by Vladimir Nabokov - The tragedy of Mr. Morn

NOVELS MaryKing, Queen, KnaveThe DefenseThe EyeGloryLaughter in the DarkDespairInvitation to a BeheadingThe GiftThe Real Life of Sebastian KnightBend SinisterLolitaPninPale FireAda, or Ardor: A Family ChronicleTransparent ThingsLook at the Harlequins SHORT FICTION Nabokovs DozenA Russian Beauty and Other StoriesTyrants Destroyed and Other StoriesDetails of a Sunset and Other StoriesThe EnchanterThe Stories of Vladimir Nabokov DRAMA The Waltz InventionLolita: A ScreenplayThe Man from the USSR and Other Plays AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND INTERVIEWS Speak, Memory: An Autobiography RevisitedStrong Opinions BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM Nikolai GogolLectures on LiteratureLectures on Russian LiteratureLectures on Don Quixote TRANSLATIONS Three Russian Poets: Translations of Pushkin, Lermontov, and TyutchevA Hero of Our Time (Mikhail Lermontov) The Song of Igors Campaign (Anon.) Eugene Onegin (Alexander Pushkin) LETTERS Dear Bunny, Dear VolodyaThe Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 19401971Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters, 19401977 POETRY Selected Poems VLADIMIR NABOKOV studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, writing prolifically in Russian under the pseudonym Sirin. In 1940, he left France for America, where he wrote some of his greatest worksBend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), and Pale Fire (1962)and translated his earlier Russian novels into English. He taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Cornell. He died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977. THOMAS KARSHAN is the author of Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of Play and editor of Nabokovs Selected Poems. Previously a research fellow at Christ Church, Oxford, and Queen Mary, University of London, he is now a lecturer in literature at the University of East Anglia.

ANASTASIA TOLSTOY is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oxford, where she is writing a thesis on Nabokov. She is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. Other titles by Vladimir Nabokov available in eBook format Ada, or Ardor 978-0-307-78801-6 The Annotated Lolita 978-0-307-78808-5 Bend Sinister 978-0-307-78788-0 Despair 978-0-307-78766-8 The Enchanter 978-0-307-78730-9 The Eye 978-0-307-78756-9 The Gift 978-0-307-78777-4 Glory 978-0-307-78757-6 Invitation to a Beheading 978-0-307-78735-4 King, Queen, Knave 978-0-307-78764-4 Laughter in the Dark 978-0-307-78767-5 Lolita 978-0-307-74402-9 Lolita: A Screenplay 978-0-307-78760-6 Look at the Harlequins! 978-0-307-78778-1 The Luzhin Defense 978-0-307-78755-2 Mary 978-0-307-78729-3 The Original of Laura 978-0-307-27325-3 Pale Fire 978-0-307-78765-1 Pnin 978-0-307-78747-7 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight 978-0-307-78758-3 Selected Poems 978-0-307-95755-9 Speak, Memory 978-0-307-78773-6 The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov 978-0-307-78809-2 Strong Opinions 978-0-307-78807-8 Transparent Things 978-0-307-78732-3 Vintage Nabokov 978-0-307-78724-8 Like: www.facebook.com/vladimirnabokovauthor?ref=ts For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com

Main Characters TREMENS ELLA GANUS KLIAN FOREIGNER MIDIA DANDILIO MISTER MORN EDMIN Other Characters SERVANTS GUESTS ( including FIRST GUEST, SECOND GUEST, LADY, GREY-HAIRED GUEST, SECOND VISITOR, THIRD VISITOR ) OLD MAN FOUR REBELS CAPTAIN and FOUR SOLDIERS A room. The curtains are drawn. A fire blazes.

