Subject
Source for _Despair_?
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. NABOKV-L thanks Phil Howerton <howerton@vnet.net> for this
extraordinarily interesting item.
----------------------------
Not long ago, reading Eric Ambler's _The Ability to Kill_, I found
his discussion of the confession of an English murderer named Alfred
Arthur Rouse that was first published, on the day after his
execution, by the London Daily Sketch, in February or March, 1931.
(Amblers source, apparently, was the Rouse volume of Notable British
Trials series, written or edited by a Helena Normanton.) Rouse was an
Englishman, born in London in 1894, who had been wounded in The Great War
and who then returned to his wife in England. While in France he managed
to impregnate a French woman whose child he later helped support. He
became a traveling salesman and in the course of his travels during the
next twelve or so years he, according to Miss Normanton, seduced nearly
eighty women, fathering children by quite a few of them and trying,
apparently, to support as many of them as he could. Well, you can imagine
that all this became a little much for poor Alfred and finally, after
another such episode in which he was forced to promise (bigamous) marriage
to the daughter of an important individual, he began to look for a way
out. Quoting Ambler:That same month he read in a newspaper of an
unsolved murder case. It set him thinking from now on we can use some
of his own words It showed that it was possible to beat the police if
you were careful enough. Since I read about that case I kept thinking of
various plans. I tried to hit on something new. I did not want to do
murder just for the sake of it I was fed up. I wanted to start afresh.
Early in November, he picked up an itinerant down-and-out in a public
house near his home in Finchley. He was the sort of man no one would
miss, and I thought he would suit the plan I had in mind. I worked out
the whole thing in my mind and realised that I should do it on Bonfire
Night, when a fire could not be noticed so much When I said that I
intended to go to Leicester on the Wednesday night he said he would be
glad of a lift up there. This is what I thought he would say. On the
Wednesday night, the two men met at the public house as planned. Rouse
bought the man a beer, and a bottle of whiskey for the journey. During
the journey the man drank the whiskey neat from the bottle and was
getting quite fuzzled. By two in the morning they were on the outskirts
of Northampton. I turned into the Hardingstone Lane because it was quiet
and near a main road, where I could get a lift from a lorry afterwards.
I pulled the car up. The man was half dozing the effect of the whiskey.
I looked at him and then gripped him by the throat with my right hand. I
pressed his head against the back of the seat. He slid down, his hat
falling off. I saw he had a bald patch on the crown of his head. He just
gurgled. I pressed his throat hard. My grip is very strong people have
always said I have a terrific grip. He did not resist. It was all very
sudden. The man did not realise what was happening. I pushed his face
back. After making a peculiar noise, the man was silent and I thought he
was dead or unconscious. Rouse then got out of the car, poured a can of
petrol over the man, loosened the petrol pipe, took the top off the
carburetor and put a match to the whole thing. As the flames roared up,
he ran. Two young men returning home from a dance saw him a moment or two
later on the road. One of them asked him what the blaze was. It looks
as if somebody has got a bonfire up there, was the reply. But the
unexpected encounter had disconcerted him. After it, he seemed to lose
his head. Instead of going into hiding for a time, and then starting
afresh as he had planned, he went to visit the colliery owners daughter
in Wales. To her, of course, he was known by his real name. When he saw
it published in the newspapers in connection with the burning car case
the car registration plates had not burned he left hastily for London
and a hiding place. But it was too late. He was known to be alive.
Within twenty-four hours he was trying to explain to the police that it
had all been an accident. He did not convince them. Four months later he
was hanged. The identity of the dead man was never established.
Am I way off base suspecting that here might have been the spark
of a Nabokovian idea for _Despair_? Brian Boyd gives June, 1932 as the
starting date for the book. Could N. have seen this confession? Thoughts,
anyone?
Phil Howerton
ord for Windows 95
n the day after his execution, by the London Daily Sketch, in February or
March,
D. Barton Johnson
Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Phelps Hall
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825
Home Phone: (805) 682-4618
extraordinarily interesting item.
