Presently I got up and tiptoed out into the corridor.
'I hope,' the nurse said, 'you did not disturb him? It is good that he sleeps.'
'Tell me,' I asked, 'when does Doctor Starov come?'
'Doctor who?' she said. 'Oh, the Russian doctor. Non, c'est le docteur Guinet qui le soigne. You'll find him here tomorrow morning.'
'You see,' I said, 'I'd like to spend the night somewhere here. Do you think that perhaps….'
'You could see Doctor Guinet even now,' continued the nurse in her quiet pleasant voice. 'He lives next door. So you are the brother, are you? And tomorrow his mother is coming from England, n'est-ce pas?'
'Oh, no,' I said, 'his mother died years ago. And tell me, how is he during the day, does he talk? does he suffer?'
She frowned and looked at me queerly.
'But…' she said. 'I don't understand…. What is your name, please?'
'Right,' I said. 'I haven't explained. We are half-brothers, really. My name is [I mentioned my name].'
'Oh-la-la!' she exclaimed getting very red in the face, 'Mon Dieu! The Russian gentleman died yesterday, and you've been visiting Monsieur Kegan….
So I did not see Sebastian after all, or at least I did not see him alive. But those few minutes I spent listening to what I thought was his breathing changed my life as completely as it would have been changed, had Sebastian spoken to me before dying. Whatever his secret was, I have learnt one secret too, and namely: that the soul is but a manner of being – not a constant state – that any soul may be yours, if you find and follow its undulations. The hereafter may be the full ability of consciously living in any chosen soul, in any number of souls, all of them unconscious of their interchangeable burden. Thus – I am Sebastian Knight. I feel as if I were impersonating him on a lighted stage, with the people he knew coming and going – the dim figures of the few friends he had, the scholar, and the poet, and the painter – smoothly and noiselessly paying their graceful tribute; and here is Goodman, the flat-footed buffoon, with his dicky hanging out of his waistcoat; and there – the pale radiance of Clare's inclined head, as she is led away weeping by a friendly maiden. They moved round Sebastian – round me who am acting Sebastian – and the old conjuror waits in the wings with his hidden rabbit: and Nina sits on a table in the brightest corner of the stage, with a wineglass of fuchsined water, under a painted palm. And then the masquerade draws to a close. The bald little prompter shuts his book, as the light fades gently. The end, the end. They all go back to their everyday life (and Clare goes back to her grave) – but the hero remains, for, try as I may, I cannot get out of my part: Sebastian's mask clings to my face, the likeness will not be washed off. I am Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we both are someone whom neither of us knows.