Despair

by Vladimir Nabokov

  "Yes," he replied, "I followed your orders. As for bragging--well, you know yourself, I'm a lonely man and no good at chatting with people."

  "I know, and join you in your sighs. Tell me, did you meet anyone on this road?"

  "When I saw a cart or something, I hid in the ditch, as you told me to do."

  "Splendid. Your features anyhow are sufficiently concealed. Well, no good loafing about here. Get into the car. Oh, leave that alone--you'll take off your bag afterwards. Get in quick, we must drive off."

  "Where to?" he queried.

  "Into that wood."

  "There?" he asked and pointed with his stick.

  "Yes, right there. Will you or won't you get in, damn you?"

  He surveyed the car contentedly. Without hurry he climbed in and sat down beside me.

  I turned the steering wheel, with the car slowly moving. Ick. And once again: ick. (We left the road for the field.) Under the tires thin snow and dead grass crackled. The car bounced on humps of ground, we bounced too. He spoke the while:

  "I'll manage this car without any trouble (bump). Lord, what a ride I'll take (bump). Never fear (bump-bump) I won't do it any harm!"

  "Yes, the car will be yours. For a short space of time (bump) yours. Now, keep awake, my fellow, look about you. There's nobody on the road, is there?"

  He glanced back and then shook his head. We drove, or better say crept, up a gentle and fairly smooth slope into the forest. There, among the foremost pines, we stopped and got out. No more with the longing of ogling indigence, but with an owner's quiet satisfaction, Felix continued to admire the glossy blue Icarus. A dreamy look then came into his eyes. Quite likely (please, note that I am asserting nothing, merely saying: "quite likely") quite likely then, his thoughts flowed as follows: "What if I slip away in this natty two-seater? I get the cash in advance, so that's all right. I'll let him believe I'm going to do what he wants, and roll away instead, far away. He just can't inform the police, so he'll have to keep quiet. And me, in my own car--"

  I interrupted the course of those pleasant thoughts.

  "Well, Felix, the great moment has come. You're to change your clothes and remain in the car all alone in this wood. In half an hour's time it will begin to grow dark; no risk of anyone intruding upon you. You'll spend the night here--you'll have my overcoat on--just feel how nice and thick it is--ah, I thought so; besides, the car is quite warm inside, you'll sleep perfectly; then, as soon as day begins to break--But we'll discuss that afterwards; let me first give you the necessary appearance, or we'll never have done before dark. To start with, you must have a shave."

  "A shave?" Felix repeated after me, with silly surprise. "How's that? I've got no razor with me, and I really don't know what one can find in a wood to shave with, barring stones."

  "Why stones? Such a blockhead as you ought to be shaven with an axe. But I have thought of everything. I've brought the instrument, and I'll do it myself."

  "Well, that's mighty funny," he chuckled. "Wonder what'll come of it. Now, mind you don't cut my throat with that razor of yours."

  "Don't be afraid, you fool, it's a safety one. So, please.... Yes, sit down somewhere. Here, on the footboard, if you like."

  He sat down after having shaken off his knapsack. I produced my parcel and placed the shaving articles on the footboard. Had to hurry: the day looked pinched and wan, the air grew duller and duller. And what a hush.... It seemed, that silence, inherent, inseparable from those motionless boughs, those straight trunks, those lusterless patches of snow here and there on the ground.

  I took off my overcoat so as to operate with more freedom. Felix was curiously examining the bright teeth of the safety razor and its silvery grip. Then he examined the shaving brush; put it to his cheek to test its softness; it was, indeed, delightfully fluffy: I had paid seventeen marks fifty for it. He was quite fascinated, too, by the tube of expensive shaving cream.

  "Come, let's begin," I said. "Shaving and waving. Sit a little sideways, please, otherwise I can't get at you properly."

  I took a handful of snow, squeezed out a curling worm of soap into it, beat it up with the brush and applied the icy lather to his whiskers and mustache. He made faces, leered; a frill of lather had invaded one nostril: he wrinkled his nose, because it tickled.

  "Head back," I said, "farther still."