----------------------------
Not long ago, reading Eric Ambler's _The Ability to Kill_, I found
his discussion of the confession of an English murderer named Alfred
Arthur Rouse that was first published, on the day after his
execution, by the London Daily Sketch, in February or March, 1931.
(Amblers source, apparently, was the Rouse volume of Notable British
Trials series, written or edited by a Helena Normanton.) Rouse was an
Englishman, born in London in 1894, who had been wounded in The Great War
and who then returned to his wife in England. While in France he managed
to impregnate a French woman whose child he later helped support. He
became a traveling salesman and in the course of his travels during the
next twelve or so years he, according to Miss Normanton, seduced nearly
eighty women, fathering children by quite a few of them and trying,
apparently, to support as many of them as he could. Well, you can imagine
that all this became a little much for poor Alfred and finally, after
another such episode in which he was forced to promise (bigamous) marriage
to the daughter of an important individual, he began to look for a way
out. Quoting Ambler:That same month he read in a newspaper of an
unsolved murder case. It set him thinking from now on we can use some
of his own words It showed that it was possible to beat the police if
you were careful enough. Since I read about that case I kept thinking of
various plans. I tried to hit on something new. I did not want to do
murder just for the sake of it I was fed up. I wanted to start afresh.
Early in November, he picked up an itinerant down-and-out in a public
house near his home in Finchley. He was the sort of man no one would
miss, and I thought he would suit the plan I had in mind. I worked out
the whole thing in my mind and realised that I should do it on Bonfire
Night, when a fire could not be noticed so much When I said that I
intended to go to Leicester on the Wednesday night he said he would be
glad of a lift up there. This is what I thought he would say. On the
Wednesday night, the two men met at the public house as planned. Rouse
bought the man a beer, and a bottle of whiskey for the journey. During
the journey the man drank the whiskey neat from the bottle and was
getting quite fuzzled. By two in the morning they were on the outskirts
of Northampton. I turned into the Hardingstone Lane because it was quiet
and near a main road, where I could get a lift from a lorry afterwards.
I pulled the car up. The man was half dozing the effect of the whiskey.
I looked at him and then gripped him by the throat with my right hand. I
pressed his head against the back of the seat. He slid down, his hat
falling off. I saw he had a bald patch on the crown of his head. He just
gurgled. I pressed his throat hard. My grip is very strong people have
always said I have a terrific grip. He did not resist. It was all very
sudden. The man did not realise what was happening. I pushed his face
back. After making a peculiar noise, the man was silent and I thought he
was dead or unconscious. Rouse then got out of the car, poured a can of
petrol over the man, loosened the petrol pipe, took the top off the
carburetor and put a match to the whole thing. As the flames roared up,
he ran. Two young men returning home from a dance saw him a moment or two
later on the road. One of them asked him what the blaze was. It looks
as if somebody has got a bonfire up there, was the reply. But the
unexpected encounter had disconcerted him. After it, he seemed to lose
his head. Instead of going into hiding for a time, and then starting
afresh as he had planned, he went to visit the colliery owners daughter
in Wales. To her, of course, he was known by his real name. When he saw
it published in the newspapers in connection with the burning car case
the car registration plates had not burned he left hastily for London
and a hiding place. But it was too late. He was known to be alive.
Within twenty-four hours he was trying to explain to the police that it
had all been an accident. He did not convince them. Four months later he
was hanged. The identity of the dead man was never established.
Am I way off base suspecting that here might have been the spark
of a Nabokovian idea for _Despair_? Brian Boyd gives June, 1932 as the
starting date for the book. Could N. have seen this confession? Thoughts,
anyone?
Phil Howerton
ord for Windows 95
n the day after his execution, by the London Daily Sketch, in February or
March,
D. Barton Johnson
Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic Studies
Phelps Hall
University of California at Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825
Home Phone: (805) 682-4618