Invitation to a Beheading

by Nabokov, Vladimir

  Rodion, trying not to look at Cincinnatus, was gathering yesterday’s dishes from the table. It must be a dreary day: the light penetrating from above was gray, and compassionate Rodion’s dark leather clothes seemed damp and stiff.

  “Oh well,” said Cincinnatus, “as you wish, as you wish … I am powerless anyway.” (The other Cincinnatus … a little smaller, was crying, all curled up in a ball.) “All right, let it be tomorrow. But I should like to ask you to call …”

  “Right away,” blurted out Rodion with such alacrity that he seemed to have been longing just for this; he was about to dash off but just then the director, who had been waiting too impatiently at the door, appeared just a split second too early, so that they collided.

  Rodrig Ivanovich was holding a wall calendar and did not know where to lay it down.

  “A million apologies,” he cried, “an inexcusable blunder! Upon consulting the text of the law …” Having repeated his message verbatim Rodrig Ivanovich seated himself at Cincinnatus’s feet and added hurriedly, “In any case you may submit a complaint, but I consider it my duty to warn you that the next congress will take place in the fall, and by then a lot of water—and not only water—will have flowed over the dam. Do I make myself clear?”

  “I do not intend to complain,” said Cincinnatus, “but wish to ask you, is there in the so-called order of so-called things of which your so-called world consists even one thing that might be considered an assurance that you will keep a promise?”

  “A promise?” asked the director in surprise, ceasing to fan himself with the cardboard part of the calendar (depicting the fortress at sunset, a water color). “What promise?”

  “That my wife will come tomorrow. So you will not agree to guarantee it in this case—but I am phrasing my question more broadly: is there in this world, can there be, any kind of security at all, any pledge of anything, or is the very idea of guarantee unknown here?”

  A pause.

  “Isn’t it too bad though about Roman Vissarionovich,” said the director, “have you heard? He is in bed with a cold, and apparently quite a serious one …”

  “I have a feeling that you will not answer me at any cost; that is logical, for even irresponsibility in the end develops its own logic. For thirty years I have lived among specters that appear solid to the touch, concealing from them the fact that I am alive and real—but now that I have been caught, there is no reason to be constrained with you. At least I shall test for myself all the unsubstantiality of this world of yours.”

  The director cleared his throat and went on as if nothing had happened: “So serious, in fact, that I as a doctor am not certain whether he will be able to attend—that is, whether he will recover in time—bref, whether he will be able to make it to your show …”

  “Go away,” said Cincinnatus through clenched teeth.

  “Do not be crestfallen,” continued the director. “Tomorrow, tomorrow the thing you dream of will become a reality … It’s a cute calendar, though, isn’t it? A work of art. No, this isn’t for you.”

  Cincinnatus closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the director was standing in the center of the cell with his back toward him. The leather apron and red beard, apparently left behind by Rodion, were still cluttering the chair.

  “Today we shall have to do a particularly good job of cleaning up your abode,” he said without turning, “so as to prepare it for tomorrow’s interview … While we are washing the floor in here, I shall ask you to—”

  Cincinnatus shut his eyes again, and the voice, grown smaller in volume, went on: “… I shall ask you to step out into the corridor. It will not take long. Let us make a real effort, so that tomorrow, in a fitting manner, neatly, smartly, festively …”

  “Get out,” cried Cincinnatus, raising himself and shaking all over.

  “Quite impossible,” Rodion announced gravely, fussing with his apron straps. “We must do some work here. Just look at all the dust … You’ll say thankee yourself.”

  He inspected himself in a pocket mirror, fluffed up the whiskers on his cheeks and, at last approaching the cot, handed Cincinnatus his things. The slippers were providently stuffed with wadded paper, while the hem of the dressing gown was carefully folded back and pinned. Cincinnatus, a bit unsteady on his feet, got dressed and, leaning a little on the arm of Rodion, went out into the corridor. There he sat down on a stool, folding his arms into his sleeves like a sick man. Leaving the door of the ward wide open, Rodion began cleaning. The chair was placed atop the table; the sheet was stripped from the cot; the pail handle clinked; the draft riffled through the papers on the table, and one sheet glided to the floor. “What are you moping about there?” shouted Rodion, raising his voice above the noise of the water, the sloshing and clatter, “You ought to take a bit of a walk along the corridors there … Go on, don’t be afraid—I’ll be right here in case anything happens—all you have to do is holler.”

