Invitation to a Beheading

by Vladimir Nabokov

  "Let's go!" shrieked M'sieur Pierre.

  Cincinnatus, trying not to brush against anyone or anything, placing his feet as if he were walking on bare, sloping ice, finally made his way out of the cell, which in fact was no longer there.

  Twenty

  Cincinnatus was led through stone passageways. Now ahead, now behind, a distracted echo would leap out--all its burrows were crumbling. Often there were stretches of darkness because bulbs had burned out. M'sieur Pierre demanded that they go in step.

  Now they were joined by several soldiers in the regulation canine masks, and then Rodrig and Roman, with the master's permission, went on ahead, with long, pleased strides, swinging their arms in businesslike fashion, and overtaking each other. Shouting, they disappeared around a corner.

  Cincinnatus, who, alas, had suddenly lost the capacity of walking, was supported by M'sieur Pierre and a soldier with the face of a borzoi. For a very long time they clambered up and down staircases--the fortress must have suffered a mild stroke, as the descending stairs were in reality ascending and vice versa. Again there were long corridors, but of a more inhabited kind; that is, they visibly demonstrated--either by linoleum, or by wallpaper, or by a sea chest against the wall--that they adjoined living quarters. At one bend there was even a smell of cabbage soup. Further on they passed a glass door with the inscription "ffice," and after another period of darkness they abruptly found themselves in the courtyard, vibrant with the noonday sun.

  Throughout this whole journey Cincinnatus was busy trying to cope with his choking, wrenching, implacable fear. He realized that this fear was dragging him precisely into that false logic of things that had gradually developed around him, but from which he had still somehow been able to escape that morning. The very thought that this chubby, red-cheeked hunter was going to hack at him was already an inadmissible sickening weakness, drawing Cincinnatus into a system that was perilous to him. He fully understood all this, but, like a man unable to resist arguing with a hallucination, even though he knows perfectly well that the entire masquerade is staged in his own brain, Cincinnatus tried in vain to out-wrangle his fear, despite his understanding that he ought actually to rejoice at the awakening whose proximity was presaged by barely noticeable phenomena, by the peculiar effects on everyday implements, by a certain general instability, by a certain flaw in all visible matter--but the sun was still realistic, the world still held together, objects still observed an outward propriety.

  Outside the third gate the carriage was waiting. The soldiers did not accompany them further, but sat down on logs piled by the wall, and began taking off their cloth masks. The prison staff and the guards' families pressed timidly and greedily around the gate--barefoot children would run out, trying to get into the picture, and immediately would dart back, and their kerchiefed mothers would shush them, and the hot light gilded the scattered straw, and there was the odor of warm nettles, while off to one side a dozen geese crowded, gobbling discreetly.

  "Well, let's get going," M'sieur Pierre said jauntily and put on his pea-green hat with a pheasant feather.

  An old, scarred carriage, which listed with a groan when springy little M'sieur Pierre mounted the step, was hitched to a bay nag with bared teeth, with lesions shiny from flies on its sharply protruding haunches, all in all so lean and so ribby that its trunk seemed to be enclosed in a set of hoops. There was a red ribbon in its mane. M'sieur Pierre squeezed over to make room for Cincinnatus and asked if the bulky case that was placed at their feet were in his way. "Please, my dear fellow, try not to step on it," he added. Rodrig and Roman climbed on the box. Rodrig, who was playing the coachman, snapped the long whip, the horse gave a start, was unable to move the carriage immediately and sank on its haunches. A discordant cheer inopportunely rang out from the staff. Rising and leaning forward, Rodrig gave the horse's nose a lash, and, when the carriage moved spasmodically off, he nearly fell backwards on the box from the jolt, drawing the rein tight and crying "whoa!"

  "Easy, easy," said M'sieur Pierre with a smile, touching Rodrig's back with a plump hand in a smart glove.

