The Luzhin Defense

by Vladimir Nabokov

  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 emigre 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, sa
t 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."