  Cincinnatus obediently rose from the stool, but barely had he moved along the cold wall—undoubtedly related to the rock on which the fortress had risen—barely had he walked a few steps away (and what steps!—feeble, weightless, meek), barely had he consigned Rodion, the open door, and the pails to a receding perspective, when Cincinnatus felt the surge of freedom. It flowed more fully when he turned the corner. Except for the sweaty smears and the cracks, the bare walls were adorned by nothing; only in one place someone had scrawled in ochre, with a house painter’s stroke, “Testing brush, testing bru—” with an ugly run of paint under it. From the unaccustomed exertion of walking alone, Cincinnatus’s muscles grew limp and there was a stitch in his side.

  It was then that Cincinnatus stopped and, looking around him as if he had just entered this stony solitude, summoned up all his will, evoked the full extent of his life, and endeavored to comprehend his situation with the utmost exactitude. Accused of the most terrible of crimes, gnostical turpitude, so rare and so unutterable that it was necessary to use circumlocutions like “impenetrability,” “opacity,” “occlusion”; sentenced for that crime to death by beheading; emprisoned in the fortress in expectation of the unknown but near and inexorable date (which he distinctly anticipated as the wrenching, yanking and crunch of a monstrous tooth, his whole body being the inflamed gum, and his head that tooth); standing now in the prison corridor with a sinking heart—still alive, still unimpaired, still Cincinnatic—Cincinnatus C. felt a fierce longing for freedom, the most ordinary, physical, physically feasible kind of freedom, and instantly he imagined, with such sensuous clarity as though it all was a fluctuating corona emanating from him, the town beyond the shallowed river, the town, from every point of which one could see—now in this vista, now in that, now in crayon, and now in ink—the tall fortress within which he was. And so powerful and sweet was this tide of freedom that everything seemed better than it really was: his gaolers, who in fact were everyone, seemed more tractable; in the confining phenomena of life his reason sought out a possible trail, some kind of vision danced before his eyes—like a thousand iridescent needles of light that surround the dazzling reflection of the sun in a nickel-plated sphere … Standing in the prison corridor and listening to the ample sonorities of the clock, which had just begun its leisurely enumeration, he imagined life in the city as it generally was at this fresh morning hour: Marthe, eyes lowered, is walking with an empty basket from the house along the blue sidewalk, followed at a distance of three paces by a dark-mustachioed young blade; the electric wagonets in the shape of swans or gondolas, where you sit as in a carrousel cradle, keep gliding in an endless stream along the boulevard; couches and armchairs are being carried out of furniture warehouses fer airing, and passing school children sit down on them to rest, while the little orderly, his wheelbarrow loaded with all their books, mops his brow like a full-grown laborer; spring-powered, two-seat “clocklets,” as they are called here in the provinces, click along over the freshly sprinkled pavement (and to think that these are the degenerate descendants of the m
achines of the past, of those splendid lacquered stream-lined automobiles … what made me think of that? ah yes, the photos in the magazine); Marthe picks out some fruit; decrepit, dreadful horses, which have long since ceased to marvel at the sights of hell, deliver merchandise from the factories to the city distributors; street bread vendors, white-shirted, with gilded faces, shout as they juggle their baton loaves, tossing them high in the air, catching them and twirling them once again; at a window overgrown with wisteria a gay foursome of telegraph workers are clinking glasses and drinking toasts to the health of passers-by: a famed punster, a gluttonous, coxcombed old man in red silk trousers, is gorging himself on fried chuck-ricks at a pavilion on the Lesser Ponds; the clouds disperse, and, to the accompaniment of a brass band, dappled sunlight runs along the sloping streets, and visits the side alleys; pedestrians walk briskly; the smell of lindens, of carburine and of damp gravel is in the air; the perpetual fountain at the mausoleum of Captain Somnus profusely irrigates with its spray the stone captain, the bas-relief at his elephantine feet and the quivering roses; Marthe, her eyes lowered, is walking homeward with a full basket, followed at a distance of three paces by a fair-haired fop … These are the things that Cincinnatus saw and heard through the walls as the clock struck, and, even though in reality everything in this city was always quite dead and awful by comparison with the secret life of Cincinnatus and his guilty flame, even though he knew this perfectly well and knew also that there was no hope, yet at this moment he still longed to be on those bright familiar streets … but then the clock finished ringing, the imaginary sky grew overcast, and the jail was back in force.

