14
To herself Mrs. Luzhin admitted that the three-week visit of the lady from Russia had not passed without leaving a trace. The visitor’s opinions were false and stupid—but how prove it? She was horrified that in recent years she had taken so little interest in the science of exile, passively accepting the glossy, varnished and gold-lettered views of her parents and paying no attention to the speeches she heard at émigré political meetings, which it had once been the thing to attend. It occurred to her that Luzhin too, perhaps, would have a taste for political matters—would perhaps revel in them, the way millions of other intelligent people do. And a new occupation for Luzhin was essential. He had become strange, the familiar sullenness had reappeared, and there often was in his eyes a kind of slippery expression, as if he were hiding something from her. She was worried that he had still not found a completely engrossing hobby and she reproached herself for the narrowness of her mental vision and her inability to find the sphere, the idea, the object which would provide work and food for Luzhin’s inactive talents. She knew she had to hurry, and that every unoccupied minute in Luzhin’s life was a loophole for phantoms. Before departing for picturesque lands it was necessary to find Luzhin an interesting game, and only afterwards to resort to the balsam of travel, that decisive factor used by romantic millionaires to cure their spleen.
She began with newspapers. She took out subscriptions to Znamya (The Banner), Rossianin (The Russian), Zarubezhny Golos (The Voice of Exile), Ob’yedinyenie (Union) and Klich (The Clarion), bought the latest numbers of émigré magazines and—for comparison—several Soviet magazines and newspapers. It was decided that every day after dinner they would read to one another aloud. Noticing that some newspapers printed a chess section, she wondered at first whether to cut out and destroy these bits, but she feared by this to insult Luzhin. Once or twice, as examples of interesting play, old games of Luzhin’s would turn up. This was disagreeable and dangerous. She was unable to hide the issues with chess sections in them because Luzhin collected the newspapers with the aim of later binding them in the form of large books. Whenever he opened a newspaper which proved to contain a smudgy chess diagram she watched the expression on his face, but he felt her glance and merely skipped over it. And she did not know with what sinful impatience he awaited those Thursdays or Mondays when the chess section appeared, and did not know with what curiosity he looked through the printed games in her absence. In the case of chess problems he would glance sideways at the diagram and, with this glance grasping the disposition of the pieces, would memorize the problem instantly and then solve it in his mind while his wife read the editorial aloud to him. “… The whole activity comes down to a fundamental transformation and augmentation, which are designed to insure …” read his wife in an even voice. (An interesting construction, thought Luzhin. Black’s Queen is completely free.) “… draws a clear distinction between their vital interests, moreover it would not be superfluous to note that the Achilles heel of this punitive hand …” (Black has an obvious defense against the threat on h7, thought Luzhin, and smiled mechanically when his wife, interrupting her reading for a moment, said suddenly in a low voice: “I don’t understand what he means.”) “If in this respect,” she continued, “nothing is respected …” (Oh, splendid! exclaimed Luzhin mentally, finding the key to the problem—a bewitchingly elegant sacrifice.) “… and disaster is not far away,” his wife concluded the article, and having finished, sighed. The thing was that the more closely she read the newspapers the more bored she grew, and a fog of words and metaphors, suppositions and arguments was used to obscure the clear truth, which she always felt but was never able to express. But when she turned to the newspapers of the other world, Soviet newspapers, her boredom then knew no bounds. From them came the chill of a sepulchral countinghouse, the boredom of flyblown offices, and they reminded her somehow of the lifeless features of a certain little official in one of the establishments she had had to visit in the days when she and Luzhin were being sent from department to department for the sake of some paltry document. The little official was seedy and touchy, and was eating a diabetic roll. He probably received a miserable salary, was married and had a child whose whole body was covered with a rash. The document they did not have and had to get he endowed with cosmic significance, the whole world hung on that piece of paper and would crumble hopelessly to dust if a person were deprived of it. And that was not all: it turned out the Luzhins could not obtain it until monstrous time spans, millennia of despair and emptiness, had elapsed, and the only means allowed one of easing this Weltschmerz was the writing of petitions. The official snapped at poor Luzhin for smoking in his office and Luzhin started and stuffed the butt into his pocket. Through the window could be seen a house under construction, all in scaffolding, and a slanting rain; in the corner of the room hung a black little jacket which the official changed during working hours for a lustrine one, and his desk gave a general impression of violet ink and that same transcendental hopelessness. They went away with empty hands, and she felt as if she had had to do battle with a gray and blind eternity, which had in fact conquered her, disdainfully brushing aside her timid earthly bribe—three cigars. In another establishment they received the piece of paper instantly. Later Mrs. Luzhin thought with horror that the little official who had sent them away was probably imagining them wandering like inconsolable specters through a vacuum, and perhaps was waiting for their submissive, sobbing return. It was unclear to her why precisely this image floated before her as soon as she picked up a Moscow newspaper. The same sense of boredom and pity, perhaps, but this was not enough for her, her mind was not satisfied—and suddenly she realized that she was also looking for a formula, the official embodiment of feeling, and this was not the point at all. Her mind was unable to grasp the complicated struggle among the hazy opinions expressed by various émigré newspapers; this diversity of opinion particularly stunned her, used as she was to suppose apathetically that everyone who did not think like her parents thought like that amusing lame fellow who had spoken of sociology to a crowd of giggly girls. There turned out to be the most subtle shades of opinion and the most viperous hostility—and if all this was too complex for the mind, then the heart began to grasp one thing quite distinctly: both here and in Russia people tortured, or desired to torture, other people, but there the torture and desire to torture were a hundred times greater than here and therefore here was better.
When Luzhin’s turn came to read aloud she would choose for him a humorous article, or else a brief, heartfelt story. He read with a funny stammer, pronouncing some of the words oddly and at times going past a period, or else not reaching it, and raising or lowering the tone of his voice for no logical reason. It was not difficult for her to realize that the newspapers did not interest him; whenever she engaged him in a conversation concerning an article they had just read, he hastily agreed with all her conclusions, and when, in order to check on him, she said deliberately that all the émigré papers were lying, he also agreed.
