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

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there must be some "model" and "original" of the
unreal "shimmer" of life on the screen, real life,
too, escapes him.
Something else contributes to his despair. For a
little while he has entertained the illusion that his
image, so elusive that he himself cannot capture and
preserve it, might be "securely and lastingly pre-
served" by Roman Bogdanovich, and at that thought. has
felt "a sacred chill" (80). He has entertained the
hope that Roman Bogdanovich, in his diary, might be
"creating an image, perhaps immortal, of Smurov" (82),
only to find that Bogdanovich's is the most humili-
ating, distorted and degrading image of the many that
exist of him in the mirror minds of others (85-87).
Along with Uncle Pasha Smurov sees "the happiest
image" of himself dying (93), and it gradually dawns
on him that there is no such thing as immortality.
Only "phantoms" of himself will survive him for a
while, and then even these will die:
With every acquaintance I make the population
of phantoms resembling me increases.
I alone do not exist. Smurov, however, will
live on for a long time. The two boys, those
pupils of mine, will grow old, and some image
or other of me will live within them like a
tenacious parasite. And then will come the
day when the last person who remembers me will
die. Perhaps
...
a chance story about me, a
simple anecdote in which I figure, will pass
on from him to his son or grandson, and so
my name and my ghost will appear fleetingly
here and there for some time still. Then
will come the end (103).
Sebastian Knight in the later novel, who is con-
fronted with the same dilemmas, eventually finds a
way out. Smurov has no means of escaping from the