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

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354 -
in a dreamlike fashion his prison seems to be con-
verted into a boat, a laboratory, or the setting of
a family gathering, now find a definite explanation.
Cincinnatus never really is in prison, but he feels
imprisoned wherever he goes, whatever he does, and
he sees his enemies and-his jailers in everybody.
No matter whether he goes for a walk in the town
(IB, 15-17), or, together with other "travellers",
climbs a tower to enjoy a view (IB, 37),. no matter,
too, whether he attends some social gathering
"at the suburban house of the deputy city manager"
(IB, 166ff. 1, he always feels surrounded by them,
and even his home is part of the prison that is the
world: "Come along home", says the director, and
takes him back to his cell (IB, 39):
I am here through an error - not in
this prison specifically - but in
this whole terrible, striped world;
a world which seems not a bad example
of amateur craftsmanship, but is in
reality calamity, horror, madness,
error... (IB, 82).
Nobody, of course, but Cincinnatus is aware of this
state of affairs: "'What do you mean 'escape'?
Where to? ', asked M'sieur Pierre in amazement"
(IB, 104), when Cincinnatus suggests that they
escape together from the prison.
However, Cincinnatus' view of the world and of
life as a clumsy theatrical production, 'as a dream
and as a prison carries within itself a possibility
of escape and salvation. For Cincinnatus being the
only one to see through the nature of things, he is