Invitation to a Beheading

by Vladimir Nabokov

  "All for nothing," she said with a sneer and began fingering the blue flowers on the table. "Well, why don't you tell me something, my little Cin-Cin, my cockerel? ... You know I picked them myself, I don't care for poppies, but these are lovely. Shouldn't try if you can't manage it," she added unexpectedly in a different tone of voice, narrowing her eyes. "No, Cin-Cin, I wasn't speaking to you." (Sigh) "Well, tell me something, console me."

  "My letter--did you ..." began Cincinnatus, then cleared his throat. "Did you read my letter carefully?"

  "Please, please," cried Marthe, clutching her temples, "let's talk about anything but that letter!"

  "No, let us talk about it," said Cincinnatus.

  She jumped up, spasmodically straightening her dress, and began speaking incoherently, lisping a little, as she did when she was angry. "That was a horrible letter, that was some kind of delirium, I didn't understand it, anyway; one might have thought you had been sitting here alone with a bottle and writing. I didn't want to bring up that letter, but now that you ... Listen, you know the transmitters read it--they copied it, and they said to themselves, 'Oho! She must be in cahoots with him, if he writes to her like that.' Can't you see, I don't want to know anything about your affairs, you have no right to send me such letters, to drag me into your criminal--"

  "I did not write you anything criminal," said Cincinnatus.

  "That's what you think, but everyone was horrified by your letter, simply horrified! Me, I'm stupid maybe, and don't know anything about the laws, but still my instinct told me that every word of yours was impossible, unspeakable ... Oh, Cincinnatus, what a position you put me in--and the children--think of the children.... Listen--please listen to me for just a minute--" she went on with such ardor that her speech became quite unintelligible, "renounce everything, everything. Tell them that you are innocent, that you were merely swaggering, tell them, repent, do it--even if it doesn't save your head, think of me--already they are pointing fingers at me and saying, 'That's her, the widow, that's her!' "

  "Wait, Marthe, I don't understand. Repent of what?"

  "That's right! Mix me up in it, ask me leading ... If I knew all the answers, why, then I'd be your accomac ... accomplice! That's quite obvious. No, enough, enough. I'm dreadfully afraid of all this ... Tell me one last time, are you sure you don't want to repent, for my sake, for all our sakes?"

  "Good-bye, Marthe," said Cincinnatus.

  She sat down and lapsed into thought, leaning on her right elbow, and sketching her world on the table with her left hand.

  "How dreadful, how dull," she said, heaving a deep, deep sigh. She frowned and drew a river with her fingernail. "I thought we would meet quite differently. I was ready to give you everything. And this is what I get for my pains! Well, what's done is done." (The river flowed into a sea--off. the edge of the table.) "You know, I'm leaving with a heavy heart. Yes, but how am I going to get out?" she remembered suddenly, innocently and even cheerfully. "They won't be coming for me for a while yet, I talked them into giving me oodles of time."

  "Don't worry," said Cincinnatus, "every word we say ... They will open it in a moment."

  He was not mistaken.

  "Bye, bye-bye," chirped Marthe. "Wait, stop pawing me, let me say good-bye to my husband. Bye-bye. If you need anything in the way of shirts or anything ... Oh yes, the children asked me to give you a big, big kiss. There was something else ... Oh, I nearly forgot--daddy took the wine-cup I gave you--he says you promised him--"

  "Hurry, hurry, little lady," interrupted Rodion, kneeing her in familiar fashion toward the door.

  Nineteen

  Next morning they brought him the newspapers, and this reminded him of the first days of his confinement. He noticed at once the color photograph: under a blue sky, the square, packed so densely with a motley crowd that only the very edge of the red platform was visible. In the column dealing with the execution half the lines were blacked out, and out of the remainder Cincinnatus could fish only what he already knew from Marthe--that the maestro was not feeling too well, and that the performance was postponed, possibly for a long time.

  "What a treat you are getting today," said Rodion, not to Cincinnatus but to the spider.

  In both hands, most carefully, but at the same time squeamishly (care prompted him to press it to his chest, distaste made him hold it away) he carried a towel gathered together in a lump in which something large stirred and rustled.

