Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov [15]
As I was leaving in some haste, to thwart
The so-called “question period” at the end,
One of those peevish people who attend
Such talks only to say they disagree
690 Stood up and pointed with his pipe at me.
And then it happened—the attack, the trance,
Or one of my old fits. There sat by chance
A doctor in the front row. At his feet
Patly I fell. My heart had stopped to beat,
It seems, and several moments passed before
It heaved and went on trudging to a more
Conclusive destination. Give me now
Your full attention.
I can’t tell you how
I knew—but I did know that I had crossed
700 The border. Everything I loved was lost
But no aorta could report regret.
A sun of rubber was convulsed and set;
And blood-black nothingness began to spin
A system of cells interlinked within
Cells interlinked within cells interlinked
Within one stem. And dreadfully distinct
Against the dark, a tall white fountain played.
I realized, of course, that it was made
Not of our atoms; that the sense behind
710 The scene was not our sense. In life, the mind
Of any man is quick to recognize
Natural shams, and then before his eyes
The reed becomes a bird, the knobby twig
An inchworm, and the cobra head, a big
Wickedly folded moth. But in the case
Of my white fountain what it did replace
Perceptually was something that, I felt,
Could be grasped only by whoever dwelt
In the strange world where I was a mere stray.
720 And presently I saw it melt away:
Though still unconscious, I was back on earth.
The tale I told provoked my doctor’s mirth.
He doubted very much that in the state
He found me in “one could hallucinate
Or dream in any sense. Later, perhaps,
But not during the actual collapse.
No, Mr. Shade.”
But, Doctor, I was dead!
He smiled. “Not quite: just half a shade,” he said.
However, I demurred. In mind I kept
730 Replaying the whole thing. Again I stepped
Down from the platform, and felt strange and hot,
And saw that chap stand up, and toppled, not
Because a heckler pointed with his pipe,
But probably because the time was ripe
For just that bump and wobble on the part
Of a limp blimp, an old unstable heart.
My vision reeked with truth. It had the tone,
The quiddity and quaintness of its own
Reality. It was. As time went on,
740 Its constant vertical in triumph shone.
Often when troubled by the outer glare
Of street and strife, inward I’d turn, and there,
There in the background of my soul it stood,
Old Faithful! And its presence always would
Console me wonderfully. Then, one day,
I came across what seemed a twin display.
It was a story in a magazine
About a Mrs. Z. whose heart had been
Rubbed back to life by a prompt surgeon’s hand.
750 She told her interviewer of “The Land
Beyond the Veil” and the account contained
A hint of angels, and a glint of stained
Windows, and some soft music, and a choice
Of hymnal items, and her mother’s voice;
But at the end she mentioned a remote
Landscape, a hazy orchard—and I quote:
“Beyond that orchard through a kind of smoke
I glimpsed a tall white fountain—and awoke.”
If on some nameless island Captain Schmidt
760 Sees a new animal and captures it,
And if, a little later, Captain Smith
Brings back a skin, that island is no myth.
Our fountain was a signpost and a mark
Objectively enduring in the dark,
Strong as a bone, substantial as a tooth,
And almost vulgar in its robust truth!
The article was by Jim Coates. To Jim
Forthwith I wrote. Got her address from him.
Drove west three hundred miles to talk to her.
770 Arrived. Was met by an impassioned purr.
Saw that blue hair, those freckled hands, that rapt
Orchideous air—and knew that I was trapped.
“Who’d miss the opportunity to meet
A poet so distinguished?” It was sweet
Of me to come! I desperately tried
To ask my questions. They were brushed aside:
“Perhaps some other time.” The journalist
Still had her scribblings. I should not insist.
She plied me with fruit cake, turning it all
780 Into an idiotic social call.
“I can’t believe,” she said, “that it is