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

- 58
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that vaguely resemble him:
I do
...
not exist:. there exist but the
thousands of mirrors that reflect me.
With every acquaintance I make, the
population of phantoms resembling me
increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere
they multiply. I alone do not
exist (l02). 3
The novel reaches beyond this concern with the "true
reality" of a person and explores the implications of
the pessimistic conclusion just analysed:
Just as all the people he meets are "not live beings
but only chance mirrors for Smurov" (90), he is a
mirror himself, in which all the others, too, are
reduced to mere reflections, their entire existence
being "merely a shimmer on a screen" (91).
If this is so, this same multiplicity can be a
valuable protection. Nothing that one person can do
can really harm the other one. It is impossible to
hurt anybody if he does not exist. Whatever attacks
may be aimed at a person, they can reach only one of
the variety of "phantoms" that resemble him; all the
others go unharmed. This, it seems, is what gives
Smurov that exultant feeling of security at the end:
"The world, try as it may, cannot insult me. I am in-
vulnerable" (103). But in this triumph is mingled a
note of despair. Why should he insist so repeatedly,
so defiantly and aggressively that he is happy?
I am happy - yes, happy! What more can
I do to prove it, how to proclaim that
I am happy? Oh, to shout it so that all
of you believe me at last, you cruel,
smug people... (103).
This sounds rather as if he were trying to con-
vince above all himself that he is happy. He has in-