happy. He talks
a lot about his happy life in Berlin, his attractive
flat; he pretends that his wife adores him. He talks
about the fact that they belong "to the cream of the
smug middle class" (29), and about his "delightful
little car" (29). But he is facing bankruptcy, he has
no friends (113), and although he makes a great show
of not knowing anything about Lydia's unfaithfulness
and pretends to believe her naive explanations in
delicate situations, it is clear that she is continually
deceiving him with Ardalion. Felix, then, is everything
that Hermann can only dream of being, and something
that Hermann has been unconsciously tracking.
It is not surprising that Hermann should in his wishes
and his imagination see himself in Felix's role, all
the while, of course, lending Felix his qwn face.
It does not matter whether the story that this
gives rise to is "real". It is real enough for Hermann
even though it may only take place in his own mind (of
which, again, there is no proof), and it is the story