Vincenzo Harty

“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, the poet, the painter, — smoothly and noiselessly paying their graceful tribute […]. 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.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight