Laughter in the Dark

by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

  “You nut!” she answered curtly.

  But once the suspicion had been aroused, it refused to give him any rest. He sat still all day and listened gloomily.

  Rex was very much amused at this, and although Margot had besought him to be more prudent, he paid no heed to her warning. Once even, when he was only two feet away from Albinus, he very skilfully began to whistle like an oriole. Margot had to explain that the bird had perched on the window sill and was singing there.

  “Drive it away,” said Albinus sternly.

  “Ssh, ssh,” said Margot, laying her hand on Rex’s fat lips.

  “Do you know,” said Albinus a few days later, “I should like to have a chat with Emilia. I like her puddings.”

  “Absolutely out of the question,” answered Margot. “She is quite deaf and mortally afraid of you.”

  Albinus thought hard for some minutes.

  “Impossible,” he said slowly.

  “What’s impossible, Albert?”

  “Oh, nothing,” he muttered, “nothing.”

  “Do you know, Margot,” he said shortly afterward, “I’m badly in need of a shave. Send for the hairdresser from the village.”

  “Unnecessary,” said Margot. “The beard suits you very well.”

  Albinus fancied that someone—not Margot, but someone by the side of Margot—tittered softly.

  37

  THE Berliner Zeitung, with a brief account of the accident, was shown to Paul by a man in his office, and he at once drove home, fearing that Elisabeth had read it, too. She had not, though curiously enough a copy of that particular paper (which they did not usually read) was in the house. He wired the same day to the Grasse police station and eventually got into touch with the hospital doctor, who replied, saying that Albinus was out of danger, but quite blind. Very gently he broke the news to Elisabeth.

  Then, owing to the simple fact that he and his brother-in-law both had the same bank, he discovered Albinus’ address in Switzerland. The manager, an old business friend of his, showed him the checks that were pouring in from there with a kind of hasty regularity, and Paul was amazed at the amount of cash Albinus was drawing out. The signature was all right, though very shaky about the curves and pathetically down-sloping, but the figures were written in another hand—a bold masculine hand with a dash and a flourish, and there was somehow a faint whiff of forgery about the whole thing. He wondered whether it was the fact of the blind man signing what he was told, and not what he saw, that created this queer impression. Queer, too, were the large sums he demanded—as if he, or somebody else, were in a frantic hurry to get out as much money as he could. And then came a check that was uncovered.

  “There’s some foul business going on,” thought Paul, “I feel it in my bones. But what is it exactly?”

  He pictured to himself Albinus, alone with his dangerous mistress, completely at her mercy, in the black house of his blindness …

  Some days passed. Paul was dreadfully uneasy. It was not the mere fact of the man signing checks he could not see (anyway, the money was his to squander consciously or unconsciously—Elisabeth did not need it and there was no longer any Irma to be thought about), but the fact of his being so utterly helpless in the wicked world that he had let grow up around him.

  One evening, as Paul came home, he found Elisabeth packing a portmanteau. It was curious that she looked happier than she had done for many months.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “Are you going anywhere?”

  “You are,” she said quietly.

  38

  THE next day Paul traveled to Switzerland. At Brigaud he took a taxi, and in something over an hour reached the little town above which Albinus was living. Paul stopped in front of the post office and a very talkative young woman in charge of the latter told him the way to the chalet and added that Albinus was staying there with his niece and a doctor. Paul drove on immediately. He knew who the niece was. But the presence of a doctor surprised him. It seemed to suggest that Albinus was being better looked after than might be supposed.

  “Perhaps, after all, I’ve come here on a fool’s errand,” thought Paul uncomfortably. “He may be quite contented. But now that I’m here … Well, anyway, I’ll have a talk with this doctor. Poor fellow, a shattered life … Who could have thought …”

  That morning Margot had gone to the village with Emilia. She did not notice Paul’s taxi; but at the post office she was told that a stout gentleman had just inquired after Albinus and had driven on up to see him.

  At this moment Albinus and Rex were seated opposite one another in the little drawing room into which the sunlight was streaming through the glass door leading to the terrace. Rex sat on a folding stool. He was stark naked. As a result of his daily sunbaths his lean but robust body with, on his breast, black hair in the shape of a spread eagle, was tanned a deep brown. Between his full red lips he held a long stalk of grass and, with his hairy legs crossed and his chin cupped in his hand (rather in the pose of Rodin’s “Thinker”) he was staring at Albinus who, in return, seemed to be gazing at him quite as intently.

  The blind man was wearing an ample, mouse-gray dressing-gown and his bearded face expressed agonized tension. He was listening—of late he had done nothing else but listen. Rex knew this and was watching how the man’s thoughts were mirrored on his face as if that face had become one big eye since his actual pair of eyes had gone. One or two little tests might add to the fun: he slapped his knee softly, and Albinus, who had just raised his hand to his knitted brow, remained transfixed with uplifted arm. Then Rex bent slowly forward and touched Albinus’ forehead very gently with the flowering end of the grass stem which he had just been sucking. Albinus sighed strangely and brushed away the imaginary fly. Rex tickled his lips and again Albinus made that helpless movement. This was good fun indeed.

  Suddenly the blind man cocked his head abruptly. Rex, too, turned and through the glass door he saw a stout gentleman in a checkered cap whose red face he recognized at once and who was standing there, on the terrace, and looking on in amazement.

  Rex put his finger to his lips and made a sign to him, meaning that he would join him in a moment. But the other pushed open the door and stepped into the room.