  Cincinnatus held his breath, moved, stopped again, listened: somewhere ahead, at an indeterminate distance, there was a tapping.

  It was a rhythmic, quick, blunt sound, and Cincinnatus, all his nerves a-flutter, heard in it an invitation. He walked on, very attentive, very ethereal and lucid; he turned he knew not how many corners. The noise ceased, but then seemed to have flown nearer, like an invisible woodpecker. Tap, tap, tap. Cincinnatus quickened his pace, and once again the dark passage made a bend. Suddenly it became lighter—though still not like day—and now the noise became definite and almost smug. Ahead, in a flood of pale light, Emmie was bouncing a ball against the wall.

  At this point the passage was wide, and at first it seemed to Cincinnatus that the left wall contained a large, deep window, through which all that strange additional light was flowing. Emmie, as she bent down to retrieve her ball, and at the same time to pull up her sock, looked at him slyly and shyly. The little blond hairs stood erect on her bare arms and shins. Her eyes shone between her whitish lashes. Now she straightened up, brushing the flaxen curls from her face with the same hand in which she was holding the ball.

  “You aren’t supposed to walk here,” she said—she had something in her mouth; it rolled behind her cheek and knocked against her teeth.

  “What is that you are sucking?” asked Cincinnatus.

  Emmie stuck out her tongue; on its independently live tip lay a piece of brilliant barberry-red hard candy.

  “I have some more,” she said. “Want one?”

  Cincinnatus shook his head.

  “You aren’t supposed to walk here,” repeated Emmie.

  “Why?” asked Cincinnatus.

  She shrugged one shoulder and, grimacing, arching the hand in which she held the ball, tensing her calves, she went over to the spot where he had thought there was a niche, a window, and, fidgeting, suddenly seeming all legs, settled herself on a sill-like projection of stone.

  No, it was only the semblance of a window; actually it was a glazed recess, a showcase, and it displayed in its false depth—yes, of course, how could one help but recognize it!—a view of the Tamara Gardens. This landscape, daubed in several layers of distance, executed in blurry green hues and illuminated by concealed bulbs, was reminiscent not so much of a terrarium or some model of theatrical scenery as of the backdrop in front of which a wind orchestra toils and puffs. Everything was reproduced fairly accurately as far as grouping and perspective was concerned, and, were it not for the drab colors, the stirless treetops and the torpid lighting, one could slit one’s eyes and imagine oneself gazing through an embrasure, from this very prison, at those very gardens. The indulgent gaze recognized those avenues, that curly verdancy of groves, the portico at the right, the detached poplars, and, in the middle of the unconvincing blue of the lake, the pale blob that was probably a swan. Afar, in a stylized mist, the hills humped their round backs, and above them, in that kind of slate-blue firmament under which Thespians live and die, cumulus clouds stood still. And all of this was somehow not fresh, antiquated, covered with dust, and the glass through which Cincinnatus was looking bore smudges, from some of which a child’s hand could be reconstructed.

  “Won’t you please take me out there?” whispered Cincinnatus. “I beseech you.”

  He was sitting next to Emmie on the stone projection and both of them were peering into the artificial remoteness beyond the glass; enigmatically, she kept following winding paths with her finger, and her hair smelled of vanilla.

  “Pop’s coming,” she suddenly said in a husky, hurried voice; then she hopped to the floor and vanished.

  It was true: Rodion was approaching, keys a-jangle, from the direction opposite the one whence Cincinnatus had come (who thought for a moment it was a reflection in a mirror).

  “Home you go,” he said jokingly.

