Cincinnatus' "Other" in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading
One element that stands out as odd, as different from the other characters, is the frequently-described "other Cincinnatus" (222). At certain points, he does something while simultaneously doing nothing. The lines between what is possible and impossible, what is real and what is not, become blurred with the descriptions of these two alternate versions of the self. Nabokov gives the two Cincinnatuses a brief explanation when he states, “Cincinnatus did not crumple the motley newspapers, did not hurl them, as his double did (the double, the gangrel, that accompanies each of us—you and me, and him over there—doing what we would like to do at that very moment, but cannot…)” (25). Cincinnatus’ gangrel double acts freely and impulsively throughout the book, but the most shocking instance comes at the end, when the other Cincinnatus gets up and walks away from his own beheading. This ending, and the general idea of the alternate self, inspire many questions about what this other Cincinnatus is, the degree of reality, and its function at the book’s end. It is difficult to determine a finite explanation for something so strange, but interpreting who and what this is allows us to better understand its function throughout the book and at the end. Glimpses of the other Cincinnatus from across the book suggest that in this transparent world, Cincinnatus is a unique being whose self is not only defined by his opaque physical being, but also the free part of him that exists beyond the body and its limitations, which allows a non-physical part of him, the other Cincinnatus, to walk free after his execution.
It is first important to pinpoint this other Cincinnatus’ presence in the text. He appears across the novel, sometimes explicitly present and sometimes not, as a character acting freely and even impulsively. He makes one of his first and most noticeable appearances when one Cincinnatus moves a table to the window, but we then learn that this is impossible. At first, “Cincinnatus mov[es] the table and beg[ins] dragging it backwards as it shrieked with rage: how unwillingly, with what shuddering it move[s] across the stone floor!” (29). But directly after this attempt, “He trie[s]—for the hundredth time—to move the table, but, alas, the legs had been bolted down for ages” (30). This description of the two versions of Cincinnatus, one incapable of moving a bolted table and the “other” acting freely and doing the impossible, introduces the strange duality that follows him throughout the book. This other version comes out again when his wife Marthe visits him before his execution. “Cincinnatus [takes] one of [Marthe’s] tears and taste[s] it: it [is] neither salty nor sweet—merely a drop of luke-warm water. Cincinnatus did not do this” (198). Here, the other does what is not necessarily impossible but what is strange and slightly out of place, and the primary Cincinnatus does nothing.
The other’s interaction with the physical objects in the cell raises the question of how the objects are or are not the same as the primary Cincinnatus’ objects, and also how real this interplay is. His interaction with the physical world suggests that he is real, in some sense of reality, but it is difficult to know if he is equally as real as the primary Cincinnatus. When both versions of Cincinnatus make an appearance, one tends to act boldly, while the other is passive. With so little to distinguish one from the other, it is difficult to know which is which and which is “real.” The only description to really distinguish the nature of the double is the version of someone that is, “doing what we would like to do at that very moment, but cannot…” (25). This suggests that the other Cincinnatus is the doer, the one that chooses action while the primary Cincinnatus chooses apathy. Because the typical Cincinnatus as we know him is quiet and passive, it feels natural that he would choose inertia while his double would act boldly.
Once we have determined who the two Cincinnatuses are and how their actions differ, we can attempt to determine the other’s form, its function, and when it comes into play. How can one describe the strange and foreign alternate self? Cincinnatus tries to describe his own distinctiveness by stating again and again that he is alive. If this alternate self is part of what distinguishes him from the other characters in the novel, part of what makes him opaque, then perhaps it is this alive-ness of which he speaks. He uses this word time and time again to explain what sets him apart from the others. At one point, he claims, “‘I am not an ordinary—I am the one among you who is alive’” (52). This suggests that although the other characters have bodies and can interact with each other, they are missing something else to give them life. His lamentations reveal this as the difference between him and the others. He later explains, “‘For thirty years I have lived among specters that appear solid to the touch, concealing from them that I am alive and real—but now that I have been caught, there is no reason to be constrained with you’” (70). The fact that Cincinnatus’ liveliness is something he hid suggests that it is internal, something not easily visible to the public, unlike a body. Because the other characters appear to be alive but are merely bodies, the part of Cincinnatus that makes him live is something separate from the limited physical space that the primary Cincinnatus, like the additional characters, inhabits.
