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

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Bogdanovich, which may well be the picture preserved
for future centuries in Bogdanovich's diary. Uncle
Pasha has his own private picture of Smurov the bridegroom
(which is based on an error), and Krushchov
sees him as "a thief in the ugliest sense of the word"
(86). None of these has anything to do with the picture
which the reader is moved to form of him at the
beginning: that of a pitiable man, lonely, "despondent
and afraid" (16), "frightened to death" when crossing
the Finnish border (even though with a permit
[15]);
a weak person who allows himself to be seduced by
plump Matilda and to be beaten up by her husband.
All these pictures are evoked by the same person.
Marianna, Bogdanovich, Weinstock, Krushchov, and all
the others see, and talk to, the same Smurov. But
they see him from different angles, as it were. They
are grouped around him like mirrors, and each mirror
catches him differently and reflects him in a differ-
ent perspective and colouring. What perspective
and
colouring depends wholly on the position and quality
of the mirror. In other words, how Smurov appears to
each individual person, depends on this particular
person's attitude to him, which is determined by this
person's preoccupations, emotions and interests.
As he puts
it:
his image
...
was influenced by the climatic
conditions prevailing in various souls -
... within a cold soul he assumed one aspect
but in a glowing one had a different colouration
(59).
Only a "spy" will satisfy mysteriously-minded Wein-
stock; a "foreign poet" suits the simple "romantic"