The Luzhin Defense (18 page)

But how gentle and sweet Luzhin was these days; how cozily he sat at the tea table in his new suit, adorned by a smoke-colored tie, and politely, if not always in the right places, agreed with his interlocutor. His future mother-in-law told her acquaintances that Luzhin had decided to abandon chess because it took up too much of his time, but that he did not like to talk about it—and now Oleg Sergeyevich Smirnovski no longer asked for a game, but disclosed to him with a gleam in his eye the secret machinations of the Masons and even promised to give him a remarkable pamphlet to read.

In the establishments that they visited to inform officials of their intention to enter into matrimony, Luzhin conducted himself like a grown-up, carried all the documents himself, reverently and considerately, and lovingly filled in the forms, distinctly tracing out each letter. His handwriting was small, round and extraordinarily neat, and not a little time was expended in unscrewing his new fountain pen, which he somewhat affectedly shook to one side before beginning to write, and then, when he had thoroughly enjoyed the glide of the gold nib, thrust back into his breast pocket with its gleaming clip outside. And it was with pleasure that he accompanied his fiancée around the stores and waited for the interesting surprise of the apartment, which she had decided not to show him until after the wedding.

During the two weeks that their names were hung up on view, various wide-awake firms began to send them offers, sometimes to the future groom and sometimes to the future bride: vehicles for weddings and funerals (with a picture of a carriage harnessed to a pair of galloping horses), dress
suits for hire, top hats, furniture, wine, halls to rent and pharmaceutical appurtenances. Luzhin conscientiously examined the illustrated catalogues and stored them in his room, at a loss to know why his fiancée was so scornful of all these interesting offers. There were also offers of another kind. There was what Luzhin called “a small
à parte”
with his future father-in-law, a pleasant conversation in the course of which the latter offered to get him a job in a commercial enterprise—later on, of course, not immediately, let them live in peace for a few months. “Life, my friend, is so arranged,” it was said in this conversation, “that every second costs a man, at the very minimum estimate,
of a pfennig, and that would be a beggar’s life; but you have to support a wife who is used to a certain amount of luxury.” “Yes, yes,” said Luzhin with a beaming smile, trying to disentangle in his mind the complex computation that his interlocutor had just made with such delicate deftness. “For this you need a little more money,” the latter continued, and Luzhin held his breath in expectation of a new trick. “A second will cost you … dearer. I repeat: I am prepared at first—the first year, let’s say—to give you generous assistance, but with time … Look, come see me sometime at the office, I’ll show you some interesting things.”

Thus in the most pleasant manner possible people and things around him tried to adorn the emptiness of Luzhin’s life. He allowed himself to be lulled, spoiled and titillated, and with his soul rolled up in a ball he accepted the caressive life that enveloped him from all sides. The future appeared to him vaguely as a long, silent embrace in a blissful penumbra, through which the diverse playthings of this
world of ours would pass by, entering a ray of light and then disappearing again, laughing and swaying as they went. But at unavoidable moments of solitude during his engagement, late at night or early in the morning, there would be a sensation of strange emptiness, as if the colorful jigsaw puzzle done on the tablecloth had proved to contain curiously shaped blank spots. And once he dreamt he saw Turati sitting with his back to him. Turati was deep in thought, leaning on one arm, but from behind his broad back it was impossible to see what it was he was bending over and pondering. Luzhin did not want to see what it was, was afraid to see, but nonetheless he cautiously began to look over the black shoulder. And then he saw that a bowl of soup stood before Turati and that he was not leaning on his arm but was merely tucking a napkin into his collar. And on the November day which this dream preceded Luzhin was married.

Oleg Sergeyevich Smirnovski and a certain Baltic baron were witnesses when Luzhin and his bride were led into a large room and seated at a long, cloth-covered table. An official changed his jacket for a worn frock coat and read the marriage sentence. At this everyone stood up. After which with a professional smile and a humid handshake the official paid his respects to the newlyweds and everything was over. A fat janitor by the door bowed to them in expectation of a tip, and Luzhin good-naturedly proffered his hand, which the other received upon his palm, not realizing at first that this was a human hand and not a handout.

