In his Parizhskaya poema ("The Paris Poem," 1943) VN says that this life will be given with a different cast, in a different manner, in a new theater:
В этой жизни, богатой узорами
(неповторной, поскольку она
по-другому, с другими актёрами,
будет в новом театре дана),
я почел бы за лучшее счастье
так сложить ее дивный ковёр,
чтоб пришелся узор настоящего
на былое, на прежний узор;
чтоб опять очутиться мне -- о, не
в общем месте хотений таких,
не на карте России, не в лоне
ностальгических неразберих, --
но с далёким найдя соответствие,
очутиться в начале пути,
наклониться -- и в собственном детстве
кончик спутанной нити найти.
И распутать себя осторожно,
как подарок, как чудо, и стать
серединою многодорожного
громогласного мира опять.
In this life, rich in patterns (a life
unrepeatable, since with a different
cast, in a different manner,
in a new theater it will be given),
no better joy would I choose than to fold
its magnificent carpet in such a fashion
as to make the design of today coincide
with the past, with a former pattern,
in order to visit again—oh, not
commonplaces of those inclinations,
not the map of Russia, and not a lot
of nostalgic equivocations—
but, by finding congruences with the remote,
to revisit my fountainhead,
to bend and discover in my own childhood
the end of the tangled-up thread.
In his poem VN says that death is distant yet and that Author is not in the house:
Смерть ещё далека (послезавтра я
всё продумаю), но иногда
сердцу хочется "автора, автора".
В зале автора нет, господа.
Death is distant yet (after tomorrow
I’ll think everything through); but now and then
one’s heart starts clamoring: Author! Author!
He is not in the house, gentlemen.
Author (God) is not in the house, but the Director (the Devil) is here all right. In Shakespeare's As You Like It (Act II, Scene 7) Jaques says:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
At the end of his Commentary Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) says that he may turn up yet, on another campus, as an old, happy, healthy heterosexual Russian, a writer in exile, sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything but his art:
"And you, what will you be doing with yourself, poor King, poor Kinbote?" a gentle young voice may inquire.
God will help me, I trust, to rid myself of any desire to follow the example of the other two characters in this work. I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist. I may turn up yet, on another campus, as an old, happy, healthy heterosexual Russian, a writer in exile, sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything but his art. I may join forces with Odon in a new motion picture: Escape from Zembla (ball in the palace, bomb in the palace square). I may pander to the simple tastes of theatrical critics and cook up a stage play, an old-fashioned melodrama with three principles: a lunatic who intends to kill an imaginary king, another lunatic who imagines himself to be that king, and a distinguished old poet who stumbles by chance into the line of fire, and perishes in the clash between the two figments. Oh, I may do many things! History permitting, I may sail back to my recovered kingdom, and with a great sob greet the gray coastline and the gleam of a roof in the rain. I may huddle and groan in a madhouse. But whatever happens, wherever the scene is laid, somebody, somewhere, will quietly set out--somebody has already set out, somebody still rather far away is buying a ticket, is boarding a bus, a ship, a plane, has landed, is walking toward a million photographers, and presently he will ring at my door--a bigger, more respectable, more competent Gradus. (note to Line 1000)