Terra Incognita Read online

  ‘The woods were gradually thinning. I was tormented by strange hallucinations. I gazed at the weird tree trunks, around some of which were coiled thick, flesh-coloured snakes; suddenly I thought I saw, between the trunks, as though through my fingers, the mirror of a half-open wardrobe …’

  VLADIMIR NABOKOV

  Born 22 April 1899, Saint Petersburg, Russia

  Died 2 July 1977, Montreux, Switzerland

  ‘Terra Incognita’ [Russian, 1931] first published in English in book form in A Russian Beauty and Other Stories (1973). ‘Spring in Fialta’ [Russian, 1938] first published in English in book form in Nine Stories (1947). ‘The Doorbell’ [Russian, 1930] first published in English in book form in Details of a Sunset and Other Stories (1976).

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  VLADIMIR NABOKOV

  Terra Incognita

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN CLASSICS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Selected from Collected Stories, published in Penguin Classics by arrangement with Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, and the Estate of Vladimir Nabokov 2010

  This edition published in Penguin Classics 2011

  Copyright © Article 3C under the Will of Vladimir Nabokov, 1965, 1966

  All rights reserved

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-197111-7

  Contents

  Terra Incognita

  Spring in Fialta

  The Doorbell

  Terra Incognita

  The sound of the waterfall grew more and more muffled, until it finally dissolved altogether, and we moved on through the wildwood of a hitherto unexplored region. We walked, and had been walking, for a long time already – in front, Gregson and I; our eight native porters behind, one after the other; last of all, whining and protesting at every step, came Cook. I knew that Gregson had recruited him on the advice of a local hunter. Cook had insisted that he was ready to do anything to get out of Zonraki, where they pass half the year brewing their von-gho and the other half drinking it. It remained unclear, however – or else I was already beginning to forget many things, as we walked on and on – exactly who this Cook was (a runaway sailor, perhaps?).

  Gregson strode on beside me, sinewy, lanky, with bare, bony knees. He held a long-handled green butterfly net like a banner. The porters, big, glossy-brown Badonians with thick manes of hair and cobalt arabesques between their eyes, whom we had also engaged in Zonraki, walked with a strong, even step. Behind them straggled Cook, bloated, red-haired, with a drooping underlip, hands in pockets and carrying nothing. I recalled vaguely that at the outset of the expedition he had chattered a lot and made obscure jokes, in a manner he had, a mixture of insolence and servility, reminiscent of a Shakespearean clown; but soon his spirits fell and he grew glum and began to neglect his duties, which included interpreting, since Gregson’s understanding of the Badonian dialect was still poor.

  There was something languorous and velvety about the heat. A stifling fragrance came from the inflorescences of Vallieria mirifica, mother-of-pearl in color and resembling clusters of soap bubbles, that arched across the narrow, dry streambed along which we proceeded. The branches of porphyroferous trees intertwined with those of the black-leafed limia to form a tunnel, penetrated here and there by a ray of hazy light. Above, in the thick mass of vegetation, among brilliant pendulous racemes and strange dark tangles of some kind, hoary monkeys snapped and chattered, while a cometlike bird flashed like Bengal light, crying out in its small, shrill voice. I kept telling myself that my head was heavy from the long march, the heat, the medley of colors, and the forest din, but secretly I knew that I was ill. I surmised it to be the local fever. I had resolved, however, to conceal my condition from Gregson, and had assumed a cheerful, even merry air, when disaster struck.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ said Gregson. ‘I should never have got involved with him.’

  We were now alone. Cook and all eight of the natives, with tent, folding boat, supplies, and collections, had deserted us and vanished noiselessly while we busied ourselves in the thick bush, chasing fascinating insects. I think we tried to catch up with the fugitives – I do not recall clearly, but, in any case, we failed. We had to decide whether to return to Zonraki or continue our projected itinerary, across as yet unknown country, toward the Gurano Hills. The unknown won out. We moved on. I was already shivering all over and deafened by quinine, but still went on collecting nameless plants, while Gregson, though fully realizing the danger of our situation, continued catching butterflies and diptera as avidly as ever.