  The pale road coiled several times, with evil picturesqueness, around the base of the fortress. In places the grade was fairly steep, and then Rodrig would hastily wind tight the scrunching brake handle. M'sieur Pierre, his hands resting on the bulldog head of his cane, gaily looked around at the cliffs, the green inclines between them, the clover and vines, and the whirling white dust, and, while he was at it, also caressed with his gaze the profile of Cincinnatus who was still engaged in his inner struggle. The scrawny, gray, bent backs of the two men sitting on the box were perfectly identical. The hoofs clipped and clopped. Horseflies circled like satellites. At times the carriage overtook hurrying pilgrims (the prison cook, for instance, with his wife), who would stop, shielding themselves from the sun and dust, and then quicken their pace. One more turn and then the road stretched out toward the bridge, having disentangled itself from the slowly revolving fortress (which already stood quite poorly, the perspective was disorganized, something had come loose and dangled).

  "I'm sorry I flared up like that," M'sieur Pierre was saying gently. "Don't be angry with me, duckie. You understand yourself how it hurts to see others being sloppy when you put your whole soul into your work."

  They clattered across the bridge. News of the execution had only just now begun to spread through the town. Red and blue boys ran after the carriage. A man who feigned insanity, an old fellow of Jewish origin who had for many years been fishing for nonexistent fish in a waterless river, was collecting his chattels, hurrying to join the very first group of townspeople heading for Thriller Square.

  "... but there's no point in dwelling on that," M'sieur Pierre was saying. "Men of my temperament are volatile but also get over it quickly. Rather let us turn our attention to the conduct of the fair sex."

  Several girls, hatless, jostling and squealing, were buying up all the flowers from a fat flower vendor with browned breasts, and the boldest among them managed to throw a bouquet into the carriage, nearly knocking the cap off Roman's head. M'sieur Pierre shook a finger.

  The horse, its bleary eye looking askance at the flat, spotted dogs, extending their bodies as they raced at its hoofs, strained up Garden Street, and the crowd was already catching up--another bouquet hit the carriage. Now they were turning right, past the huge ruins of the ancient factory, then along Telegraph Street, already ringing, moaning, tooting with the noise of instruments tuning up, then through an unpaved, whispering lane, past a public garden where two bearded men in civilian dress got up from a bench when they saw the carriage, and, gesticulating emphatically, began indicating it to each other--both dreadfully excited, square-shouldered--and now they were running, energetically and angularly lifting their legs, toward the same place as everyone else. Beyond the public garden the corpulent white statue had been split in two--by a thunderbolt, said the papers.

  "In a moment we shall be driving past your house," said M'sieur Pierre very softly.

  Roman began fidgeting on the box and twisting around to Cincinnatus, cried:

  "In a moment we shall be driving past your house," and at once he turned away again, bouncing up and down, like a pleased urchin.

  Cincinnatus did not want to look, but still he looked. Marthe was sitting in the branches of the barren apple tree waving a handkerchief, while in the garden next door, among sunflowers and hollyhocks, a scarecrow in a crushed top hat was waving its sleeve. The wall of the house, especially at the spots where leafy shadows had once played, had peeled strangely, and part of the roof--But they had driven past.

  "Really, there is something heartless about you," said M'sieur Pierre with a sigh and impatiently stuck his cane into the back of the driver, who rose slightly and, with frenzied lashings of his whip, achieved a miracle: the nag broke into a gallop.

  Now they were driving along the boulevard. The agitation in the city continued to mount. The motley facades of the houses swayed and flapped, as t
hey were hastily decorated with welcoming posters. One small house was especially well decked out: its door opened quickly, a youth came out, and his entire family followed to see him off--this day he had reached execution-attending age; mother was smiling through her tears, granny was thrusting a sandwich into his knapsack, kid brother was handing him his staff. The ancient stone bridges arching above the streets (once such a boon to pedestrians, but now used only by gawkers and street supervisors) were already teeming with photographers. M'sieur Pierre kept tipping his hat. Dandies on their shiny clockwork cycles passed the carriage and craned their necks. A person in Turkish trousers came running out of a cafe with a pail of confetti, but, missing, sent his varicolored blizzard into the face of a cropped fellow who had just come running from the opposite sidewalk with a bienvenue platter of "bread and salt."

  All that remained of the statue of Captain Somnus was the legs up to the hips, surrounded by roses--it too must have been struck by lightning. Somewhere ahead a brass band was scorching away at the march "Golubchik." White clouds moved jerkily across the whole sky--I think the same ones pass over and over again, I think there are only three kinds, I think it is all stage-setting, with a suspicious green tinge...

