Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov Read Free Book Online Page A

and laughing—that is, I mean—No, I still ought to record, to leave something. I am not an ordinary—I am the one among you who is alive—Not only are my eyes different, and my hearing, and my sense of taste-not only is my sense of smell like a deer’s, my sense of touch like a bat’s—but, most important, I have the capacity to conjoin all of this in one point—No, the secret is not revealed yet—even this is but the flint—and I have not even begun to speak of the kindling, of the fire itself. My life. Once, when I was a child, on a distant school excursion, when I had got separated from the others—although I may have dreamt it—I found myself, under the sultry sun of midday, in a drowsy little town, so drowsy that when a man who had been dozing on a bench beneath a bright whitewashed wall at last got up to help me find my way, his blue shadow on the wall did not immediately follow him. Oh, I know, I know, there must have been some oversight, on my part, and the shadow did not linger at all, butsimply, shall we say, it caught on the wall’s unevenness … but here is what I want to express: between his movement and the movement of the laggard shadow—that second, that syncope—there is the rare kind of time in which I live—the pause, the hiatus, when the heart is like a feather … And I would write also about the continual tremor—and about how part of my thoughts is always crowding around the invisible umbilical cord that joins this world to something—to what I shall not say yet … But how can I write about this when I am afraid of not having time to finish and of stirring up all these thoughts in vain? When she came rushing in today—only a child—here is what I want to say—only a child, with certain loopholes for my thoughts—I wondered, to the rhythm of an ancient poem—could she not give the guards a drugged potion, could she not rescue me? If only she would remain the child she is, but at the same time mature and understand—and then it would be feasible: her burning cheeks, a black windy night, salvation, salvation … And I’m wrong when I keep repeating that there is no refuge in the world for me. There is! I’ll find it! A lush ravine in the desert! A patch of snow in the shadow of an alpine crag! This is unhealthy, though—what I am doing: as it is I am weak, and here I am exciting myself, squandering the last of my strength. What anguish, oh, what anguish … And it is obvious to me that I have not yet removed the final film from my fear.”
    He became lost in thought. Then he dropped the pencil, got up, began walking. The striking of the clock reached his ears. Using its chimes as a platform, footfalls rose to the surface; the platform floated away, but the footfalls remainedand now two persons entered the cell: Rodion with the soup and the Librarian with the catalogue.
    The latter was a man of tremendous size but sickly appearance, pale, with shadows under his eyes, with a bald spot encircled by a dark crown of hair, with a long torso in a blue sweater, faded in places and with indigo patches on the elbows. He had his hands in the pockets of his pants, which were narrow as death, and clutched under his arm a large book, bound in black leather. Cincinnatus had already once had the pleasure of seeing him.
    “The catalogue,” said the Librarian, whose speech was distinguished by a kind of defiant laconicism.
    “Fine, leave it here,” said Cincinnatus, “I shall choose something. If you would like to wait, to sit down for a minute, please do. If, however, you should like to go …”
    “To go,” said the Librarian.
    “All right. Then I shall return the catalogue through Rodion. Here, you may take these back with you … These magazines of the ancients are wonderfully moving … With this weighty volume I went down, you know, as with a ballast, to the bottom of time. An enchanting sensation.”
    “No,” said the Librarian.
    “Bring me some more—I’ll