  Rather awkwardly resting my knee on the footboard, I started scraping his whiskers off; the hairs crackled, and there was something disgusting in the way they got mixed up with the foam; I cut him slightly, and that stained it with blood. When I attacked his mustache, he puckered up his eyes, but bravely made no sound, although it must have been anything but pleasant: I was working hastily, his bristles were tough, the razor pulled.

  "Got a handkerchief?" I asked.

  He drew some rag out of his pocket. I used it to wipe away from his face, very carefully, blood, snow and lather. His cheeks shone now--brand new. He was gloriously shaven; in one place only, near the ear, there showed a red scratch running into a little ruby which was about to turn black. He passed his palm over the shaven parts.

  "Wait a bit," I said, "that's not all. Your eyebrows need improving: they're somewhat thicker than mine."

  I produced scissors and neatly clipped off a few hairs.

  "That's capital now. As to your hair, I'll brush it when you've changed your shirt."

  "Going to give me yours?" he asked, and deliberately felt the silk of my shirt collar.

  "Hullo, your fingernails are not exactly clean!" I exclaimed blithely.

  Many a time had I done Lydia's hands--I was good at it, so that now I had not much difficulty in putting those ten rude nails in order, and while doing so I kept comparing our hands: his were larger and darker; but never mind, I thought, they'll pale by and by. As I never wore any wedding ring, all I had to add to his hand was my wristwatch. He moved his fingers, turning his wrist this way and that, very pleased.

  "Now, quick. Let's change. Take off everything, my friend, to the last stitch."

  "Ugh," grunted Felix, "it'll be cold."

  "Never mind. Takes one minute only. Please hurry up."

  He removed his old brown coat, pulled off his dark, shaggy sweater over his head. The shirt underneath was a muddy green with a tie of the same material. Then he took off his formless shoes, peeled off his socks (darned by a masculine hand) and hiccuped ecstatically as his bare toe touched the wintry soil. Your common man loves to go barefoot: in summer, on gay grass, the very first thing he does is take off his shoes and socks; but in winter, too, it is no mean pleasure--recalling as it does one's childhood, perhaps, or something like that.

  I stood aloof, undoing my cravat, and kept looking at Felix attentively.

  "Go on, go on," I cried, noticing that he had slowed down a bit.

  It was not without a bashful little squirm that he let his trousers slip down from his white hairless thighs. Lastly he took off his shirt. In the cold wood there stood in front of me a naked man.

  Incredibly fast, with the flick and dash of a Fregoli, I undressed, tossed over to him my outer envelope of shirt and drawers, deftly, while he was laboriously putting that on, plucked out of the suit I had shed several things--money, cigarette-case, brooch, gun--and stuffed them into the pockets of the tightish trousers which I had drawn on with the swiftness of a variety virtuoso. Although his sweater proved to be warm enough, I kept my muffler, and as I had lost weight lately, his coat fitted me almost to perfection. Should I offer him a cigarette? No, that would be in bad taste.

  Felix meanwhile had attired himself in my shirt and drawers; his feet were still bare, I gave him socks and garters, but noticed all at once that his toes needed some trimming too.... He placed his foot on the footboard of the car and we got in a bit of hasty pedicuring. They snapped loud and flew far, those ugly black parings, and in recent dreams I have often seen them speckling the ground much too conspicuously. I am afraid he had time to catch a chill, poor soul, standing there in his shirt. Then h
e washed his feet with snow, as some bathless rake in Maupassant does, and pulled on the socks, without noticing the hole in one heel.

  "Hurry up, hurry up," I kept repeating. "It'll be dark presently, and I must be going. See. I'm already dressed. God, what big shoes! And where is that cap of yours? Ah, here it is, thanks."

  He belted the trousers. With the provident help of the shoehorn he squeezed his feet into my black buckskin shoes. I helped him to cope with the spats and the lilac necktie. Finally, gingerly taking his comb, I smoothed his greasy hair well back from brow and temples.

  He was ready now. There he stood before me, my double, in my quiet dark-grey suit. Surveyed himself with a foolish smile. Investigated pockets. Was pleased with the lighter. Replaced the odds and ends, but opened the wallet. It was empty.

  "You promised me money in advance," said Felix coaxingly.

  "That's right," I replied withdrawing my hand from my pocket and disclosing a fistful of notes. "Here it is. I'll count out your share and give it you in a minute. What about those shoes, do they hurt?"

