Bend Sinister - a term from heraldry (the art of compiling and interpreting emblems), denoting a strip drawn to the left of the coat of arms. The title of the novel is connected with the attitude of V. Nabokov to the "ominously left-handed world", that is, to the spread of communist and socialist ideas. The events of the novel take place in a conditional country - Sinisterbad, where a dictatorial, police regime has just been established as a result of the revolution. His ideology is based on the theory of equilism (from English to equalize - to equalize). They speak here in a language that is, in the words of V. Nabokov, "a mongrel mix of Slavic and Germanic languages." For example, gospitaisha kruvka - a hospital bed; stoy, chort - stand that you; rada barbara - a beautiful woman in full bloom; domusta barbam kapusta - the more frightening a woman, the more true. Etc.
The beginning of November. Day tends towards evening. A huge tired man of about forty looks from the hospital window at an oblong puddle, in which the branches of trees, sky, and light are reflected. This is the celebrity of Sinisterbad, the philosopher Adam Krug. He just found out that his wife Olga died, unable to withstand a kidney operation. Now he needs to get to the South Bank - there is his house and there his eight-year-old son is waiting for him. At the bridge, equilibrium soldiers (“both, it’s strange to say, with faces pockmarked by smallpox” - a hint of Stalin) cannot read the Circle pass because of illiteracy. In the end, the pass they read aloud to them is the same as the Circle, a belated passer-by. However, the sentries on the other side do not let the Circle in — the signature of the first post is required. The same passerby signs the pass, and together with the Circle they cross the bridge. But there’s nobody to check the pass - the soldiers are gone,
At the beginning of the eleventh Circle finally gets home. His main concern now is that little David does not learn about the death of his mother. The circle of troubles about the funeral by telephone instructs his fellow philologist, translator Shakespeare, Amber (he once translated the Philosophy of Sin for the Circle for Americans). A phone call awakens Amber’s memories of Olga - it seems he was even slightly in love with her. At about the same time - around eleven - the Circle professors are being called into the University.
On the car that arrived after him, the emblem of the new government is a spread spider on a red flag. The president of the University begins his speech in Gogolian style: “I invited you, gentlemen, in order to inform you of some unpleasant circumstances ...” In order for the University to work, its teachers must sign a letter proving their loyalty to Ruler Paduk. The Circle should hand over the letter, since Paduk is his classmate. The philosopher, however, calmly reports that he and Toad (so, to the horror of those present, calls Paduca) are connected only by one memory: in the "happy school years" the mischievous Circle, the first student, humiliated the venerable Paducah, sitting on his face.
Teachers - some with more, some with less desire - sign the letter. A circle is limited to putting a missing comma in its instance. He does not succumb to any persuasion. Before the reader passes the dream of Adam Circle, associated with the events of his school life. (In this episode, the figure of a demiurge, a kind of director of what is happening, appears - this is Nabokov's “Second Self.”) We learn that the father of the Circle “was a biologist with a solid reputation,” and Paduk's father is a “small inventor, vegetarian, theosophist.” The circle played football, but Paduk did not. Apparently, this “full, pale, pimply teenager”, with always sticky hands and thick fingers, belonged to those unfortunate creatures who are willingly made scapegoats.(So, once he brought to school a padograph — his father’s device, which can reproduce any handwriting. While the Circle was sitting on a Paducah, another boy tapped a letter on his ladograph to the wife of a history teacher — on behalf of Paduc and requesting a date.)
But Paduk waited for his finest hour. When the development of "socio-political consciousness" among schoolchildren came into fashion, he established the Middle Man Party. Companions were also found (each, characteristically, suffered from some kind of defect). The program of the Party was based on the theory of equilism, invented in old age by the revolutionary democrat Scotoma. According to this theory, anyone could become smart, beautiful, talented with the help of the redistribution of abilities given to man by nature. (True, Scotoma did not write anything about the method of redistribution itself.) The circle, on the other hand, was not interested in such things at all.
... The circle is tormented by the final essay and suddenly (as it happens in a dream) sees his wife in the opening of the school board: Olga takes off the jewelry, and with it her head, chest, arm ... In a fit of nausea, the Circle wakes up.
He is at the cottage in the Lakes, with his friend Maximov. The next morning, after a meeting at Krug University, in order to avoid unnecessary conversations, he took his son out of the city. Retelling his dream to Maximov, Krug recalls more detail: once, the Toad Paduk sneakily kissed his hand ... It was disgusting. A kind man, a former businessman Maximov persuades Krug to flee the country before it is too late. But the philosopher hesitates.