Newspapers were one thing, people another; it would be nice to listen to these people. She imagined how people of various tendencies—“a bunch of intellectuals” as her mother put it—would gather in their apartment, and how Luzhin, listening to these live disputes and conversations on new themes, would if not blossom out then at least find a temporary diversion. Of all her mother’s acquaintances the most enlightened and even “Leftist,” as her mother affirmed with a certain coquetry, was considered to be Oleg Sergeyevich Smirnovski—but when Mrs. Luzhin asked him to bring to her place some interesting, freethinking people, who read not only Znamya but also Ob’yedinyenie and Zarubezhny Golos, Smirnovski replied that he, she should understand, did not revolve in such circles and then began to censure such revolving and quickly explained that he revolved in other circles in which revolving was essential, and Mrs. Luzhin’s head began to spin as it used to in the amusement park on the revolving disk. After this failure she began to extract from various tiny chambers of her memory people whom she had chanced to meet and who might be of aid to her now. She recalled a Russian girl who used to sit next to her at the Berlin school of applied arts, the daughter of a political worker of the democratic group; she recalled Alfyorov who had been everywhere and liked to relate how an old poet had once died in his arms; she recalled an unappreciated relative working in the office of a liberal Russian newspaper, the name of which was gutturally rouladed every evening by the fat paperwoman on the corner. She chose one or two other people. It also occurred to her that many intellectuals probably remembered Luzhin the writer or knew of Luzhin the chess player and would visit her home with pleasure.
And what did Luzhin care about all this? The only thing that really interested him was the complex, cunning game in which he somehow had become enmeshed. Helplessly and sullenly he sought for signs of the chess repetition, still wondering toward what it was tending. But to be always on his guard, to strain his attention constantly, was also impossible: something would temporarily weaken inside him, he would take carefree pleasure in a game printed in the newspaper—and presently would note with despair that he had been unwary again and that a delicate move had just been made in his life, mercilessly continuing the fatal combination. Then he would decide to redouble his watchfulness and keep track of every second of his life, for traps could be everywhere. And he was oppressed most of all by the impossibility of inventing a rational defense, for his opponent’s aim was still hidden.
Too stout and flabby for his years, he walked this way and that among people thought up by his wife, tried to find a quiet spot and the whole time looked and listened for a hint as to the next move, for a continuation of the game that had not been started by him but was being directed with awful force against him. It happened that such a hint would occur, something would move forward, but it did not make the general meaning of the combination any clearer. And a quiet spot was difficult to find—people addressed questions to him that he had to repeat several times to himself before understanding their simple meaning and finding a simple answer. In all three untelescoped rooms it was very bright—not one was spared by the lamps—and people were sitting in the dining room, and on uncomfortable chairs in the drawing room, and on the divan in the study, and one man wearing pale flannel pants strove repeatedly to settle himself on the desk, moving aside in the interests of comfort the box of paints and a pile of unsealed newspapers. An elderly actor with a face manipulated by many roles, a mellow, mellow-voiced person (who surely gave his best performances in carpet slippers, in parts demanding grunts, groans, grimaceful hangovers and quirky, fruity expressions), was sitting on the divan next to the corpulent, black-eyed wife of the journalist Bars, an ex-actress, and reminiscing with her about the time they had once played together in a Volga town in the melodrama A Dream of Love. “Do you remember that mix-up with the top hat and the neat way I got out of it?” said the actor mellowly. “Endless ovations,” said the black-eyed lady, “they gave me such ovations as I shall never forget.…” In this way they interrupted one another, each with his or her own recollections, and the man in the pale pants for the third time asked a musing Luzhin for “one small cigarette.” He was a beginning poet and read his poems with fervor, with a singsong lilt, slightly jerking his head and looking into space. Normally he held his head high, as a result of which his large, mobile Adam’s apple was very noticeable. He never got that cigarette, since Luzhin moved absentmindedly into the drawing room, and the poet, looking with reverence at his fat nape, thought what a wonderful chess player he was and looked forward to the time when he would be able to talk with a rested, recovered Luzhin about chess, of which he was a great enthusiast, and then, catching sight of Luzhin’s wife through the gap of the door, he debated with himself for a while whether it was worth while trying to dangle after her. Mrs. Luzhin was listening smilingly to what was being said by the tall, pockmarked journalist Bars, and thinking how difficult it would be to seat these guests around one tea table and would it not be better in future simply to serve them wherever they sat? Bars spoke very fast and always as if he were obliged to express a tortuous idea with all its riders and slippery appendages in the shortest possible period of time, to prop up and readjust all this, and if his listener happened to be attentive, then little by little he began to realize that this maze of rapid words was gradually revealing an astonishing harmony, and that the speech itself with its occasional incorrect stresses and journalese was suddenly transformed, as if acquiring its grace and nobility from the idea expressed. Mrs. Luzhin, catching sight of her husband, thrust a plate into his hand with a beautifully peeled orange on it and went past him into the study. “And note,” said a plain-looking man who had listened to the whole of the journalist’s idea and appreciated it, “note that Tyutchev’s night is cool and the stars in it are round and moist and glossy, and not simply bright dots.” He did not say any more, since in general he spoke little, not so much out of modesty, it seemed, as out of a fear of spilling something precious that was not his but had been entrusted to him. Mrs. Luzhin, incidentally, liked him very much, and precisely because of his plainness, the neutrality of his features, as if he were himself only the outside of a vessel filled with something so sacred and rare that it would be a sacrilege to paint the clay. His name was Petrov, not a single thing about him was remarkable, he had written nothing, and he lived like a beggar, but never talked about it to anyone. His sole function in life was to carry, reverently and with concentration, that which had been entrusted to him, something which it was necessary at all costs to preserve in all its detail and in all its purity, and for that reason he even walked with small careful steps, trying not to bump into anyone, and only very seldom, only when he discerned a kindred solicitude in the person he was talking to did he reveal for a moment—from the whole of that enormous something that he carried mysteriously within him—some tender, priceless little trifle, a line from Pushkin or the peasant name of a wild flower. “I remember our host’s father,” said the journalist when Luzhin’s back retreated into the dining room. “He doesn’t look like him but there’s something analogous in the set of the shoulders. He was a good soul, a nice fellow, but as a writer … What? Do you really find that those oleographic tales for youngsters …” “Please, please, to the dining room,” said Mrs. Luzhin, returning from the study with three guests she had found there. “Tea is served. Come, I beg you.” Those already at table were sitting at one end, while at the other a solitary Luzhin, his head bent gloomily, sat chewing a segment of orange and stirring the tea in his glass. Alfyorov was there with his wife, then there was a swarthy, brightly made-up girl who drew marvelous firebirds, and a bald young man who jokingly called himself a worker for the press but secretly yearned to be a political ringleader, and two women, the wives of lawyers. And also sitting at table was delightful Vasiliy Vasilievich, shy, stately, pure-hearted, with a fair beard and wearing an old-man’s prunella shoes. Under the Tsar he had been exiled to Siberia and then abroad, whence he had returned in 1917 and succeeded in catching a brief glimpse of the revolution before being exiled again, this time by the Bolshevists. He talked earnestly about his work in the underground, about Kautsky and Geneva, and was unable to look at Mrs. Luzhin without emotion, for in her he found a resemblance to the clear-eyed, ideal maidens who had worked with him for the good of the people.
