The Tragedy of Mister Morn by Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Karshan, Anastasia Tolstoy

portraits …
    MORN:
    That’s fine … Midia, are you happy?
    MIDIA:
    There’s a train at midday exactly: I shall
    fly away to a marvellous foreign city …
    I wish I had some paper—this might break …
    And whose is this? Yours? Mine? I don’t
    recall, I don’t recall …
    MORN:
Only don’t cry,
    I beg you …
    MIDIA:
Yes, yes … you are right.
    It has passed … I won’t … I didn’t know
    that you would let me go so easily,
    so willingly … I jerked the door open …
    I thought you held the handle tightly on
    the other side … I jerked it open with all
    my might,—you were not holding it, the door
    opened easily, and I fell back … You
    understand, I am falling … In my eyes
    there is rippled darkness, and I think
    I will perish—I cannot find a foothold! …
    MORN:
    Edmin is with you. He is happiness …
    MIDIA:
I don’t
    know anything! … Only it’s strange: we loved—
    and it has all gone somewhere. We loved …
    MORN:
    These two engravings here are yours, aren’t they?
    And this porcelain dog?
    MIDIA:
… It’s strange …
    MORN:
No, Midia.
    In harmony there is nothing strange. And life
    is a vast harmony. I’ve understood this.
    But, you see—the moulded whimsy of a frieze
    on a portico keeps us from recognizing,
    sometimes, the symmetry of the whole …
    You will leave; we’ll forget one another;
    but now and then the name of a street,
    or a street organ weeping in the twilight,
    will remind us in a more vivid and more
    truthful way than thought could resurrect
    or words convey, of that main thing
    which was between us, the main thing which
    we do not know … And in that hour, the soul
    will miraculously sense the charm
    of past trifles, and we will understand
    that in eternity all is eternal—
    the genius’s thought and the neighbour’s
    joke, the bewitched suffering of Tristan
    and the most fleeting love … Let us part
    without bitterness, Midia: some day, perhaps,
    you will discover the unspoken reason
    for my deep sorrow, my cold anguish …
    MIDIA:
    I dreamt, at the beginning, that beneath
    the laughter you were hiding a secret … So,
    there is a secret?
    MORN:
Shall I reveal it to you?
    Will you believe it?
    MIDIA:
I shall.
    MORN:
So listen then:
    when we saw one another in the city,
    I was—how shall I say?—an enchanter,
    a hypnotist … I read thoughts … I
    predicted fate, twirling my crystal;
    beneath my fingers the oak table rocked
    like the deck of a ship, and the dead sighed,
    spoke through my larynx, and the kings
    of bygone ages inhabited me …
    Now I have lost my gift …
    MIDIA:
And that is all?
    MORN:
    That is all. Are you taking these music scores
    with you? Let me squeeze them in—no,
    they don’t fit. And this book? Hurry, Midia,
    there is less than an hour till the train …
    MIDIA:
Well …
    I am ready …
    MORN:
Here they come with your trunk.
    One more. Coffins …
[ Pause .]
Well then, farewell, Midia,
    be happy …
    MIDIA:
I keep thinking I have forgotten
    something … Tell me—were you joking about
    the spinning tables?
    MORN:
I don’t remember … I don’t
    remember … it doesn’t matter … Farewell. Go.
    He is waiting for you. Don’t cry.
[ They both go out onto the terrace .]
    MIDIA:
Forgive me …
    We loved—and it has all gone, somewhere …
    We loved—and now our love is frozen,
    and now it lies, one wing spread out, raising
    its little feet—a dead sparrow on the damp
    gravel … But we loved … we flew …
    MORN:
Look,
    the sun is coming out … Watch your step—
    it’s slippery here, be careful … Farewell …
    farewell … Remember … Remember only
    the shimmer on the tree trunk, the rain, the sun …
    only that …
[ Pause . MORN is on the terrace alone. We see him slowly turn his face from left to right, as he follows with his gaze those departing. Then he returns to the drawing room .]
    MORN:
Well. It is over …
[ He wipes his head with a handkerchief .]
    The flying rain