  We had scarcely walked half a mile when suddenly Cook overtook us. His shirt was torn – apparently by himself, deliberately – and he was panting and gasping. Without a word Gregson drew his revolver and prepared to shoot the scoundrel, but he threw himself at Gregson’s feet and, shielding his head with both arms, began to swear that the natives had led him away by force and had wanted to eat him (which was a lie, for the Badonians are not cannibals). I suspect that he had easily incited them, stupid and timorous as they were, to abandon the dubious journey, but had not taken into account that he could not keep up with their powerful stride and, having fallen hopelessly behind, had returned to us. Because of him invaluable collections were lost. He had to die. But Gregson put away the revolver and we moved on, with Cook wheezing and stumbling behind.

  The woods were gradually thinning. I was tormented by strange hallucinations. I gazed at the weird tree trunks, around some of which were coiled thick, flesh-colored snakes; suddenly I thought I saw, between the trunks, as though through my fingers, the mirror of a half-open wardrobe with dim reflections, but then I took hold of myself, looked more carefully, and found that it was only the deceptive glimmer of an acreana bush (a curly plant with large berries resembling plump prunes). After a while the trees parted altogether and the sky rose before us like a solid wall of blue. We were at the top of a steep incline. Below shimmered and steamed an enormo
us marsh, and, far beyond, one distinguished the tremulous silhouette of a mauve-colored range of hills.

  ‘I swear to God we must turn back,’ said Cook in a sobbing voice. ‘I swear to God we’ll perish in these swamps – I’ve got seven daughters and a dog at home. Let’s turn back – we know the way …’

  He wrung his hands, and the sweat rolled from his fat, red-browed face. ‘Home, home,’ he kept repeating. ‘You’ve caught enough bugs. Let’s go home!’

  Gregson and I began to descend the stony slope. At first Cook remained standing above, a small white figure against the monstrously green background of forest; but suddenly he threw up his hands, uttered a cry, and started to slither down after us.

  The slope narrowed, forming a rocky crest that reached out like a long promontory into the marshes; they sparkled through the steamy haze. The noonday sky, now freed of its leafy veils, hung oppressively over us with its blinding darkness – yes, its blinding darkness, for there is no other way to describe it. I tried not to look up; but in this sky, at the very verge of my field of vision, there floated, always keeping up with me, whitish phantoms of plaster, stucco curlicues and rosettes, like those used to adorn European ceilings; however, I had only to look directly at them and they would vanish, and again the tropical sky would boom, as it were, with even, dense blueness. We were still walking along the rocky promontory, but it kept tapering and betraying us. Around it grew golden marsh reeds, like a million bared swords gleaming in the sun. Here and there flashed elongated pools, and over them hung dark swarms of midges. A large swamp flower, presumably an orchid, stretched toward me its drooping, downy lip, which seemed smeared with egg yolk. Gregson swung his net – and sank to his hips in the brocaded ooze as a gigantic swallowtail, with a flap of its satin wing, sailed away from him over the reeds, toward the shimmer of pale emanations where the indistinct folds of a window curtain seemed to hang. I must not, I said to myself, I must not … I shifted my gaze and walked on beside Gregson, now over rock, now across hissing and lip-smacking soil. I felt chills, in spite of the greenhouse heat. I foresaw that in a moment I would collapse altogether, that the contours and convexities of delirium, showing through the sky and through the golden reeds, would gain complete control of my consciousness. At times Gregson and Cook seemed to grow transparent, and I thought I saw, through them, wallpaper with an endlessly repeated design of reeds. I took hold of myself, strained to keep my eyes open, and moved on. Cook by now was crawling on all fours, yelling, and snatching at Gregson’s legs, but the latter would shake him off and keep walking. I looked at Gregson, at his stubborn profile, and felt, to my horror, that I was forgetting who Gregson was, and why I was with him.

  Meanwhile we kept sinking into the ooze more and more frequently, deeper and deeper; the insatiable mire would suck at us; and, wriggling, we would slip free. Cook kept falling down and crawling, covered with insect bites, all swollen and soaked, and, dear God, how he would squeal when disgusting bevies of minute, bright-green hydrotic snakes, attracted by our sweat, would take off in pursuit of us, tensing and uncoiling to sail two yards and then another two. I, however, was much more frightened by something else: now and then, on my left (always, for some reason, on my left), listing among the repetitious reeds, what seemed a large armchair but was actually a strange, cumbersome gray amphibian, whose name Gregson refused to tell me, would rise out of the swamp.