As usually happened at these gatherings, when all the guests had been rounded up and placed at table together silence ensued. The silence was such that the maid’s breathing was clearly audible as she served the tea. Mrs. Luzhin several times caught herself with the impossible thought that it would be a good idea to ask the maid why she breathed so loudly, and could she not do it more quietly. She was not very efficient in general, this pudgy wench—telephone calls were particularly disastrous. As she listened to the breathing, Mrs. Luzhin recalled briefly how the maid had laughingly informed her a few days beforehand: “A Mr. Fa … Felt … Felty. Here, I wrote down the number.” Mrs. Luzhin called the number, but a sharp voice replied that this was a movie company’s office and that no Mr. Felty was there. Some kind of hopeless muddle. She was about to start criticizing German maids in order to break her neighbor’s silence when she noticed that a conversation had already flared up, that they were talking about a new novel. Bars was asserting that it was elaborately and subtly written and that every word betrayed a sleepless night; a woman’s voice said, “Oh no, it reads so easily”; Petrov leaned over to Mrs. Luzhin and whispered a quotation from Zhukovsky: “That which took pains to write is read with ease”; and the poet, interrupting someone in mid-word and rolling his “r”s vehemently, shouted that Zhukovsky was a brainless parrot; at which Vasiliy Vasilievich, who had not read the novel, shook his head reproachfully. Only when they were already in the front hall and everyone was taking leave of the others in a kind of dress rehearsal, for they all took leave of one another again in the street, though they all had to go in the same direction—only then did the actor with the well-manipulated face suddenly clap his hand to his forehead: “I almost forgot, darling,” he said to Mrs. Luzhin, squeezing her hand at each word. “The other day a man from the movie kingdom asked me for your telephone number—” Whereupon he made a surprised face and released Mrs. Luzhin’s hand. “What, you don’t know I’m in the movies now? Oh yes, yes. Big parts with close-ups.” At this point he was shouldered aside by the poet and thus Mrs. Luzhin did not find out what person the actor had meant.
The guests departed. Luzhin was sitting sideways at the table on which, frozen in various poses like the characters in the concluding scene of Gogol’s The Inspector General, were the remains of the refreshments, empty and unfinished glasses. One of his hands lay spread heavily on the tablecloth. From beneath half-lowered, once more puffy lids he looked at the black match tip, writhing in pain after having just gone out in his fingers. His large face with loose folds around the nose and mouth was slightly shiny, and on his cheeks the constantly shaved, constantly sprouting bristle showed golden in the lamplight. His dark gray suit, shaggy to the touch, enfolded him tighter than before, although it had been planned with plenty of room. Thus Luzhin sat, not stirring, and the glass dishes with bonbons in them gleamed; and a teaspoon lay still on the tablecloth, far from any glass or plate, and for some reason a small cream puff that did not look especially enticing but was really very, very good had remained untouched. What’s the matter? thought Mrs. Luzhin, looking at her husband. Goodness, what’s the matter? And she had an aching feeling of impotence and hopelessness, as if she had taken on a job that was too difficult for her. Everything was useless—there was no point in trying, in thinking up amusements, in inviting interesting guests. She tried to imagine how she would take this Luzhin, blind and sullen once more, around the Riviera, and all she could imagine was Luzhin sitting in his room and staring at the floor. With a nasty sense of looking through the keyhole of destiny she bent forward to see her future—ten, twenty, thirty years—and it was all the same, with no change, the same, sullen, bowed Luzhin, and silence, and hopelessness. Wicked, unworthy thoughts! Her soul immediately straightened up again and around her were familiar images and cares: it was time to go to bed, better not buy that shortcake next time, how nice Petrov was, tomorrow morning they would have to see about their passports, the trip to the cemetery was being postponed again. Nothing could have been simpler, it seemed, than to take a taxi and drive out into the suburbs to the tiny Russian cemetery in its patch of wasteland. But it always happened that they were unable to go, either Luzhin’s teeth ached or there was this passport business, or else something else—petty, imperceptible obstacles. And how many different worries there would be now … Luzhin definitely had to be taken to the dentist. “Is it aching again?” she asked, putting her hand on Luzhin’s. “Yes, yes,” he said, and distorting his face, sucked one cheek in with a popping sound. He had invented the toothache the other day in order to explain his low spirits and silence. “Tomorrow I’ll ring up the dentist,” she said decisively. “It’s not necessary,” muttered Luzhin. “Please, it’s not necessary.” His lips trembled. He felt as if he were about to burst into tears, everything had become so terrifying now. “What’s not necessary?” she asked tenderly, and expressed the question mark with a little “hm” sound pronounced with closed lips. He shook his head and, just in case, sucked his tooth again. “Not necessary to go to the dentist? No, Luzhin is certainly going to be taken to the dentist. One should not neglect this.” Luzhin rose from his chair and holding his cheek went into the bedroom. “I’ll give him a pill,” she said, “that’s what I’ll do.”