  "Now, now, come on, no foolishness," said M'sieur Pierre. "Don't you dare start fainting. It's unworthy of a man."

  And now they had arrived. There were as yet relatively few spectators, but they continued to flow in endlessly. In the center of the plaza--no, not quite in the center, that precisely was the dreadful part--rose the vermilion platform of the scaffold. The old electrically powered municipal hearse stood modestly at a slight distance. A combined brigade of telegraphers and firemen was maintaining order. The band was apparently playing with all its might, since the conductor, a one-legged cripple, was waving furiously; now, however, not a sound was audible.

  M'sieur Pierre, raising his plump shoulders, climbed gracefully out of the carriage and immediately turned, wishing to assist Cincinnatus, but Cincinnatus got out from the other side. There was some booing.

  Rodrig and Roman hopped off the box; all three pressed around Cincinnatus.

  "By myself," said Cincinnatus.

  It was about twenty paces to the scaffold, and, in order that no one might touch him, Cincinnatus was compelled to trot. Somewhere in the crowd a dog barked. Upon reaching the crimson steps, Cincinnatus stopped. M'sieur Pierre took him by the elbow.

  "By myself," said Cincinnatus.

  He mounted the platform, where the block was, that is, a smooth, sloping slab of polished oak, of sufficient size so that one could easily lie on it with outspread arms. M'sieur Pierre climbed up also. The public buzzed.

  While they were fussing with the buckets and spreading the sawdust, Cincinnatus, not knowing what to do, leaned against the wooden railing, but a slight tremor was running all through it and some curious spectators below started to palpate his ankles; he moved away and, a little short of breath, wetting his lips, his arms folded somewhat awkwardly across his chest, as if he did it for the first time, he began looking around. Something had happened to the lighting, there was something wrong with the sun, and a section of the sky was shaking. Poplars had been planted around the square, but they were stiff and rickety--one of them was very slowly...

  But again a buzzing noise passed through the crowd: Rodrig and Roman, stumbling, shoving against each other, puffing and grunting, clumsily carried the heavy case up the steps and plunked it down on the board floor. M'sieur Pierre threw off his jacket remaining clad in a singlet. A turquoise woman was tattooed on his white biceps, while, in one of the first rows of the crowd, which was pressing around the very scaffold (regardless of the firemen's entreaties), stood the same woman in the flesh, and also her two sisters, as well as the little old man with the fishing rod, and the tanned flower woman, and the youth with his staff, and one of Cincinnatus's brothers-in-law, and the librarian, reading a newspaper, and that stout fellow Nikita Lukich the engineer--and Cincinnatus also noticed a man whom he used to meet every morning on the way to the kindergarten, but whose name he did not know. Beyond these first rows there followed other rows where eyes and mouths were not so clearly drawn; and beyond them, there were layers of very hazy, and, in their haziness, identical faces, and then--the furthest ones were really quite badly daubed on the backdrop. Another poplar fell.

  Suddenly the band stopped--or rather, now that it stopped, one realized that it had been playing all this time. One of the musicians, plump and placid, taking apart his instrument, shook the saliva out of its shiny joints. Beyond the orchestra was a limp, green, allegorical prospect: a portico, cliffs, a soapy cascade.

  Nimbly and energetically (so that Cincinnatus involuntarily recoiled) the deputy city director jumped up on the platform, and casually placing one high-raised foot on the block (he was a master of relaxed eloquence) proclaimed in a loud voice:

  "Townspeople! One brief remark. Lately in our streets a tendency has been observed on the part of certain individuals of the younger generation to walk so fast that we oldsters must move aside and step into puddles. I would also like to say that after tomorrow a furniture exhibit will open at the corner of First Boulevard and Brigadier Street and I sincerely hope to see all of you there. I also remind you that tonight, there will be given with sensational success the new comic opera Socrates Must Decrease. I have also been asked to tell you that the Kifer Distributing Center has received a large selection of ladies' belts, and the offer may not be repeated. Now I make way for other performers and hope, townspeople, that you are all in good health and lack nothing."

  Sliding with the same nimbleness between the cross-pieces of the railing, he jumped down from the platform to the accompaniment of an approbatory murmur. M'sieur Pierre, who had already put on a white apron (from under which his jack boot showed) was carefully wiping his hands on a towel, and calmly, benevolently looking around. As soon as the deputy director had finished, he tossed the towel to his assistants and stepped over to Cincinnatus.