That same day there was also a church wedding. The
last time Luzhin had been in church was many years ago, at his mother’s funeral. Peering further into the depths of the past he remembered nocturnal returns on Catkin Night, holding a candle whose flame darted about in his hands, maddened at being carried out of the warm church into the unknown darkness, and finally died of a heart attack at the corner of the street where a gust of wind bore down from the Neva. There had been confession at the chapel on Pochtamtskaya Street, and footfalls had a special way of resounding in its twilight emptiness and the chairs moved with the sound of throats being cleared, and the waiting people sat one behind the other, and from time to time a whisper would burst out from the mysteriously curtained corner. And he remembered the nights at Easter: the deacon would read in a sobbing bass voice, and still sobbing would close the enormous gospel with a sweeping gesture.… And he remembered how airy and penetrating, so that it evoked a sucking sensation in the epigaster, the Greek word “pascha” (paschal cake) sounded on an empty stomach when it was pronounced by the emaciated priest; and he remembered how difficult it always was to catch the moment when the smoothly swaying censer was aimed at you, precisely at you and not at your neighbor, and to bow so that the bow came exactly on the thurible’s swing. There was a smell of incense and the hot fall of a drop of wax on the knuckles of one’s hand, and the dark, honey-hued luster of the icon awaiting one’s kiss. Languorous recollections, duskiness, fitful gleams, saporous church air, and pins and needles in the legs. And to all this now was added a veiled bride, and a crown that trembled in the air over his very head and looked as if it might fall at any
minute. He squinted up at it cautiously and it seemed to him once or twice that the invisible hand of someone holding the crown passed it to another, also invisible, hand. “Yes-yes,” he replied hastily to the priest’s question and wanted to add how nice everything was, and strange, and heart-melting, but he only cleared his throat agitatedly and rays of light wheeled blurrily in his eyes.

And afterwards, when everyone was sitting at the big table, he had the same feeling you get when you come home after matins to the festive table with its gilt-horned ram made of butter, a ham, and a virgin-smooth pyramid of paschal cottage cheese that you want to start on right away, bypassing the ham and eggs. It was hot and noisy, and lots of people were sitting at table who must have been in church as well—never mind, never mind, let them stay a while for the time being.… Mrs. Luzhin looked at her husband, at his curl, at his beautifully tailored dress suit and at the crooked half-smile with which he greeted the courses. Her mother, liberally powdered and wearing a very low dress that showed, as in the old days, the tight groove between her raised, eighteenth-century breasts, was bearing up heroically and even used the familiar second person singular (
“ty”
) to her son-in-law, so that at first Luzhin did not realize to whom she was speaking. He drank two glasses of champagne in all and a pleasant drowsiness began to come over him in waves. They went out onto the street. The black, windy night struck him softly on the breast, which was unprotected by his underdeveloped dress waistcoat, and his wife requested him to button up his overcoat. Her father, who had been smiling the whole evening and silently raising his glass in some special
way—until it was level with his eyes—a mannerism he had adopted from a certain diplomat who used to say
“sköl”
very elegantly—now raised a bunch of door keys, glinting in the lamplight, as a mark of farewell, still smiling with his eyes alone. Her mother, with an ermine wrap on her shoulders, tried not to look at Luzhin’s back as he climbed into the taxicab. The guests, all a little drunk, took leave of their hosts and one another and laughing discreetly surrounded the car, which finally moved off, and then someone yelled “hurrah” and a late passerby, turning to his woman companion, remarked approvingly:
“zemlyachki shumyat
—fellow countrymen celebrating.”

Luzhin immediately fell asleep in the cab; reflected gleams of whitish light unfolded fanwise, bringing his face to life, and the soft shadow made by his nose circled slowly over his cheek and then his lip, and again it was dark until another light went by, stroking Luzhin’s hand in passing, which appeared to slide into a dark pocket as soon as darkness returned. And then came a series of bright lights and each one flushed out a shadowy butterfly from behind his white tie, and then his wife carefully adjusted his muffler, since the cold of the November night penetrated even into the closed automobile. He woke up and screwed up his eyes, not realizing immediately where he was, but at that moment the taxi came to a halt and his wife said softly: “Luzhin, we’re home.”