The pill did not work. Luzhin stayed awake for long after his wife fell asleep. To tell the truth, the hours of night, the hours of insomnia in the secure closed bedroom, were the only ones when he could think peacefully without the fear of missing a new move in the monstrous combination. At night, particularly if he lay without moving and with his eyes closed, nothing could happen. Carefully and as coolly as he could, Luzhin would go over all the moves already made against him, but as soon as he began to guess at what forms the coming repetition of the scheme of his past would take, he grew confused and frightened by the inevitable and unthinkable catastrophe bearing down on him with merciless precision. On this night more than ever he felt his helplessness in the face of this slow, elegant attack and he tried not to sleep at all, to prolong as much as possible this night, this quiet darkness, to arrest time at midnight. His wife slept absolutely soundlessly; most likely—she was not there at all. Only the ticking of the little clock on the bedside table proved that time continued to exist. Luzhin listened to these tiny heartbeats and became lost in thought again, and then he started, noticing that the ticking of the clock had stopped. It seemed to him that the night had stopped forever, there was not a single sound now that would indicate its passing, time was dead, everything was all right, a velvet hush. Sleep imperceptibly took advantage of this happiness and relief but now, in sleep, there was no rest at all, for sleep consisted of sixty-four squares, a gigantic board in the middle of which, trembling and stark-naked, Luzhin stood, the size of a pawn, and peered at the dim positions of huge pieces, megacephalous, with crowns or manes.
He woke up when his wife, already dressed, bent over him and kissed him on the glabella. “Good morning, dear Luzhin,” she said. “It’s ten o’clock already. What shall we do today—the dentist or our visas?” Luzhin looked at her with bright, distracted eyes and immediately closed his lids again. “And who forgot to wind up the clock for the night?” laughed his wife, fondly worrying the plump white flesh of his neck. “That way you could sleep your whole life away.” She bent her head to one side, looking at her husband’s profile surrounded by the bulges in the pillow, and noting that he had fallen asleep again, she smiled and left the room. In the study she stood before the window and looked at the greenish-blue sky, wintry and cloudless, thinking it would probably be cold today and Luzhin should wear his cardigan. The telephone rang on the desk, that was evidently her mother wanting to know if they would be dining at her place. “Hello?” said Mrs. Luzhin, perching on the edge of a chair. “Hello, hello,” shouted an unfamiliar voice into the telephone excitedly and crossly. “Yes, yes, I’m here,” said Mrs. Luzhin and moved to an armchair. “Who’s there?” asked a displeased voice in German with a Russian accent. “And who’s speaking?” inquired Mrs. Luzhin. “Is Mr. Luzhin at home?” asked the voice in Russian. “Kto govorit, who’s speaking?” repeated Mrs. Luzhin with a smile. Silence. The voice seemed to be debating with itself the question of whether to come out into the open or not. “I want to talk to Mr. Luzhin,” he began again, reverting to German. “A very urgent and important matter.” “One moment,” said Mrs. Luzhin and walked up and down the room a time or two. No, it was not worth waking Luzhin. She returned to the telephone. “He’s still sleeping,” she said. “But if you want to leave a message …” “Oh, this is very annoying,” said the voice, adopting Russian finally. “This is the second time I’ve called. I left my telephone number last time. The matter is extremely important to him and permits of no delay.” “I am his wife,” said Mrs. Luzhin. “If you need anything …” “Very glad to make your acquaintance,” interrupted the voice briskly. “My name is Valentinov. Your husband of course has told you about me. So this is what: tell him as soon as he wakes up to get straight into a taxi and come over to me. Kinokonzern ‘Veritas,’ Rabenstrasse 82. It’s a very urgent matter and very important to him,” continued the voice, switching to German again, either because of the importance of the matter or simply because the German address had drawn him into the corresponding language. Mrs. Luzhin pretended to be writing down the address and then said: “Perhaps you will still tell me first what the matter is about.” The voice grew unpleasantly agitated: “I’m an old friend of your husband. Every second is precious. I’ll expect him today at exactly twelve o’clock. Please tell him. Every second …” “All right,” said Mrs. Luzhin. “I’ll tell him, only I don’t know—perhaps today will be inconvenient for him.” “Just whisper in his ear: ‘Valentinov’s expecting you,’ ” said the voice with a laugh, sang out a German “good-bye” and vanished behind the click of its trapdoor. For several moments Mrs. Luzhin sat there thinking and then called herself a fool. She should have explained first of all that Luzhin no longer played chess. Valentinov … Only now did she remember the visiting card she had found in the opera hat. Valentinov, of course, was acquainted with Luzhin through chess. Luzhin had no other acquaintances. He had never mentioned a single old friend. This man’s tone was completely impossible. She should have demanded that he explain his business. She was a fool. What should be done now? Ask Luzhin? No. Who was Valentinov? An old friend. Graalski said he had been asked … Aha, very simple. She went into the bedroom, assured herself that Luzhin was still sleeping—he usually slept amazingly soundly in the mornings—and went back to the telephone. Luckily the actor turned out to be at home and immediately launched into a long account of all the frivolous and mean actions committed at one time or another by the lady he had been talking to at the party. Mrs. Luzhin heard him out impatiently and then asked who Valentinov was. The actor said “Oh yes!” and continued: “You see how forgetful I am, life is impossible without a prompter”; and finally, after giving a detailed account of his relations with Valentinov, he mentioned in passing that, according to him, he, Valentinov, had been Luzhin’s chess father, so to speak, and had made a great player out of him. Then the actor returned to the actress of the night before and after mentioning one last meanness of hers began to take voluble leave of Mrs. Luzhin, his last words being: “I kiss the palm of your little hand.”