  The light behind the glass went out and Cincinnatus took a step, intending to return by the same route as he had come.

  “Hey, hey, where are you off to?” exclaimed Rodion. “Go straight, it’s shorter that way.”

  And only then did Cincinnatus realize that the bends in the corridor had not been leading him away anywhere, but rather formed a great polyhedron—for now, as he turned a corner, he saw his door in the distance, and, before he reached it, passed the cell where the new prisoner was kept. The door of this cell was wide open, and inside, the likable shorty whom he had seen before, dressed in his striped pajamas, was standing on a chair and tacking the calendar to the wall: tap, tap, like a woodpecker.

  “No peeking, my fair damsel,” said Rodion good-naturedly to Cincinnatus. “Home, home. And what a cleaning job we’ve done on your place, eh? Now we don’t have to be ashamed about bringing guests in.”

  He seemed particularly proud of the fact that the spider was enthroned in a clean, impeccably correct web, which had been created, it was clear, just a moment before.

  Seven

  An enchanting morning! Freely, without the former friction, it penetrated through the barred glass washed yesterday by Rodion. Nothing could look more festive than the yellow paint of the walls. The table was covered by a clean tablecloth, which did not yet cling because of the air under it. The liberally doused stone floor exhaled fontal freshness.

  Cincinnatus put on the best clothes he had with him—and while he was pulling on the white silk stockings which he, as a teacher, was entitled to wear at gala performances—Rodion brought in a wet cut-glass vase with jowly peonies from the director’s garden and placed it on the table, in the center … no, not quite in the center; he backed out and in a minute returned with a stool and an additional chair, and arranged the furniture not haphazardly but with judgment and taste. He came back several times, and Cincinnatus did not dare ask, “will it be soon?” and—as happens at that particularly inactive hour when, all dressed up, you are awaiting guests—he strolled around, now perching in unaccustomed corners, now straightening the flowers in the vase, so that at last Rodion took pity on him and said it would not be long now.

  Punctually at ten, Rodrig Ivanovich appeared, in his best, most monumental frock coat, pompous, aloof, excited yet composed; he set down a massive ash tray and inspected everything (with the exception only of Cincinnatus), acting like a major-domo engrossed in his job, who gives his attention to the neatness of the inanimate inventory only, leaving the animate to shift
for themselves. He returned carrying a green flask equipped with a rubber bulb and began spraying pine fragrance, rather unceremoniously pushing aside Cincinnatus when the latter happened to get in his way. The chairs Rodrig Ivanovich arranged differently from Rodion, and for a long time he stared, goggle-eyed, at the backs, which did not match—one was lyrate, the other square. He puffed up his cheeks and let out the air with a whistle, and at last turned to Cincinnatus.

  “And how about you? Are you ready?” he asked. “Did you find everything you needed? Are your shoe buckles in order? Why is it wrinkled, or something, over here? Shame on you—Let’s see your paws. Bon. Now try not to get all dirty. I think it won’t be long now …”

  He went out, and his succulent, authoritative bass reverberated through the corridor. Rodion opened the cell door, securing it in that position, and unrolled a caramel-striped runner on the threshold. “Coming,” he whispered with a wink and disappeared again. Now a key made a threefold clank in a lock somewhere, confused voices were audible, and a gust stirred the hair on Cincinnatus’s head.

  He was very agitated, and his quivering lips continuously assumed the shape of a smile. “Right this way. Here we are already,” he could hear the sonorous comments of the director, and in the next instant the latter appeared, gallantly leading in by the elbow the plump, striped little prisoner who, before coming in, paused on the mat, noiselessly brought together his morocco feet, and bowed gracefully.

  “Allow me to present to you M’sieur Pierre,” said the director to Cincinnatus in jubilant tones. “Come in, come in, M’sieur Pierre. You can’t imagine how you have been awaited here—Get acquainted, gentlemen—The long-awaited meeting—An instructive spectacle … Do bear with us, M’sieur Pierre, do not find fault …”

  He did not even know what he was saying—he was bubbling over, cutting heavy little capers, rubbing his hands, bursting with delighted embarrassment.