Read Online Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Vladimir Nabokov
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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 atopthe 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 ofthe 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
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 atopthe 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 ofthe 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
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