“So that’s how it is,” said Mrs. Luzhin, hanging up the receiver. “All right.” At this point she recollected that she had mentioned Valentinov’s name once or twice in the conversation and that her husband might have chanced to hear it if he had come out of the bedroom into the hall. Her heart missed a beat and she ran to check if he was still sleeping. He had wakened and was smoking in bed. “We won’t go anywhere this morning,” she said. “Anyway it’s too late. And we’ll dine at Mamma’s. Stay in bed a while longer, it’s good for you, you’re fat.” Closing the bedroom door firmly and then the door of the study, she hastily looked up the “Veritas” number in the telephone book, listened to see if Luzhin was near and then rang up. It turned out to be not so easy to get hold of Valentinov. Three different people came to the telephone in turn and replied they would get him immediately, and then the operator cut her off and she had to start all over again. At the same time she was trying to speak as low as possible and it was necessary to repeat things, which was very unpleasant. Finally a yellowy, worn little voice informed her dejectedly that Valentinov was not there but would definitely be back by twelve thirty. She asked that he be informed that Luzhin was unable to come since he was ill, would continue to be ill for a long time and begged earnestly not to be bothered any more. Replacing the receiver on its hook she listened again, and hearing only the beating of her own heart she then sighed and said “ouf!” with boundless relief. Valentinov had been dealt with. Thank goodness she had been alone at the telephone. Now it was over. And soon they would depart. She still had to call her mother and the dentist. But Valentinov had been dealt with. What a cloying name. And for a minute she became thoughtful, accomplishing during that one minute, as sometimes happens, a long leisurely journey: she set off into Luzhin’s past, dragging Valentinov with her, visualizing him, from his voice, in horn-rimmed spectacles and long-legged, and as she journeyed through the mist she looked for a spot where she could dump the slippery, repulsively wriggling Valentinov, but she could not find one because she knew almost nothing about Luzhin’s youth. Fighting her way still farther back, into the depths, she passed through the semispectral spa with its semispectral hotel, where the fourteen-year-old prodigy had lived, and found herself in Luzhin’s childhood, where the air was somehow brighter—but she was unable to fit Valentinov in here either. Then she returned with her progressively more detestable burden, and here and there in the mist of Luzhin’s youth were islands: his going abroad to play chess, his buying picture postcards in Palermo, his holding a visiting card with a mysterious name on it.… She was forced to go back home with the puffing, triumphant Valentinov and return him to the firm of “Veritas,” like a registered package that has been dispatched to an undiscovered address. So let him remain there, unknown but undoubtedly harmful, with his terrible sobriquet: chess father.
On the way to her parents, walking arm in arm with Luzhin along the sunny, frost-touched street, she said that within a week at the outside they should be on their way, and before this they should definitely pay a visit to the forlorn grave. Then she outlined their schedule for the week—passports, dentist, shopping, a farewell party, and—on Friday—a trip to the cemetery. It was cold in her mother’s apartment, not like it had been a month ago, but nonetheless cold, and her mother kept wrapping herself in a remarkable shawl with pictures of peonies amid verdure on it, twitching her shoulders with a shiver as she did so. Her father arrived during dinner and asked for some vodka and rubbed his hands with a dry rustling sound. And for the first time Mrs. Luzhin noticed how sad and empty it was in these echoing rooms, and she noticed that her father’s jollity was just as forced as her mother’s smile, and that both of them were already old and very lonely and did not like poor Luzhin and were trying not to refer to the Luzhins’ impending departure. She recalled all the horrible things that had been said about her fiancé, the sinister warnings, and her mother’s cry: “He’ll cut you up into pieces, he’ll burn you in the stove …” And the net result had been something very peaceful and melancholy, and all smiled with dead smiles—the falsely swaggering peasant women in the pictures, the oval mirrors, the Berlin samovar, the four people at table.
A lull, thought Luzhin that day. A lull, but with hidden preparations. It wants to take me unawares. Attention, attention. Concentrate and keep watch.
All his thoughts lately had been of a chess nature but he was still holding on—he had forbidden himself to think again of the interrupted game with Turati and did not open the cherished numbers of the newspaper—and even so he was able to think only in chess images and his mind worked as if he were sitting at a chessboard. Sometimes in his dreams he swore to the doctor with the agate eyes that he was not playing chess—he had merely set out the pieces once on a pocket board and glanced at two or three games printed in the newspapers—simply for lack of something to do. And even these lapses had not been his fault, but represented a series of moves in the general combination that was skillfully repeating an enigmatic theme. It was difficult, extremely difficult, to foresee the next repetition in advance, but just a little more and everything would become clear and perhaps a defense could be found.…
But the next move was prepared very slowly. The lull continued for two or three days; Luzhin was photographed for his passport, and the photographer took him by the chin, turned his face slightly to one side, asked him to open his mouth wide and drilled his tooth with a tense buzzing. The buzzing ceased, the dentist looked for something on a glass shelf, found it, rubber-stamped Luzhin’s passport and wrote with lightning-quick movements of the pen. “There,” he said, handing over a document on which two rows of teeth were drawn, and two teeth bore inked-in little crosses. There was nothing suspicious in all this and the cunning lull continued until Thursday. And on Thursday, Luzhin understood everything.
