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

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same way in which Cincinnatus finds himself back
in his own prison cell after a walk out of the
prison and through the town (IB, 17-18).
Theatrical terms are used in the account of
Krug's interview with Paduk, which make it appear
comic, absurd and unreal. An aide-de-camp, "very
muchlike one of those stage valets... " fetches Krug
from his home (BS, 124); at Paduk's palace, he is met
by "two masked men" (BS, 125); an armchair appears
"from a trap near the desk" (BS, 127); Paduk is
made up ("beautified" [BS, 128]) before the interview
starts; stage-directions interrupt the actual
interview, and Paduk "intermittently assumes Re-
naissance rhetoric ('Nay, do not speak. ...
go'):,,
30
Prithee,
If one does for a moment take the novels for what
they appear, namely satires on totalitarian states,
the condemnation of Krug and Cincinnatus appears
quite logical. For in states of wholly identical
souls who all think the same thoughts approved of
by the government, their thoughts are not only
alien to all the others, but they are also dangerous.
A totalitarian government cannot possibly tolerate
anyone who sees through its absurdity, who can not
only recognize but also expose the principles on
which it is based, and prove to it its own irreality
and instability. Such knowledge and such thoughts are
"forbidden, impossible", and "criminal" (IB, 86);
they are not "within legitimate limits" (IB, 33).
People who have such thoughts and insist on them and