  "Got it on a window pane in the tower. The monster! See how it flops and flaps--you can hardly hold it ..."

  He was going to pull up the chair, as he always did, in order to stand up on it and deliver the victim to the voracious spider on his solid web (the beast was already puffing himself up, sensing the prey) but something went wrong--his gnarled, fearful fingers happened to release the main fold of the towel, and he immediately cried out and cringed, as people cry out and cringe whom not a bat but an ordinary house mouse inspires with revulsion and terror. Something large, dark, and furnished with feelers, disengaged itself from the towel, and Rodion emitted a loud yell, tramping in one place, afraid to let the thing escape but not daring to grab it. The towel fell; and the fair captive clung to Rodion's cuff, clutching it with all six of its adhesive feet.

  It was only a moth, but what a moth! It was as large as a man's hand; it had thick, dark-brown wings with a hoary lining and gray-dusted margins; each wing was adorned in the center with an eye-spot, shining like steel.

  Its segmented limbs, in fluffy muffs, now clung, now unstuck themselves, and the upraised vanes of its wings, through whose underside the same staring spots and wavy gray pattern showed, oscillated slowly, as the moth, groping its way, crawled up the sleeve, while Rodion, quite panic-stricken, rolling his eyes, throwing away, and forsaking his own arm, wailed, "Take it off'n me! take it off'n me!"

  Upon reaching his elbow, the moth began noiselessly flapping its heavy wings; they seemed to outbalance its body, and on Rodion's elbow joint, the creature turned over, wings hanging down, still tenaciously clinging to the sleeve--and now one could see its brown, white-dappled abdomen, its squirrel face, the black globules of its eyes and its feathery antennae resembling pointed ears.

  "Take it away!" implored Rodion, beside himself, and his frantic gesturing caused the splendid insect to fall off; it struck the table, paused on it in mighty vibration, and suddenly took off from its edge.

  But to me your daytime is dark, why did you disturb my slumber? Its flight, swooping and lumbering, lasted only a short time. Rodion picked up the towel and, swinging wildly, attempted to knock down the blind flyer; but suddenly it disappeared as if the very air had swallowed it.

  Rodion searched for a while, did not find it, and stopped in the center of the cell, turning toward Cincinnatus, arms akimbo. "Eh? What a rascal!" he ejaculated after an expressive silence. He spat; he shook his head and pulled out a throbbing match box with spare flies, with which the disappointed animal had to be satisfied. Cincinnatus, however, had seen perfectly well where the moth had settled.

  When at last Rodion departed, crossly removing his beard together with his shaggy cap of hair, Cincinnatus walked from the cot to the table. He was sorry he had returned all the books, and sat down to write to pass the time.

  "Everything has fallen into place" he wrote, "that is, everything has duped me--all of this theatrical, pathetic stuff--the promises of a volatile maiden, a mother's moist gaze, the knocking on the wall, a neighbor's friendliness, and, finally, those hills which broke out in a deadly rash. Everything has duped me as it fell into place, everything. This is the dead end of this life, and I should not have sought salvation within its confines. It is strange that I should have sought salvation. Just like a man grieving because he has recently lost in his dreams some thing that he had never had in reality, or hoping that tomorrow he would dream that he found it again. That is how mathematics is created; it has its fatal flaw. I have discovered it. I have discovered the little crack in life, where it broke off, where
it had once been soldered to something else, something genuinely alive, important and vast--how capacious my epithets must be in order that I may pour them full of crystalline sense ... it is best to leave some things unsaid, or else I shall get confused again. Within this irreparable little crack decay has set in--ah, I think I shall yet be able to express it all--the dreams, the coalescence, the disintegration--no, again I am off the track--all my best words are deserters and do not answer the trumpet call, and the remainder are cripples. Oh, if only I had known that I was yet to remain here for such a long time, I would have begun at the beginning and gradually, along a high road of logically connected ideas, would have attained, would have completed, my soul would have surrounded itself with a structure of words.... Everything that I have written here so far is only the froth of my excitement, a senseless transport, for the very reason that I have been in such a hurry. But now, when I am hardened, when I am almost fearless of ..."

  Here the page ended, and Cincinnatus realized that he was out of paper. However he managed to dig up one more sheet.