Already the day before he had thought of an interesting device, a device with which he could, perhaps, foil the designs of his mysterious opponent. The device consisted in voluntarily committing some absurd unexpected act that would be outside the systematic order of life, thus confusing the sequence of moves planned by his opponent. It was an experimental defense, a defense, so to say, at random—but Luzhin, crazed with terror before the inevitability of the next move, was able to find nothing better. So on Thursday afternoon, while accompanying his wife and mother-in-law round the stores, he suddenly stopped and exclaimed: “The dentist. I forgot the dentist.” “Nonsense, Luzhin,” said his wife. “Why, yesterday he said that everything was done.” “Uncomfortable,” said Luzhin and raised a finger. “If the filling feels uncomfortable … It was said that if it feels uncomfortable I should come punctually at four. It feels uncomfortable. It is ten minutes to four.” “You’ve got something wrong,” smiled his wife, “but of course you must go if it hurts. And then go home. I’ll come around six.” “Have supper with us,” said her mother with an entreaty in her voice. “No, we have guests this evening,” said Mrs. Luzhin, “guests whom you don’t like.” Luzhin waved his cane in sign of farewell and climbed into a taxi, bending his back roundly. “A small maneuver,” he chuckled, and feeling hot, unbuttoned his overcoat. After the very first turn he stopped the taxi, paid, and set off home at a leisurely pace. And here it suddenly seemed to him that he had done all this once before and he was so frightened that he turned into the first available store, deciding to outsmart his opponent with a new surprise. The store turned out to be a hairdresser’s, and a ladies’ one at that. Luzhin, looking around him, came to a halt, and a smiling woman asked him what he wanted. “To buy …” said Luzhin, continuing to look around. At this point he caught sight of a wax bust and pointed to it with his cane (an unexpected move, a magnificent move). “That’s not for sale,” said the woman. “Twenty marks,” said Luzhin and took out his pocketbook. “You want to buy that dummy?” asked the woman unbelievingly, and somebody else came up. “Yes,” said Luzhin and began to examine the waxen face. “Careful,” he whispered to himself, “I may be tumbling into a trap!” The wax lady’s look, her pink nostrils—this also had happened before. “A joke,” said Luzhin and hastily left the hairdresser’s. He felt disgustingly uncomfortable and quickened his step, although there was nowhere to hurry. “Home, home,” he muttered, “there I’ll combine everything properly.” As he approached the house he noticed a large, glossy-black limousine that had stopped by the entrance. A gentleman in a bowler was asking the janitor something. The janitor, seeing Luzhin, suddenly pointed and cried: “There he is!” The gentleman turned around.
A bit swarthier, which brought out the whites of his eyes, as smartly dressed as ever, wearing an overcoat with a black fur collar and a large, white silk scarf, Valentinov strode toward Luzhin with an enchanting smile, illuminating Luzhin with this searchlight, and in the light that played on Luzhin he saw Luzhin’s pale, fat face and blinking eyelids, and at the next instant this pale face lost all expression and the hand that Valentinov pressed in both of his was completely limp. “My dear boy,” said radiant Valentinov, “I’m happy to see you. They told me you were in bed, ill, dear boy. But that was some kind of slipup …” and in stressing the “pup” Valentinov pursed his wet, red lips and tenderly narrowed his eyes. “However, we’ll postpone the compliments till later,” he said, interrupting himself, and put on his bowler with a thump. “Let’s go. It’s a matter of exceptional importance and delay would be … fatal,” he concluded, throwing open the door of the car; after which he put his arm around Luzhin’s back and seemed to lift him from the ground and carry him off and plant him down, falling down next to him onto the low, soft seat. On the jump seat facing them a sharp-nosed yellow-faced little man sat sideways, with his overcoat collar turned up. As soon as Valentinov had settled and crossed his legs, he resumed his conversation with this little man, a conversation that had been interrupted at a comma and now gathered speed in time with the accelerating automobile. Caustically and exhaustively he continued to bawl him out, paying no attention to Luzhin, who was sitting like a statue that had been carefully leaned against something. He had completely frozen up and heard remote, muffled Valentinov’s rumbling as if through a heavy curtain. For the fellow with the sharp nose it was not a rumbling, but a torrent of extremely biting and insulting words; force, however, was on Valentinov’s side and the one being insulted merely sighed, and looked miserable, and picked at a grease spot on his skimpy black overcoat; and now and then, at some especially trenchant word, he would raise his eyebrows and look at Valentinov, but the latter’s flashing gaze was too much for him and he immediately shut his eyes tight and gently shook his head. The bawling out continued to the very end of the journey and when Valentinov softly nudged Luzhin out of the car and got out himself slamming the door behind him, the crushed little man continued to sit inside and the automobile immediately carried him on, and although there was lots of room now he remained dejectedly hunched up on the little jump seat. Luzhin meanwhile fixed his motionless and expressionless gaze on an eggshell-white plaque with a black inscription, VERITAS, but Valentinov immediately swept him farther and lowered him into an armchair of the club variety that was even more tenacious and quaggy than the car seat. At this moment someone called Valentinov in an agitated voice, and after pushing an open box of cigars into Luzhin’s limited field of vision he excused himself and disappeared. His voice remained vibrating in the room and for Luzhin, who was slowly emerging from his stupefaction, it gradually and surreptitiously began to be transformed into a bewitching image. To the sound of this voice, to the music of the chessboard’s evil lure, Luzhin recalled, with the exquisite, moist melancholy peculiar to recollections of love, a thousand games that he had played in the past. He did not know which of them to choose so as to drink, sobbing, his fill of it: everything enticed and caressed his fancy, and he flew from one game to another, instantly running over this or that heart-rending combination. There were combinations, pure and harmonious, where thought ascended marble stairs to victory; there were tender stirrings in one corner of the board, and a passionate explosion, and the fanfare of the Queen going to its sacrificial doom.… Everything was wonderful, all the shades of love, all the convolutions and mysterious paths it had chosen. And this love was fatal.
The key was found. The aim of the attack was plain. By an implacable repetition of moves it was leading once more to that same passion which would destroy the dream of life. Devastation, horror, madness.
