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Intoxicated, weak, slipping on the coarse turf, and catching
his balance, he set off downward, and immediately,
from behind a projection of the rampart, where a black
bramble bush rustled its warning, Emmie darted out to
him, her face and legs painted pink by the sunset, and,
firmly grasping him by the hand, dragged him after her...
no longer clutching his fingers quite so tightly,
already absent-mindedly releasing them, Emmie led him
into a dining room where they were all sitting and drinking
tea at a lighted oval table...
"What's the meaning of this escapade?" Rodrig Ivanovich
said... "To say nothing of the fact that this is against all regulations!"
"It's the end of her vacation, so she wants to play a prank,"
put in the director's wife.
Emmie sat down at the table, deliberately making her
chair scrape, fidgeting and wetting her lips and having dismissed
Cincinnatus forever, began spreading sugar (which
immediately assumed an orange hue) on her shaggy slice of
melon; thereupon she bit into it busily, holding it by the
ends, which reached her ears, and brushing her neighbor
with her elbow. Her neighbor continued to sip his tea,
holding the spoon protruding from it between second and
third fingers, but inconspicuously, reached under the table
with his left hand. "Eek!" cried Emmie as she gave a ticklish
start, without, however, taking her mouth from the melon.
Invitation to a Beheading pp. 165 - 7
In some ways this novel seems to me like a precursor to
Lolita. My recollection of the other book is a little vague,
but I recall Humbert as a waffling, ineffectual man a bit
like Cincinnatus; Nabokov painted him as being led around by
Mrs. Haze and Dolores. (Oh, and plus he was in jail too, and
writing!)
In this scene Cincinnatus is totally in the thrall of little Emmie,
as he is elsewhere vis-a-vis Marthe and Cecilia. The description
of her as "wetting her lips and having dismissed
Cincinnatus forever," I find devastating. And she is off to
flirt with Pierre, who will be Quilty later on?
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