''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

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daughter, and in walks Rodion (IB, 69). Rodion and
the lawyer take Cincinnatus to a terrace on the
tower of the prison from where he can enjoy a
view of the town, and there Rodion is all of a
sudden transformed into the prison director, and,
mysteriously,
it is the director's frock coat that
is soiled with chalk whereas a second ago it was
the lawyer's (IB, 36ff. ). They all seem like dream
visions that can evaporate at will and materialize
again, either in their own shapes or in somebody
else's. One cannot rely on anyone to remain the same
person for any length of time. One is never quite
sure whom one is dealing with at any given moment.
At various points in the novel, there is a sudden
change, or rather blending of scenes, dreamlike, too,
in which, moreover, people undergo even more dramatic
transformations. Right at the beginning, when
Cincinnatus is left alone in his cell, Rodion watches
him through the peephole. All of a sudden, the peephole
becomes a porthole, through which Rodion, "with
a skipper's stern attention", no longer sees a
prison cell but "the horizon, now rising, now falling",
and Cincinnatus, on the heaving ship, becomes seasick
(IB, 10). M'sieur Pierre's special trick with
the chair starts a regular circus performance with
an act on the tightrope (in which the spider is
involved), with music, and applause from the audience,
with the circus director appearing in person, and
the clown performing the usual antics of the circus