In the elevator he stood smiling and blinking, somewhat dazed but not in the least drunk, and looked at the row of buttons, one of which his wife pressed. “Quite a way up,” he said and looked at the elevator ceiling, as if expecting to
see the summit of their journey. The elevator stopped. “Hic,” said Luzhin and dissolved into quiet laughter.

They were met in the entrance hall by the new servant—a plumpish wench who immediately held out her red, disproportionately large hand to them. “Oh, why did you wait for us?” said his wife. Speaking rapidly the maid congratulated them, and reverently took Luzhin’s opera hat. Luzhin, with a subtle smile, showed her how it banged flat. “Amazing,” exclaimed the maid. “You can go, go to bed,” repeated his wife anxiously. “We’ll lock up.”

The lights went on in turn in the study, drawing room and dining room. “Extends like a telescope,” mumbled Luzhin sleepily. He did not look at anything properly—he could not keep his eyes open enough. He was already on his way into the dining room when he noticed he was carrying in his arms a large, plush dog with pink soles. He put it on the table and a fluffy imp hanging from the lamp immediately came down like a spider. The rooms went dark like the sections of a telescope being folded together and Luzhin found himself in the bright corridor. “Go to bed,” again shouted his wife to someone who at the far end rustled and bid them good night. “That’s the servant’s room,” said his wife. “And the bathroom’s here, to the left.” “Where’s the little place?” whispered Luzhin. “In the bathroom, everything’s in the bathroom,” she replied and Luzhin cautiously opened the door, and when he had convinced himself of something he speedily locked himself in. His wife passed through the hallway into the bedroom and sat down in an armchair, looking at the entrancingly flocculent beds. “Oh, I’m tired.” She smiled and for a long time watched a big, sluggish fly that circled around the
Mauretanian lamp, buzzing hopelessly, and then disappeared. “This way, this way,” she cried, hearing Luzhin’s uncertain, shuffling step in the hallway. “Bedroom,” he said approvingly, and placing his hands behind his back he looked about him for a while. She opened the wardrobe where she had put away their things the day before, hesitated, and turned to her husband. “I’ll take a bath,” she said. “All your things are in here.”

“Wait a minute,” said Luzhin and suddenly yawned with his mouth wide open. “Wait a minute,” he repeated in a palatal voice, gulping down between syllables the elastic pieces of yawn. But picking up her pajamas and bedroom slippers she quickly left the room.

The water poured from the tap in a thick blue stream and began to fill the white bathtub, steaming tenderly and changing the tone of its murmur as the level rose. Looking at its gushing gleam she reflected with some anxiety that the limits of her feminine competency were now in sight and that there was one sphere in which it was not her place to lead. As she immersed herself in the bath she watched the tiny water bubbles gathering on her skin and on the sinking, porous sponge. Settling down up to the neck, she saw herself through the already slightly soapy water, her body thin and almost transparent, and when a knee came just barely out of the water, this round, glistening, pink island was somehow unexpected in its unmistakable corporeality. “After all it’s none of my affair,” she said, freeing one sparkling arm from the water and pushing the hair back from her forehead. She turned on the hot water again, reveling in the resilient waves of warmth as they passed over her stomach, and finally, causing a small storm in the
bathtub, she stepped out and unhurriedly began to dry herself. “Turkish beauty,” she said, standing only in her silk pajama pants before the slightly sweating mirror. “Pretty well built on the whole,” she said after a while. Continuing to look at herself in the mirror, she began slowly to draw on her pajama top. “A bit full in the hips,” she said. The water in the bath that had been flowing out with a gurgle suddenly squeaked and all was quiet: the bathtub was now empty, and only the plug-hole retained a tiny, soapy whirlpool. Suddenly she realized she was dawdling on purpose, standing in her pajamas before the mirror—and a shiver went through her breast, as when you are leafing through last year’s magazine, knowing that in a second, in just a second, the door will open and the dentist will appear on the threshold.