  "They do," said Felix. "They hurt dreadfully. But I'll hold out somehow. I'll take them off for the night, I expect. And where must I go with that car tomorrow?"

  "Presently, presently.... I'll make it all clear. Look, the place ought to be tidied up.... You've scattered your rags.... What have you got in that bag?"

  "I'm like a snail, I carry my house on my back," said Felix. "Are you taking the bag with you? I've got half a sausage in it. Like to have some?"

  "Later. Pack in all those things, will you? That shoehorn too. And the scissors. Good. Now put on my overcoat and let us verify for the last time whether you can pass for me."

  "You won't forget the money?" he inquired.

  "I keep on telling you I won't. Don't be an ass. We are on the point of settling it. The cash is here, in my pocket-in your former pocket, to be correct. Now, buck up, please."

  He got into my handsome camel-hair overcoat and (with special care) put on my elegant hat. Then came the last touch: yellow gloves.

  "Good. Just take a few steps. Let's see how it all fits you."

  He came toward me, now thrusting his hands into his pockets, now drawing them out again.

  When he got quite near, he squared his shoulders, pretending to swagger, aping a fop.

  "Is that all, is that all," I kept saying aloud. "Wait, let me have a thorough--Yes, seems to be all.... Now turn, I'd like a back view--"

  He turned, and I shot him between the shoulders.

  I remember various things: that puff of smoke, hanging in midair, then displaying a transparent fold and vanishing slowly; the way Felix fell; for he did not fall at once; first he terminated a movement still related to life, and that was a full turn almost; he intended, I think, swinging before me in jest, as before a mirror; so that, inertly bringing that poor piece of foolery to an end, he (already pierced) came to face me, slowly spread his hands as if asking: "What's the meaning of this?"--and getting no reply, slowly collapsed backward. Yes, I remember all that; I remember, too, the shuffling sound he made on the snow, when he began to stiffen and jerk, as if his new clothes were uncomfortable; soon he was still, and then the rotation of the earth made itself felt, and only his hat moved quietly, separating from his crown and falling back, mouth opened, as if it were saying "good-bye" for its owner (or again, bringing to one's mind the stale sentence: "all present bared their heads"). Yes, I remember all that, but there is one thing memory misses: the report of my shot. True, there remained in my ears a persistent singing. It clung to me and crept over me, and trembled upon my lips. Through that veil of sound, I went up to the body and, with avidity, looked.

  There are mysterious moments and that was one of them. Like an author reading his work over a thousand times, probing and testing every syllable, and finally unable to say of this brindle of words whether it is good or not, so it happened with me, so it happened--But there is the maker's secret certainty; which never can err. At that moment when all the required features were fixed and frozen, our likeness was such that really I could not say who had been killed, I or he. And while I looked, it grew dark in the vibrating wood, and with that face before me slowly dissolving, vibrating fainter and fainter, it seemed as if I were looking at my image in a stagnant pool.

  Being afraid to besmirch myself I did not handle the body; did not ascertain whether it was indeed quite, quite dead; I knew instinctively that it was so, that my bullet had slid with perfect exactitude along the short, air-dividing furrow which both will and eye had grooved. Must hurry, must hurry, cried old Mister Murry, as he thrust his arms through his pants. Let us not imitate him. Swiftly, sharply, I looked about me. Felix had put everything, except the pistol, into the bag himself; yet I had self-possession enough to make sure he had not dropped anything; and I even went so far as to brush the footboard where I had been cutting his nails and to unbury his comb which I had trampled into the ground but now decided to discard later. Next I accomplished something planned a long time ago: I had turned the car and stopped it on a bit of timbered ground slightly sloping down, roadward; I now rolled my little Icarus a few yards forward so as to make it visible in the morning from the highway, thus leading to the discovery of my corpse.

  Night came sweeping down rapidly. The drumming in my ears had all but died away. I plunged into the wood, repassing as I did so, not far from the body; but I did not stop any more--only picked up the bag, and, unflinchingly, at a smart pace, as if indeed I had not those stone-heavy shoes on my feet, I went round the lake, never leaving the forest, on and on, in the ghostly gloaming, among ghostly snow.... But how beautifully I knew the right direction, how accurately, how vividly I had visualized it all, when, in summer, I used to study the paths leading to Eichenberg!

