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

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356 -
"This is curious", said M'sieur Pierre.
"What are these hopes, and who is this
saviour? "
"Imagination", replied Cincinnatus
(IB, 103-104),
but it takes him a long time to be really aware of
the fact that imagination has indeed saved him.
"Everything has duped me", he writes, "all of this
theatrical pathetic stuff" (IB, 189), and this is
the first indication that he is becoming aware how
his salvation can be (in fact, has been) effected.
He has seen through the absurdity and irreality of
everything around him, and yet he has taken it
too seriously. He has allowed himself to be duped
by it. He has even "sought salvation within its
confines" (IB, 189): he has relied on Emmie to save
him; he has for a moment believed in the reality of
his mother and her emotions; he has sought Marthe's
love; and above all, he has never quite stopped
playing a part in the "production"
- the part that
was expected of him.
37
Because he felt that he was
being watched, he suppressed his feelings of rebellion,
his attacks of passion and temper. He
remained calm outwardly as was right and lawful,
and allowed only his double to do what he dared
not do openly. It was only his double that crumpled
and hurled newspapers: "the double, the gangrel,
that accompanies each of us - you, and me, and him
over there - doing what we would like to do...
but cannot... " (IB, 21). Only his double stepped
with his naked sole on Rodion's upturned face