This life, separate from Cincinnatus’ physical being, appears in its true state several times throughout the novel. The descriptions of him taking off his body to reach his “secret medium,” his “radiant point” suggest that his truest living self exists once he sheds his physical being (32, 90). Page 32 includes a profound description of him shedding his limbs. He takes off his body parts, one by one, until he “simply revel[s] in the coolness; then, fully immersed in his secret medium, he beg[ins] freely and happily to…” and here he is interrupted by thunder. He seems to reach his freest, most relaxed, and most complete state in the absence of his physical being. The narrator reinforces the inadequacy of his body by describing “the precious quality of Cincinnatus; his fleshy incompleteness; the fact that the greater part of him [is] in quite a different place” (120). Unlike the other characters, he is much more than a body. He is only complete with the other form, the part that makes him live, the part that is fully present only in the absence of his body. This physical being restricts him, much like what the primary Cincinnatus “would like to do at that very moment, but cannot” while his intangible state, his transcendental being, the other Cincinnatus, can be truly free (25). It can defy physical limitations by moving desks that are bolted to the floor, tasting his wife’s tears, and even standing up and walking away after his own beheading.
This last point is perhaps the most important action of Cincinnatus’ other self. Some of the other actions, like crying or running into a wall, do not determine his fate, but whether or not Cincinnatus dies during his execution is, well, life or death (69, 193). The elusive ending leaves the reader unsure of what exactly happens to Cincinnatus. The other Cincinnatus, who makes his final appearance when the primary Cincinnatus’ head is on the chopping block, appears to cheat death by walking away. “One Cincinnatus was counting, but the other Cincinnatus had already stopped heeding the sound of 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 looking around” (222). It is a beautiful moment when Cincinnatus rejects the reality of the circumstance, questions his passivity, and walks away from his own beheading.
But how is this possible? How can the other Cincinnatus free himself here, once M’sieur Pierre has already swung the ax? Because the other Cincinnatus exists beyond the primary Cinicinnatus’ physicality, perhaps the beheading frees him of his physical form. Like when he “took off his head like a toupee” and reached temporary freedom and happiness (32), this beheading, the death of his body, has set the other Cincinnatus, his transcendental form, free. He predicts his change in form early in the novel when he asks, “Will it not be for me simply the shadow of an ax, and shall I not hear the downward vigorous grunt with the ear of a different world?” (92). It initially seems as if he could be talking about death being this different world, but in fact, he witnesses the execution from his other realm, from the “different place” that the “greater part of him” inhabits as the other Cincinnatus (120). When his physical form is no longer alive, like the bodies of the rest of this town’s inhabitants, his intangible form is set free into this “different world.”
Perhaps this freedom is what M’sieur Pierre speaks of when he explains that he is in prison because of his attempt to save Cincinnatus’ life. When he says to Cincinnatus, ‘“I was accused of attempting to help you escape from here,’” it is a potential reference to the execution freeing him from his body (110). He refuses to answer whether or not the accusation was true, but it does suggest that perhaps his role in the execution was to allow Cincinnatus to escape from his imprisonment in this strange world and his “fleshy incompleteness” (120). Though M’sieur Pierre may not lead Cincinnatus out of the physical prison, he does allow the other Cincinnatus to walk away out of his body a free man. This elusive ending does not definitively answer whether or not Cincinnatus lives, but it may be that both are true. The death of his primary physical form may mean the freedom and escape of the other, a limitless and immortal form. A note on the prison cell’s wall describes this anomaly well: “Measure me while I live—after it will be too late” (p. 26).
Invitation to a Beheading presents many fantastical concepts that defy categorization of true and false or right and wrong, rather, they rely on the reader’s imagination and willingness to interpret their own meaning (or lack thereof). I interpret the descriptions of Cincinnatus’ other as parallel to the internal part of him that lives, the part that separates him from the others’ bodily incompleteness. I suggest that it is the form he exposes when he sheds his physical form to reach freedom and happiness, and the form that walks free after the execution, and therefore, the other Cincinnatus lives at the end because of, not in spite of, the death of the physical primary Cincinnatus. Although the ending does not have a singular interpretation, the other Cincinnatus, whether alive or dead, walks freely away from this strange world towards “beings akin to him” in a beautifully hopeful ending (223).
Bibliography
Jacobi, Kathryn. "Invitation to a Beheading (Illustrations for Nabokov's Novel)." Kathryn Jacobi Studio. Web.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Invitation to a Beheading. Translated by Dmitri Nabokov, Vintage Random House, 1989.