“Ah, don’t!” said Luzhin loudly and tried to get up. But he was weak and stout, and the clinging armchair would not release him. And, anyway, what could he attempt now? His defense had proved erroneous. This error had been foreseen by his opponent, and the implacable move, prepared long ago, had now been made. Luzhin groaned and cleared his throat, looking about him distractedly. In front of him was a round table bearing albums, magazines, separate sheets of paper, and photographs of frightened women and ferociously squinting men. And on one there was a white-faced man with lifeless features and big American glasses, hanging by his hands from the ledge of a skyscraper—just about to fall off into the abyss. And again came the sound of that unbearably familiar voice: in order to lose no time, Valentinov had begun talking to Luzhin while still on the other side of the door, and when the door opened he continued the sentence he had begun: “… shoot a new film. I wrote the script. Imagine, dear boy, a young girl, beautiful and passionate, in the compartment of an express train. At one of the stations a young man gets in. From a good family. Night descends on the train. She falls asleep and in her sleep spreads her limbs. A glorious young creature. The young man—you know the type, bursting with sap but absolutely chaste—begins literally to lose his head. In a kind of trance he hurls himself upon her.” (And Valentinov, jumping up, pretended to be breathing heavily and hurling himself.) “He feels her perfume, her lace underwear, her glorious young body … She wakes up, throws him off, calls out” (Valentinov pressed his fist to his mouth and protruded his eyes), “the conductor and some passengers run in. He is tried, he is condemned to penal servitude. His aged mother comes to the young girl to beg her to save her son. The drama of the girl. The point is that from the very first moment—there, in the express—she has fallen in love with him, is seething with passion, and he, because of her—you see, that’s where the conflict is—because of her he is being condemned to hard labor.” Valentinov took a deep breath and continued more calmly: “Then comes his escape. His adventures. He changes his name and becomes a famous chess player, and it’s precisely here, my dear boy, that I need your assistance. I have had a brilliant idea. I want to film a kind of real tournament, where real chess players would play with my hero. Turati has already agreed, so has Moser. Now we need Grandmaster Luzhin.…”
“I presume,” continued Valentinov after a slight pause, during which he looked at Luzhin’s completely impassive face, “I presume that he will agree. He is greatly indebted to me. He will receive a certain sum for his brief appearance. He will recall at the same time that when his father left him to the mercy of fate, I was generous in shelling out. I thought then that it didn’t matter—that we were friends and would settle later. I continue to think so.”
At this moment the door opened with a rush and a coatless, curly-haired gentleman shouted in German, with an anxious plea in his voice: “Oh, please, Dr. Valentinov, just one minute!” “Excuse me, dear boy,” said Valentinov and went to the door, but before reaching it he turned sharply around, rummaged in his billfold and threw a slip of paper on the table before Luzhin. “Recently composed it,” he said. “You can solve it while you are waiting. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
He disappeared. Luzhin cautiously raised his eyelids. Mechanically he took the slip. A cutting from a chess magazine, the diagram of a problem. Mate in three moves. Composed by Dr. Valentinov. The problem was cold and cunning, and knowing Valentinov, Luzhin instantly found the key. In this subtle problem he saw clearly all the perfidy of its author. From the dark words just spoken by Valentinov in such abundance, he understood one thing: there was no movie, the movie was just a pretext … a trap, a trap … he would be inveigled into playing chess and then the next move was clear. But this move would not be made.
Luzhin made an abrupt effort and baring his teeth painfully, got out of the armchair. He was overwhelmed by an urge to move. Playing with his cane and snapping the fingers of his free hand, he went out into the corridor and began to walk at random, ending up in a courtyard and thence making his way to the street. A streetcar with a familiar number stopped in front of him. He boarded it and sat down, but immediately got up again, and moving his shoulders exaggeratedly, clutching at the leather straps, moved to another window seat. The car was empty. He gave the conductor a mark and vigorously shook his head, refusing the change. It was impossible to sit still. He jumped up again, almost falling as the streetcar swerved, and sat closer to the door. But here too he could not keep his seat—and when suddenly the car filled up with a horde of schoolboys, a dozen old ladies and fifty fat men, Luzhin continued to move about, treading on people’s feet, and finally pushing his way onto the platform. Catching sight of his house, he left the car on the move; the asphalt swept by beneath his left heel, then turned and struck him in the back, and his cane, after getting tangled in his legs, suddenly leapt out like a released spring, flew through the air and landed beside him. Two women came running toward him and helped him to rise. He began to knock the dust from his coat with his palm, donned his hat, and without looking back walked toward the house. The elevator proved to be out of order but Luzhin made no complaint. His thirst for movement was not yet slaked. He began to climb the stairs, and since he lived a very long way up his ascent continued for some time; he seemed to be climbing a skyscraper. Finally he reached the last landing, took a deep breath, crunched the key in the lock and stepped into the entrance hall. His wife came from the study to meet him. She was very red and her eyes glistened. “Luzhin,” she said, “where have you been?” He took off his overcoat, hung it up, transferred it to another hook, and wanted to fiddle about some more; but his wife came up close to him, and moving in an arc around her he went into the study, she following. “I want you to tell me where you’ve been. Why are your hands in such a state? Luzhin!” He strode around the study, cleared his throat, and walked through the entrance hall into the bedroom, where he commenced to wash his hands carefully in a large green and white bowl entwined with porcelain ivy. “Luzhin,” cried his wife distractedly, “I know you weren’t at the dentist’s. I just called him. Well, say something.” Wiping his hands on a towel he walked around the bedroom, looking woodenly in front of him just as before, and returned to the study. She grasped him by the shoulder but instead of stopping, he went up to the window, drew the curtain aside, saw the many lights gliding by in the blue abyss of the evening, made a munching motion with his lips, and moved off again. And now began a strange promenade—Luzhin walking back and forth through the three adjoining rooms, as if with a definite objective, and his wife now walking beside him, now sitting down somewhere and looking at him distractedly, and occasionally Luzhin would go into the corridor, look into the rooms whose windows faced onto the yard, and again reappear in the study. For whole minutes it seemed to her that perhaps this was one of Luzhin’s ponderous little jokes, but his face bore an expression she had never seen before, an expression … solemn, perhaps? … it was difficult to define in words, but as she gazed at his face she felt a rush of inexplicable terror. And clearing his throat, and catching his breath with difficulty, he still continued to walk about the rooms with his even gait. “For God’s sake sit down, Luzhin,” she said softly, not taking her eyes off him. “Come, let’s talk about something. Luzhin! I bought you a toilet case. Oh, sit down, please! You’ll die if you walk so much! Tomorrow we’ll go to the cemetery. We still have a lot to do tomorrow. A toilet case made of crocodile leather. Luzhin, please!”
But he did not halt and only slowed his step from time to time by the windows, raising his hand, thinking a moment and then going on. The table in the dining room was laid for eight people. She remembered that it was just time for the guests to arrive—it was too late to call them off—and here … this horror. “Luzhin,” she cried, “people will be here any minute. I don’t know what to do.… Say something to me. Perhaps you’ve had an accident, perhaps you met an unpleasant acquaintance? Tell me. I beg you, I can’t beg any more.…”
And suddenly Luzhin stopped. It was as if the whole world had stopped. It happened in the drawing room, by the phonograph.