  (The square black snouts of the photographers swayed and froze still.)

  "No excitement, no fuss, please," said M'sieur Pierre. "We shall first of all remove our little shirt."

  "By myself," said Cincinnatus.

  "That's the boy. Take the little shirt away, men. Now I shall show you how to lie down."

  M'sieur Pierre dropped onto the block. The audience buzzed.

  "Is this clear?" asked M'sieur Pierre, springing up and straightening his apron (it had come apart at the back, Rodrig helped tie it). "Good. Let's begin. The light is a bit harsh ... Perhaps you could ... There, that's fine. Thank you. Perhaps just a wee bit more ... Excellent! Now I shall ask you to lie down."

  "By myself, by myself," said Cincinnatus and lay face down as he had been shown, but at once he covered the back of his neck with his hands.

  "What a silly boy," said M'sieur Pierre from above. "If you do that how can I... (yes, give it here; then, immediately after, the bucket). And anyway why all this contraction of muscles? There must be no tension at all. Perfectly at ease. Remove your hands, please ... (give it to me now). Be quite at ease and count aloud."

  "To ten," said Cincinnatus.

  "What was that, my friend?" said M'sieur Pierre as if asking him to repeat, and softly added, already beginning to heave, "Step back a little, gentlemen."

  "To ten," repeated Cincinnatus, spreading out his arms.

  "I am not doing anything yet," said M'sieur Pierre with an extraneous note of gasping effort, and the shadow of his swing was already running along the boards, when Cincinnatus began counting loudly and firmly: one Cincinnatus was counting, but the other Cincinnatus had already stopped heeding the sound of the unnecessary count which was fading away in the distance; and, with a clarity he had never experienced before--at first almost painful, so suddenly did it come, but then suffusing him with joy, he reflected: why am I here? Why am I lying like this? And, having asked himself these simple questions, he answered them by getting up and look
ing around.

  All around there was a strange confusion. Through the headsman's still swinging hips the railing showed. On the steps the pale librarian sat doubled up, vomiting. The spectators were quite transparent, and quite useless, and they all kept surging and moving away--only the back rows, being painted rows, remained in place. Cincinnatus slowly descended from the platform and walked off through the shifting debris. He was overtaken by Roman, who was now many times smaller and who was at the same time Rodrig: "What are you doing!" he croaked, jumping up and down. "You can't, you can't! It's dishonest toward him, toward everybody ... Come back, lie down--after all, you were lying down, everything was ready, everything was finished!" Cincinnatus brushed him aside and, he, with a bleak cry, ran off, already thinking only of his own safety.

  Little was left of the square. The platform had long since collapsed in a cloud of reddish dust. The last to rush past was a woman in a black shawl, carrying the tiny executioner like a larva in her arms. The fallen trees lay flat and reliefless, while those that were still standing, also two-dimensional, with a lateral shading of the trunk to suggest roundness, barely held on with their branches to the ripping mesh of the sky. Everything was coming apart. Everything was falling. A spinning wind was picking up and whirling: dust, rags, chips of painted wood, bits of gilded plaster, pasteboard bricks, posters; an arid gloom fleeted; and amidst the dust, and the falling things, and the flapping scenery, Cincinnatus made his way in that direction where, to judge by the voices, stood beings akin to him.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg on April 23, 1899. His family fled to the Crimea in 1917, during the Bolshevik Revolution, then went into exile in Europe. Nabokov studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, earning a degree in French and Russian literature in 1922, and lived in Berlin and Paris for the next two decades, writing prolifically, mainly in Russian, under the pseudonym Sirin. In 1940 he moved to the United States, where he pursued a brilliant literary career (as a poet, novelist, memoirist, critic, and translator) while teaching Russian, creative writing, and literature at Stanford, Wellesley, Cornell, and Harvard. The monumental success of his novel Lolita (1955) enabled him to give up teaching and devote himself fully to his writing. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977. Recognized as one of the master prose stylists of the century in both Russian and English, he translated a number of his original English works--including Lolita--into Russian, and collaborated on English translations of his original Russian works.