  ‘A break,’ said Gregson abruptly, ‘let’s take a break.’

  By a stroke of luck we managed to scramble on to an islet of rock, surrounded by the swamp vegetation. Gregson took off his knapsack and issued us some native patties, smelling of ipecacuanha, and a dozen acreana fruit. How thirsty I was, and how little help was the scanty, astringent juice of the acreana …

  ‘Look, how odd,’ Gregson said to me, not in English, but in some other language, so that Cook would not understand. ‘We must get through to the hills, but look, how odd – could the hills have been a mirage? – they are no longer visible.’

  I raised myself up from my pillow and leaned my elbow on the resilient surface of the rock … Yes, it was true that the hills were no longer visible; there was only the quivering vapor hanging over the marsh. Once again everything around me assumed an ambiguous transparency. I leaned back and said softly to Gregson, ‘You probably can’t see, but something keeps trying to come through.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Gregson.

  I realized that what I was saying was nonsense and stopped. My head was spinning and there was a humming in my ears; Gregson, down on one knee, rummaged through his knapsack, but found no medicine there, and my supply was exhausted. Cook sat in silence, morosely picking at a rock. Through a rent in his shirtsleeve there showed a strange tattoo on his arm: a crystal tumbler with a teaspoon, very well executed.

  ‘Vallière is sick – haven’t you got some tablets?’ Gregson said to him. I did not hear the exact words, but I could guess the general sense of their talk, which would grow absurd and somehow spherical when I tried to listen more closely.

  Cook turned slowly and the glassy tattoo slid off his skin to one side, remaining suspended in midair; then it floated off, floated off, and I pursued it with my frightened gaze, but, as I turned away, it lost itself in the vapor of the swamp, with a last faint gleam.

  ‘Serves you right,’ muttered Cook. ‘It’s just too bad. The same will happen to you and me. Just too bad …’

  In the course of the last few minutes – that is, ever since we had stopped to rest on the rocky islet – he seemed to have grown larger, had swelled, and there was now something mocking and dangerous about him. Gregson took off his sun helmet and, pulling out a dirty handkerchief, wiped his forehead, which was orange over the brows, and white above that. Then he put on his helmet again, leaned over to me, and said, ‘Pull yourself together, please’ (or words to that effect). ‘We shall try to move on. The vapor is hiding the hills, but they are there. I am certain we have covered about half the swamp.’ (This is all very approximate.)

  ‘Murderer,’ said Cook under his breath. The tattoo was now again on his forearm; not the entire glass, though, but one side of it – there was not quite enough room for the remainder, which quivered in space, casting reflections. ‘Murderer,’ Cook repeated with satisfaction, raising his inflamed eyes. ‘I told you we would get stuck here. Black dogs eat too much carrion. Mi, re, fa, sol.’

  ‘He’s a clown,’ I softly informed Gregson, ‘a Shakespearean clown.’

  ‘Clow, clow, clow,’ Gregson answered, ‘clow, clow – clo, clo, clo … Do you hear?’ he went on, shouting in my ear. ‘You must get up. We have to move on.’

  The rock was as white and as soft as a bed. I raised myself a little, but promptly fell back on the pillow.

  ‘We shall have to carry him,’ said Gregson’s faraway voice. ‘Give me a hand.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks,’ replied Cook (or so it sounded to me). ‘I suggest we enjoy some fresh meat before he dries up. Fa, sol, mi, re.’

  ‘He’s sick, he’s sick too,’ I cried to Gregson. ‘You’re here with two lunatics. Go ahead alone. You’ll make it … Go.’

  ‘Fat chance we’ll let him go,’ said Cook.

  Meanwhile delirious visions, taking advantage of the general confusion, were quietly and firmly finding their places. The lines of a dim ceiling stretched and crossed in the sky. A large armchair rose, as if supported from below, out of the swamp. Glossy birds flew through the haze of the marsh and, as they settled, one turned into the wooden knob of a bedpost, another into a decanter. Gathering all my willpower, I focused my gaze and drove off this dangerous trash. Above the reeds flew real birds with long flame-colored tails. The air buzzed with insects. Gregson was waving away a varicolored fly, and at the same time trying to determine its species. Finally he could contain himself no longer and caught it in his net. His motions underwent curious changes, as if someone kept reshuffling them. I saw him in different poses simultaneously; he was divesting himself of himself, as
if he were made of many glass Gregsons whose outlines did not coincide. Then he condensed again, and stood up firmly. He was shaking Cook by the shoulder.