Returning after a walk with David, Krug learns that the Maximov family was taken away in a police car. More and more often, suspicious personalities arise near the Circle — a couple kissing on the doorstep of the house, an opulently dressed peasant, organ grinders who cannot play the barrel organ — it’s clear that the philosopher has been monitored. Returning to the city, Circle goes to visit a cold Amber. Both of them avoid mentioning Olga and therefore speak of Shakespeare - in particular, how the regime adapted Hamlet for itself (the main character was the “Nordic knight” fortinbras, and the idea of tragedy boiled down to “dominating society over the individual”), Conversation the doorbell interrupts - these are agents Gustav and the girl von Bachofen (a rather, I must say, a vulgar couple!) came for Amber.
We see the Circle walking heavily through the streets of Padukograd. The November sun is shining. Everything is quiet. And only someone’s blood stained cuff on the pavement, but a galoshe without a pair, and the trace of a bullet in the wall, remind of what is happening here. On the same day, the mathematician Hedron, a friend and colleague of the Circle are arrested.
The circle is lonely, driven and exhausted by longing for Olga. Suddenly, even where the young Marietta comes from with a suitcase - she takes the place of David's nanny, who disappeared after the arrest of Hedron.
On the birthday of the Circle, the Head of State expresses a desire to "give him a personal conversation." In a huge black limousine, the philosopher is taken to the once luxurious, but now somehow ridiculously equipped palace. The circle hangs on with Paduk in his usual manner, and the invisible spies advise him (either by telephone or by note) to recognize the abyss between him and the Ruler. Paduk invites the Circle to take the presidency of the University (many benefits are promised) and declare “with all possible scholarship and enthusiasm” its support for the regime.
Rejecting this offer, the Circle expects that someday it will simply be left alone. He lives as if in a fog through which only stamps of official propaganda break through (“the newspaper is a collective organizer”; “as the leader said”; verses in honor of Paduk printed by a ladder, like Mayakovsky’s). On January 17, a letter arrives from "Antiquarian Peter Quist", hinting at the possibility of escape. Having met with the Circle, the fake antiquary finally finds out (the regime is strong, but stupid!) That the most expensive thing for the philosopher is his son.The unsuspecting Circle leaves the antiquary's shop with the hope of escaping from the equilibrium hell.
On the night of the twenty-first, his ability to think and write returns (however, not for long). The circle is even ready to respond to the calls of Marietta, who has long seduced him. But as soon as their intercourse should occur, a deafening roar is heard - they came for Adam Circle. In prison, they demand from him the same thing - to publicly support Paducah. In fear for his son, the Circle promises to do anything: sign, swear - let his boy be given to him. They bring some frightened boy, but this is the son of the doctor Martin Krug. Those responsible for the mistake are quickly shot.
It turns out that David (by mistake) was sent to the sanatorium for abnormal children. There, in front of the Circle, fresh shots of a spa shot are scrolled: here a nurse escorts David to the marble stairs, here a boy descends into the garden ... "What a joy for the kid," the inscription announced, "to walk alone in the middle of the night." The tape breaks off, and the Circle understands what happened: in this institution, as in the whole country, the spirit of collectivism is encouraged, so a flock of adult patients (with an "exaggerated need to torment, torment, etc.") is allowed to be sent to a child like a game .. The circles lead to the murdered son - on the boy’s head there is a golden-purple turban, his face is skillfully painted and powdered. “Your child will receive the most magnificent funeral,” comfort the father. The circle is even invited (in compensation) to personally kill the perpetrators. In response, the philosopher roughly sends them to ...
Prison cell. The circle plunges into darkness and tenderness, where they are again together - Olga, David and him. In the middle of the night, something shakes him out of sleep. But before all the torment and heaviness crush the poor Circle, the very demiurge director will intervene in the course of events: moved by a sense of compassion, he will make his hero mad. (This is still better.) In the morning, people familiar to him are brought to the Circle in the central courtyard of the prison - they are sentenced to death, and only the Circle’s consent to cooperate with the regime can save them.
Nobody understands that the pride of Sinisterbad - the philosopher Adam Krug went crazy and the questions of life and death lost their usual meaning for him.
It seems to the circle that he is a former hooligan schoolboy. He rushes to the Toad Paduk to properly teach him a lesson. The first bullet tears off the Circle’s ear. The second - forever ceases its earthly existence. “And yet, the very last run in his life was full of happiness, and he received evidence that death was just a matter of style.”
And the gleam of that special, “elongated puddle”, which on the day of Olga’s death Krug “managed to perceive through the layers of his own life,” becomes discernible.
