Invitation to a Beheading by Nabokov Vladimir

Author:Nabokov, Vladimir [Nabokov, Vladimir]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2011-02-16T08:00:00+00:00

Twelve

He was awakened by a muted tapping, scratching, and the sound of something crumbling somewhere. Just as when, having fallen asleep healthy last night, you wake up past midnight in a fever. He listened to these sounds for quite a long while—trup, trup, tock-tock-tock—without any thought about their meaning, simply listening, because they had awakened him and because his hearing had nothing else to do. Trup, tap, scratch, crumble-crumble. Where? To the right? To the left? Cincinnatus raised himself up a little.

He listened—his whole head became an organ of hearing, his whole body a tense heart; he listened and already began to make sense out of certain indications: the weak distillation of darkness within the cell … the dark had settled to the bottom … Beyond the bars of the window, a gray twilight—that meant it was three or half past three … The guards asleep in the cold … The sounds were coming from somewhere below … no, it was, rather, from above, no, it was still below, just on the other side of the wall, at floor level, like a large mouse scratching with iron claws.

Cincinnatus was especially excited by the concentrated self-confidence of the sounds, the insistent seriousness with which they pursued, in the quiet of the fortress night, perhaps a distant, but none the less attainable goal. With bated breath, with a phantomlike lightness, like a sheet of tissue paper, he slipped off—and tiptoed along the sticky, clinging—to the corner from which it seemed—it seemed to be—but coming closer, he realized that he was mistaken—the tapping was more to the right and higher up; he moved, and again got confused, fooled by the aural deception that occurs when a sound, traversing diagonally one’s head, is hurriedly served by the wrong ear.

Stepping awkwardly, Cincinnatus brushed against the tray, which was standing on the floor near the wall. “Cincinnatus!” said the tray reproachfully; and then the tapping ceased with abrupt suddenness, which conveyed to the listener a heartening rationality; and, standing motionless by the wall, pressing down with his toe the spoon on the tray and tilting his open, hollow head, Cincinnatus felt that the unknown digger was also standing still and listening.

A half-minute passed and the sounds, quieter, more restrained, but more expressive and wiser, began again. Turning and slowly moving his sole off the zinc, Cincinnatus tried again to ascertain their location: to the right, if one stood facing the door … yes, to the right, and, in any case, still far off … after listening a long time that was all he was able to conclude. Finally moving back toward the cot to get his slippers—he could not stand it barefoot any longer–he startled the loud-legged chair, which never spent the night in the same spot twice, and again the sounds ceased, this time for good; that is, they might have resumed after a cautious interval, but morning was already coming into its own and Cincinnatus saw—with the eyes of habitual imagination—Rodion, all steaming from the dampness and opening in a yawn his bright-red mouth as he stretched on his stool in the hall.

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