Judgement Day Pale Fire Journal Judgement Day Pale Fire Journal | Page 53

My Attempt at Defending Charles
Kinbote (Exiled King of Zembla) in
the Face of Prosecution for the Mur-
der of John Shade
Members of the jury, I do confess
that the man whom I stand to pro-
tect from the injustice that is being
thrust upon him, is indeed not mere-
ly a devoted Shadean. He is some-
one to be revered with much higher
respect than a simple university pro-
fessor. The man seated before you
is, in fact, a king, exiled from his na-
tive land of Zembla. However, de-
spite the esteem he deserves, the
prosecution will claim he is the
stalking murderer of the late John
Shade, for whom he possessed only
the greatest admiration.
As you may or may not be aware,
my client was put in possession of
Shade’s final poem shortly proceed-
ing Shade’s death (owing to Shade’s great trust in my client and the depth
of their friendship). In my client’s published version of the completed man-
uscript, he includes just before the Table of Contents, a poem which I will
quote directly: “’Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town
shooting cats.’ And then, in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of
his own favorite cat, and said, “But Hodge shan’t be shot: no, no, Hodge
shall not be shot.”
Now, assuming that Shade was in fact shot (more on this later), my client
chooses this poem as a way to express the desire he held (previous to
Shade’s death) that Shade would not be shot, owing to his comparison of
Shade to that of a favorite cat, as the late poet was as dear to my client.
The prosecution will turn this evidence