  ‘You are going to help me carry him,’ Gregson was saying distinctly. ‘If you were not a traitor, we would not be in this mess.’

  Cook remained silent, but slowly flushed purple.

  ‘See here, Cook, you’ll regret this,’ said Gregson. ‘I’m telling you for the last time –’

  At this point occurred what had been ripening for a long time. Cook drove his head like a bull into Gregson’s stomach. They both fell; Gregson had time to get his revolver out, but Cook managed to knock it out of his hand. Then they clutched each other and started rolling in their embrace, panting deafeningly. I looked at them, helpless. Cook’s broad back would grow tense and the vertebrae would show through his shirt; but suddenly, instead of his back, a leg, also his, would appear, covered with coppery hairs, and with a blue vein running up the skin, and Gregson was rolling on top of him. Gregson’s helmet flew off and wobbled away, like half of an enormous cardboard egg. From somewhere in the labyrinth of their bodies Cook’s fingers wriggled out, clenching a rusty but sharp knife; the knife entered Gregson’s back as if it were clay, but Gregson only gave a grunt, and they both rolled over several times; when I next saw my friend’s back the handle and top half of the blade protruded, while his hands had locked around Cook’s thick neck, which crunched as he squeezed, and Cook’s legs were twitching. They made one last full revolution, and now only a quarter of the blade was visible – no, a fifth – no, now not even that much showed: it had entered completely. Gregson grew still after having piled on top of Cook, who had also become motionless.

  I watched, and it seemed to me (fogged as my senses were by fever) that this was all a harmless game, that in a moment they would get up and, when they had caught their breath, would peacefully carry me off across the swamp toward the cool blue hills, to some shady place with babbling water. But suddenly, at this last stage of my mortal illness – for I knew that in a few minutes I would die – in these final minutes everything grew completely lucid: I realized that all that was taking place around me was not the trick of an inflamed imagination, not the veil of delirium, through which unwelcome glimpses of my supposedly real existence in a distant European city (the wallpaper, the armchair, the glass of lemonade) were trying to show. I realized that the obtrusive room was fictitious, since everything beyond death is, at best, fictitious: an imitation of life hastily knocked together, the furnished rooms of nonexistence. I realized that reality was here, here beneath that wonderful, frightening tropical sky, among those gleaming swordlike reeds, in that vapor hanging over them, and in the thick-lipped flowers clinging to the flat islet, where, beside me, lay two clinched corpses. And, having realized this, I found within me the strength to crawl over to them and pull the knife from the back of Gregson, my leader, my dear friend. He was dead, quite dead, and all the little bottles in his pockets were broken and crushed. Cook, too, was dead, and his ink-black tongue protruded from his mouth. I pried open Gregson’s fingers and turned his body over. His lips were half-open and bloody; his face, which already seemed hardened, appeared badly shaven; the bluish whites of his eyes showed between the lids. For the last time I saw all this distinctly, consciously, with the seal of authenticity on everything – their skinned knees, the bright flies circling over them, the females of those flies already seeking a spot for oviposition. Fumbling with my enfeebled hands, I took a thick notebook out of my shirt pocket, but here I was overcome by weakness; I sat down and my head drooped. And yet I conquered this impatient fog of death and looked around. Blue air, heat, solitude … And how sorry I felt for Gregson, who would never return home – I even remembered his wife and the old cook, and his parrots, and many other things. Then I thought about our discoveries, our precious finds, the rare, still undescribed plants and animals that now would never be named by us. I was alone. Hazier flashed the reeds, dimmer flamed the sky. My eyes followed an exquisite beetle that was crawling across a stone, but I had no strength left to catch it. Everything around me was fading, leaving bare the scenery of death – a few pieces of realistic furniture and four walls. My last motion was to open the book, which was damp with my sweat, for I absolutely had to make a note of something; but, alas, it slipped out of my hand. I groped all along the blanket, but it was no longer there.