  I reached the station in time. Ten minutes later, with the serviceableness of an apparition, there arrived the train I wanted. I spent half the night in a clattering, swaying third-class carriage, on a hard bench, and next to me were two elderly men, playing cards, and the cards they used were extraordinary: large, red and green, with acorns and beehives. After midnight I had to change; a couple of hours later I was already moving westwards; then, in the morning, I changed anew, this time into a fast train. Only then, in the solitude of the lavatory, did I examine the contents of the knapsack. Besides the things crammed into it lately (blood-stained handkerchief included), I found a few shirts, a piece of sausage, two large apples, a leathern sole, five marks in a lady's purse, a passport; and my letters to Felix. The apples and sausage I ate there and then, in the W.C.; but I put the letters into my pocket and examined the passport with the liveliest interest. It was in good order. He had been to Mons and Metz. Oddly enough, his pictured face did not resemble mine closely; it could, of course, easily pass for my photo--still, that made an odd impression upon me, and I remember thinking that here was the real cause of his being so little aware of our likeness: he saw himself in a glass, that is to say, from right to left, not sunway as in reality. Human fat-headedness, carelessness, slackness of senses, all this was revealed by the fact that even the official definitions in the brief list of personal features did not quite correspond with the epithets in my own passport (left at home). A trifle to be sure, but a characteristic one. And under "profession," he, that numbskull, who had played the fiddle, surely, in the way lackadaisical footmen in Russia used to twang guitars on summer evenings, was called a "musician," which at once turned me into a musician too. Later in the day, at a small border town, I purchased a suitcase, an overcoat, and so forth, upon which both bag and gun were discarded--no, I will not say what I did with them: be silent, Rhenish waters! And presently, a very unshaven gentleman in a cheap black overcoat was on the safer side of the frontier and heading south.

  Chapter Ten

  Since childhood I've loved violets and music. I was born at Zwickau. My father was a shoemaker and my mother a washerwoman. When she used to get angry she hissed at me in Czech. Mine was a clouded and joyless ch
ildhood. Hardly was I a man than I set forth on my wanderings. I played the fiddle. I'm a left-hander. Face--oval. Not married; show me one wife who is true. I found the war pretty beastly; it passed, however, as all things pass. Every mouse has its house.... I like squirrels and sparrows. Czech beer is cheaper. Ah, if one could only get shod by a smith--how economical! All state ministers are bribed, and all poetry is bilge. One day at a fair I saw twins; you were promised a prize if you distinguished between them, so carroty Fritz cuffed one of the two and gave him a thick ear--that was the difference! Golly, what a laugh we had! Beatings, stealings, slaughter, all is bad or good, according to circumstances.

  I've appropriated money, whenever it came my way; what you've taken is yours, there is no such thing as one's own or another's money; you don't find written on a coin: belongs to Muller. I like money. I've always wished to find a faithful friend; we'd have made music together, he'd have bequeathed me his house and his orchard. Money, darling money. Darling small money. Darling big money. I roved about; found work here and there. One day I met a swell fellow who kept saying he was like me. Nonsense, he was not like me in the least. But I did not argue with him, he being rich, and whoever hobnobs with the rich can well become rich himself. He wanted me to go for a drive in his stead, leaving him to his business in queer street. I killed the bluffer and robbed him. He lies in the wood, there is snow on the ground, crows caw, squirrels leap. I like squirrels. That poor gentleman in his fine overcoat lies dead, not far from his car. I can drive a car. I love violets and music. I was born at Zwickau. My father was a bald-headed bespectacled shoemaker, and my mother was a washerwoman with scarlet hands. When she used to get angry--

  And all over again from the beginning, with new absurd details.... Thus, a reflected image, asserting itself, laid its claims. Not I sought a refuge in a foreign land, not I grew a beard, but Felix, my slayer. Ah, if I had known him well, for years of intimacy, I might even have found it amusing to take up new quarters in the soul I had inherited. I would have known every cranny in it; all the corridors of its past; I could have enjoyed the use of all its accommodations. But Felix's soul I had studied very cursorily, so that all I knew of it were the bare outlines of his personality, two or three chance traits. Should I practice doing things with my left hand?