  "... death," he wrote on it, continuing his sentence, but he immediately crossed out that word; he must say it differently, with greater precision: "execution," perhaps, "pain" or "parting"--something like that; twirling the stunted pencil in his fingers, he paused in thought, and a little brown fuzz had stuck to the edge of the table where the moth had quivered only a short time ago, and Cincinnatus, remembering it, walked away from the table, leaving on it the blank sheet with only the one solitary word on it, and that one crossed out, and bent down (pretending that he was fixing the back of his slipper) by the cot, on whose iron leg, quite near the floor, it was settled, asleep, its visionary wings spread in solemn invulnerable torpor; only he was sorry for the downy back where the fuzz had rubbed off leaving a bald spot, as shiny as a chestnut--but the great dark wings, with their ashen edges and perpetually open eyes, were inviolable--the forewings, lowered slightly, lapped over the hind ones, and this drooping attitude might have been one of somnolent fragility, were it not for the monolithic straightness of the upper margins and the perfect symmetry of all the diverging lines--and this was so enchanting that Cincinnatus, unable to restrain himself, stroked with his fingertip the hoary ridge near the base of the right wing, then the ridge of the left one (what gentle firmness! what unyielding gentleness!); the moth, however, did not awaken, and he straightened up and, sighing slightly, moved away; he was about to sit down at the table again when suddenly the key scraped in the lock and the door opened, whining, rattling and groaning in keeping with all the rules of carceral counterpoint. Rosy M'sieur Pierre, in a pea-green hunting habit, first inserted his head and then came in completely, and behind him came two others, whom it was almost impossible to recognize as the director and the lawyer: haggard, pallid, both dressed in coarse gray shirts, shabbily shod--without any makeup, without padding and without wigs, with rheumy eyes, with scrawny bodies that one could glimpse through candid rips--they turned out to resemble each other, and their identical heads moved identically on their thin necks, pale bald bumpy heads, with a bluish stipple on the sides and protruding ears.

  Attractively rouged M'sieur Pierre bowed, bringing together his patent-leather boot tops, and said in a comic falsetto:

  "The carriage is waiting, if you please, sir."

  "Where are we going?" asked Cincinnatus, genuinely not understanding at first, so convinced had he been that it must happen at dawn.

  "Where, where ..." M'sieur Pierre mimicked him. "You know where. Off to do chop-chop."

  "But we don't have to go this very minute, do we?" asked Cincinnatus, and was himself surprised at what he was saying, "I haven't quite prepared myself ..." (Cincinnatus is that you speaking?)

  "Yes, this very minute. Good heavens, my friend, you have had nearly three weeks to prepare yourself. One would think that's sufficient. These are my assistants, Rod and Rom, please be kind to them. They may be puny-looking fellows, but they are diligent."

  "We do our best," droned the fellows.

  "I almost forgot," continued M'sieur Pierre. "According to the law you are still entitled to ... Roman, old boy, would you hand me the list?"

  Roman, exaggeratedly hurrying, produced from under the lining of his cap a black-bordered card, folded in two; while he was getting it out, Rodrig kept mechanically tapping his sides, and seemed to be searching in his breast pockets, without taking his imbecile eyes off his comrade.

  "For the sake of simplicity," said M'sieur Pierre, "here is a prepared menu of last wishes. You may choose one and only one. I shall read it aloud. Now then: a glass of wine; or a brief trip to the toilet; or a cursory inspection of the prison collection of French postcards; or ... what's this ... number four--composing an address to the director expressing ... expressing gratitude for his considerate ... Well, I never! Rodrig, you scoundrel, you have added this yourself. I don't understand, how you dared. This is an official document! Why, this is a personal insult especially when I am so meticulous in regard to the laws, when I try so hard ..."

  In his anger M'sieur Pierre flung the card to the floor; Rodrig immediately picked it up, smoothed it out, muttering guiltily, "Don't you worry ... it wasn't me, Romka was the joker ... I know the regulations. Everything is in order here ... all the desires du jour ... or else a la carte ..."