TREMENS sleeps in an armchair by the fire, wrapped up in a spotted blanket. He awakens heavily. TREMENS: Dream, fever, dream; the soundless changing of two sentinels standing at the gates of my powerless life On the walls the floral patterns form mocking faces; the burning hearth hisses at me, not with fire but with a serpent chill O heart, O heart, blaze up! Begone, fever, you snake! Helpless am I But, O my heart, how I would like to lend my trembling sickness to this fair and careless city, so that the Royal Square should sweat and blaze, as does my brow; so that the barefoot streets should grow cold, so that the whistling wind should shudder the tall houses, the gardens, the statues at the crossroads, the embankments, the ships on the convulsing waters! [calls out] Ella! Ella! [ ELLA enters, elegantly coiffed but in a dressinggown.] TREMENS: Give me some port and that glass phial, the one on the right, with the green tag So, you are going dancing? ELLA [uncorks the decanter]: Yes. TREMENS: Will your Klian be there? ELLA: He will. TREMENS: Is it love? ELLA [sits down on the arm of the chair]: I dont know Its all so strange Its not at all as it is in songs Last night I dreamt that I was a new white bridge, made out of pine, I think, and covered in tears of resin, thrown lightly over an abyss And so I waited. Alas, there were no timid footsteps the bridge yearned to yield sweetly, to crunch in torment beneath the thunder of blind hooves I waitedand then, suddenly, I saw: towards me, towards me, blazing, wailing, whirled forth the form of a Minotaur, with the broad chest and face of Klian! Blissfully I surrenderedand awoke TREMENS: I understand, Ella Well, this pleases me it is my blood which has cried out in you, my greedy blood ELLA [preparing the medicine]: One drop two drops five, six seven Enough? TREMENS: Yes.

Get dressed, go its late Waitstoke the fire ELLA: Coals, coals, you blushing hearts Fain burn! [looks at herself in the mirror] How is my hair? Ill wear a gold gauze dress. I am going [On her way out, she stops.] Oh, Klian brought me his poems the other day; he sings them so amusingly, flaring his nostrils slightly, closing his eyeslike this, lookhis palm stroking the air as if it were a little dog [Exits, laughing.] TREMENS: My greedy blood And yet her mother was so trusting and so tender; yes, tender and cleaving, like pollen, drifting through the air, onto my chest Off with you, you sunny piece of fluff! Thank you, Death, that you took this tenderness away from me: free am I, free and reckless Henceforth, my servant Death, shall we oft agree O, I will send you out into this very night, into those blazing windows above dark mounds of snow; into those houses where life twirls and dances But I must wait It is not time yet I must wait. [Falls asleep. There is a knock at the door.] TREMENS [shaking off sleep]: Come in! SERVANT: There is, my lord, a man out therea dark, bedraggled manhe wants to see you TREMENS: His name? SERVANT: He wont say. TREMENS: Let him in. [ SERVANT exits.

A MAN enters through the open door and stops on the threshold.] TREMENS: What do you want? MAN [slowly grinning]: And still the same spotted blanket on his shoulders TREMENS [looks closer at him]: Forgive me my eyes are bleary but, I do recognize, I recognize Yes, for certain Is it you,you? Ganus? GANUS: You werent expecting me? My friend, my leader, my Tremens, you werent expecting me? TREMENS: Four years, Ganus! GANUS: Four years? Not years, but stony boulders! Rocks, hard labour, lonelinessand thenan indescribable escape! Tell me, how is my wife, Midia? TREMENS: She lives, she lives Yes, I recognize you, friendthe same Ganus, quick as fire, the same passion in your speech and movements So you fled? And what of the others? GANUS: I escapedthey still languish You know, I came to you, like the windstraight away, Ive not yet been home So you say, Midia TREMENS: Listen, Ganus, I need to explain to you It is strange that the main rebel leader No, no, dont interrupt me! In truth, is it not strange that I am free, when I know that my friends suffer in black exile? I live just as before: rumour does not name me; Im still the same twisted and secret leader But believe me, I did everything to burn in hell with you when they seized you all, I, incorruptible, wrote a denunciation against Tremens Two days went by, on the third day I received an answer. What was it? Well, listen: it was, I remember, a dull and windy evening. I was too lazy to put on the lights. It was growing dark. I sat here and shook with fever, rippling like a reflection in an ice-hole. Ella had not yet returned from school.