“Full stop,” she said softly and burst into tears. Luzhin began to take things out of his pockets—first a fountain pen, then a crumpled handkerchief, then another handkerchief, neatly folded, which she had given him that morning; after this he took out a cigarette case with a troika on the lid (a present from his mother-in-law), then an empty, red cigarette pack and two separate cigarettes, slightly damaged; his wallet and a gold watch (a present from his father-in-law) were removed with particular care. Besides all this there turned up a large peach stone. All these objects were placed on the phonograph cabinet and he checked if there were anything he had forgotten.
“That’s all, I think,” he said, and buttoned his jacket over his stomach. His wife lifted her tearstained face and stared in amazement at the little collection of things laid out by Luzhin.
He went up to his wife and made a slight bow.
She transferred her gaze to his face, vaguely hoping she would see that familiar, crooked half-smile—and so she did: Luzhin was smiling.
“The only way out,” he said. “I have to drop out of the game.”
“Game? Are we going to play?” she asked tenderly, and thought simultaneously that she had to powder her face, the guests would be here any minute.
Luzhin held out his hand. She dropped her handkerchief into her lap and hastily gave him her fingers.
“It was nice,” said Luzhin and kissed one hand and then the other, the way she had taught him.
“What is it, Luzhin? You seem to be saying goodbye.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, feigning absentmindedness. Then he turned and went into the corridor. At that moment a bell sounded in the entrance hall—the ingenuous ring of a punctual guest. She caught her husband in the corridor and grasped his sleeve. Luzhin turned and not knowing what to say, looked at her legs. The maid ran out from the far end and since the corridor was fairly narrow, a minor, hasty collision took place: Luzhin stepped back slightly and then stepped forward, his wife also moved back and forth, unconsciously smoothing her hair, and the maid, muttering something and bending her head, tried to find a loophole where she could slip through. When she had managed it and vanished behind the portiere that divided the corridor from the entrance hall, Luzhin bowed as before and quickly opened the door by which he was standing. His wife seized the handle of the door, which he was already shutting behind him; Luzhin pushed and she grasped it tighter, laughing convulsively and endeavoring to thrust her knee into the still fairly wide opening—but at this point Luzhin leaned with all his weight and the door closed; the bolt clicked and the key was turned twice in the lock. Meanwhile there were voices in the entrance hall, someone was puffing and someone was greeting someone else.
The first thing Luzhin did after locking the door was to turn on the light. Gleaming whitely, an enameled bathtub came into view by the left wall. On the right wall hung a pencil drawing: a cube casting a shadow. At the far end, by the window, stood a small chest. The lower part of the window was of frosted glass, sparkly-blue, opaque. In the upper part, a black rectangle of night was sheened mirror-like. Luzhin tugged at the handle of the lower frame, but something had got stuck or had caught, it did not want to open. He thought for a moment, then took hold of the back of a chair standing by the tub and looked from the sturdy white chair to the solid frost of the window. Making up his mind finally, he lifted the chair by the legs and struck, using its edge as a battering ram. Something cracked, he swung again, and suddenly a black, star-shaped hole appeared in the frosted glass. There was a moment of expectant silence. Then, far below, something tinkled tenderly and disintegrated. Trying to widen the hole, he struck again, and a wedge of glass smashed at his feet. There were voices behind the door. Somebody knocked. Somebody called him loudly by his name and patronymic. Then there was silence and his wife’s voice said with absolute clarity: “Dear Luzhin, open, please.” Restraining his heavy breathing, Luzhin lowered the chair to the floor and tried to thrust himself through the window. Large wedges and corners still stuck out of the frame. Something stung his neck and he quickly drew his head in again—no, he could not get through. A fist slammed against the door. Two men’s voices were quarreling and his wife’s whisper wriggled through the uproar. Luzhin decided not to smash any more glass, it made too much noise. He raised his eyes. The upper window. But how to reach it? Trying not to make a noise or break anything, he began to take things off the chest; a mirror, a bottle of some sort, a glass. He did everything slowly and thoroughly, it was useless for the rumbling behind the door to hurry him like that. Removing the doily too he attempted to climb up on the chest; it reached to his waist, and he was unable to make it at first. He felt hot and he peeled off his jacket, and here he noticed that his hands were bloodied and that there were red spots on the front of his shirt. Finally he found himself on the chest, which creaked under his weight. He quickly reached up to the upper frame, now feeling that the thumping and the voices were urging him on and that he could not help but hurry. Raising a hand he jerked at the frame and it swung open. Black sky. Thence, out of this cold darkness, came the voice of his wife, saying softly: “Luzhin, Luzhin.” He remembered that farther to the left was the bedroom window: it was from there this whisper had emerged. Meanwhile the voices and the crashing behind the door had grown in volume, there must have been around twenty people out there—Valentinov, Turati, the old gentleman with the bunch of flowers … They were sniffing and grunting, and more of them came, and all together they were beating with something against the shuddering door. The rectangular night, however, was still too high. Bending one knee, Luzhin hauled the chair onto the chest. The chair was unstable, it was difficult to balance, but still Luzhin climbed up. Now he could easily lean his elbows on the lower edge of the black night. He was breathing so loudly that he deafened himself, and now the cries behind the door were far, far away, but on the other hand the voice from the bedroom window was clearer, was bursting out with piercing force. After many efforts he found himself in a strange and mortifying position: one leg hung outside, and he did not know where the other one was, while his body would in no wise be squeezed through. His shirt had torn at the shoulder, his face was wet. Clutching with one hand at something overhead, he got through the window sideways. Now both legs were hanging outside and he had only to let go of what he was holding on to—and he was saved. Before letting go he looked down. Some kind of hasty preparations were under way there: the window reflections gathered together and leveled themselves out, the whole chasm was seen to divide into dark and pale squares, and at the instant when Luzhin unclenched his hand, at the instant when icy air gushed into his mouth, he saw exactly what kind of eternity was obligingly and inexorably spread out before him.
The door was burst in. “Aleksandr Ivanovich, Aleksandr Ivanovich,” roared several voices.
But there was no Aleksandr Ivanovich.