  "Outrageous! Intolerable!" M'sieur Pierre was shouting as he paced up and down the cell. "I am not well, and in spite of that I am carrying out my duties. They serve me with spoiled fish, they offer me a disgusting whore, they treat me with unheard of disrespect, and then they expect clean work from me. No sir! Enough! The cup of long suffering has been drained! I simply refuse--do it yourselves, chop, butcher as best you can, wreck my instrument ..."

  "The public idolizes you," said obsequious Roman. "We beseech you, be calm, maestro. If something was not just right, it was the result of an oversight, a foolish mistake, an overzealous, foolish mistake, and only that! So please forgive us. Won't the pet of women, the darling of everyone, put aside that wrathful expression for the smile with which he is wont to drive to distraction...."

  "That'll do, that'll do, smooth talker," said M'sieur Pierre, relenting a little. "Anyway I perform my duty more conscientiously than others I could name. All right, I forgive you. But we still have to decide about that damned last wish. Well, what have you selected?" he asked Cincinnatus (who had quietly sat down on the cot). "Come on, come on. I want to get it over with, and the squeamish don't have to look."

  "To finish writing something," whispered Cincinnatus half questioningly but then he frowned, straining his thoughts, and suddenly understood that everything had in fact been written already.

  "I don't understand what he is saying," said M'sieur Pierre. "Perhaps someone understands, but I don't."

  Cincinnatus raised his head. "Here is what I would like," he spoke clearly, "I ask three minutes--go away for that time or at least be quiet--yes, a three-minute intermission-after that, so be it, I'll act to the end my role in your idiotic production."

  "Let us compromise at two and a half minutes," said M'sieur Pierre, taking out his thick watch. "Concede half a minute, won't you, friend? You won't? Well, be a robber then--I agree to it."

  He leaned against the wall in a relaxed pose; Roman and Rodrig followed his example, but Rodrig's foot twisted under him and he nearly fell, casting a panic-stricken look at the maestro.

  "Sh-sh, you son of a bitch," M'sieur Pierre hissed. "And anyway, why are you making yourselves so comfortable? Hands out of your pockets! Look out!" (Still rumbling he sat down on the chair.) "Rod, I have a job for you--you can gradually begin cleaning up here; just don't make too much noise."

  A broom was handed Rodrig through the door and he set to work.

  First of all, with the end of the broom, he knocked out the whole grating in the recess of the window; there came a distant, feeble "hurrah," as if from an abyss, and a gust of fresh air entered the cell--the sheets of paper flew off the table, and Rodrig s
cuffed them into a corner. Then, with the broom, he pulled down the thick gray cobweb and with it the spider, which he had once nursed with such care. To while away the time Roman picked up the spider. Crudely but cleverly made, it consisted of a round plush body with twitching legs made of springs, and, there was, attached to the middle of its back, a long elastic, by the end of which Roman was holding it suspended, moving his hand up and down so that the elastic alternately contracted and extended and the spider rose and fell. M'sieur Pierre cast a sidelong cold glance at the toy and Roman, raising his eyebrows, hastily pocketed it. Rod, meanwhile, wanted to pull out the drawer of the table, tugged with all his strength, budged it, and the table split in two. At the same time the chair on which M'sieur Pierre was seated emitted a plaintive sound, something gave, and M'sieur Pierre nearly dropped his watch. Plaster began to fall from the ceiling. A crack described a tortuous course across the wall. The cell, no longer needed, was quite obviously disintegrating.

  "... Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty," counted M'sieur Pierre. "That's all. Up, please. It's a fine day, the ride will be most enjoyable, anyone else in your place would be in a hurry to start."

  "Just an instant more. I find it ludicrous and disgraceful that my hands should tremble so--but I can neither stop nor hide it, and, yes, they tremble and that's all. My papers you will destroy, the rubbish you will sweep out, the moth will fly away at night through the broken window, so that nothing of me will remain within these four walls, which are already about to crumble. But now dust and oblivion are nothing to me; I feel only one thing--fear, fear, shameful, futile fear ..." Actually Cincinnatus did not say all this; he was silently changing his shoes. The vein on his forehead was swollen, the blond locks fell on it, his shirt had a wide-open embroidered collar, which imparted a certain extraordinarily youthful quality to his neck and to his flushed face with its blond quivering mustache.