  “Of course, I know you. Your name is Rex,” said Paul, taking a deep breath and staring at this naked man who still smiled and held his finger to his lips.

  Albinus had meanwhile risen to his feet. The reddish hue of his scar seemed to have spread over his whole forehead. Suddenly he began to scream and jabber and only gradually words formed themselves out of these jagged sounds.

  “Paul, I’m here alone,” he cried. “Paul, do say that I’m alone. That man is in America. He is not here. Paul, I implore you. I’m quite blind.”

  “Pity you’ve spoiled everything,” said Rex, and then he ran out and began mounting the stairs.

  Paul seized the blind man’s stick, caught up with Rex, who turned round and held up his hands to protect himself; and Paul, good-natured Paul who had never in his life hit a living creature, swung out mightily at Rex’s head and got it with a tremendous bang. Rex leaped back—his face still twisted in a smile—and suddenly something very remarkable occurred: like Adam after the Fall, Rex, cowering by the white wall and grinning wanly, covered his nakedness with his hand.

  Paul rushed after him again, but the man dodged and ran up the steps.

  At this moment someone fell upon Paul from behind. It was Albinus—clutching, whimpering and holding a marble letter-weight in his hand.

  “Paul,” he groaned, “Paul, I understand everything. Give me my overcoat, quick. It’s hanging in the wardrobe there.”

  “Which—the yellow one?” asked Paul, struggling for breath.

  Albinus immediately felt what he wanted in the pocket, and he stopped blubbering.

  “I’ll take you away from here at once,” panted Paul. “Take off your dressing-gown and put on that coat. Give me that letter-weight. Come on. I’ll help you … There, take my
cap. It doesn’t matter that you’ve only got bedroom slippers on. Let’s get away, let’s get away, Albert. I’ve got a taxi down there. The first thing to be done is to get you out of this torture chamber.”

  “Wait a bit,” said Albinus. “I must speak to her first. She will be back in a moment. I must, Paul. It won’t take long.”

  But Paul pushed him out into the garden and then shouted and beckoned to the chauffeur.

  “I must speak to her,” repeated Albinus. “Quite close. For God’s sake, Paul, tell me, perhaps she’s here already? Perhaps she’s come back?”

  “No, calm yourself. We must go. There’s no one here. Only that naked wretch looking out of the window. Come on, Albert, come on!”

  “Yes, we’ll go,” said Albinus, “but you must tell me if you see her. We may meet her on the way. Then I must speak to her. Quite close, quite close.”

  They went down the footpath, but after a few steps Albinus suddenly opened his arms and fell back in a swoon. The taxi driver came hurrying up and together they lifted Albinus into the car. One of his slippers remained there on the footpath.

  At that moment a trap drove up and Margot jumped out of it. She ran toward them and shouted something, but the car was already turning in the road; it almost knocked her down as it backed, then it lurched forward and disappeared round the bend.

  39

  ON TUESDAY Elisabeth received a telegram and at about eight on Wednesday night she heard Paul’s voice in the hall and the pat-pat of a stick. The door opened and Paul led in her husband.

  He was clean-shaven; he was wearing dark spectacles; there was a scar on his pale forehead. The unfamiliar purplish brown suit (a shade he would never have chosen himself) seemed rather too large for him.

  “Here he is,” said Paul quietly.

  Elisabeth began to sob, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth. Albinus bowed silently in the direction of the smothered sobbing.

  “Come along, we’ll wash our hands,” said Paul, leading him slowly across the room.

  Then the three of them sat in the dining room and had supper. Elisabeth had difficulty in accustoming herself to look at her husband. It seemed to her that he felt her glance. The melancholy gravity of his slow movements filled her with a tranquil ecstasy of pity. Paul talked to him as though he were a child, and cut up the ham on his plate into little pieces.

  He was given what had been Irma’s nursery. It surprised Elisabeth that she found it so easy to disturb the sacred slumber of that little room for the sake of this strange, large, silent occupant; to shift and change all its contents so as to adapt it to the blind man’s needs.

  Albinus said nothing. At first, to be sure—while they were still in Switzerland—he had begged Paul with petulant persistency to ask Margot to come and see him; he had sworn that this final meeting would not last more than a moment. (And, indeed, would it take long to grope in the wonted darkness and, holding her tightly with one hand, to thrust the barrel of the automatic against her side and to stuff her with bullets?) Paul had obstinately refused to do as he asked, and after that Albinus had said nothing. He traveled to Berlin in silence, he arrived in silence and he was silent for the next three days, so that Elisabeth never heard his voice any more (except perhaps once): he might have been dumb as well as blind.

  The heavy black object, the treasure-house of seven compressed deaths, lay wrapped in his silk muffler in the depths of his overcoat pocket. Then, when he arrived, he managed to transfer it to a chest of drawers near his bed. He kept the key in his waistcoat pocket and put it under his pillow at night. Once or twice they noticed that he was fumbling and clutching something in his hand, but no comments were made. The touch of that key against his palm, its slight weight in his pocket, seemed to him a kind of Sesame that would—he was certain of it—one day unlock the door of his blindness.

  And he still said not a word. Elisabeth’s presence, her light tread, her whispering (she always spoke to the servants and to Paul in a whisper now, as if there were great sickness in the house) were just as pale and shadowy as was his memory of her: an almost soundless memory drifting about listlessly with a faint trail of eau-de-Cologne—that was all. Real life, which was cruel, supple and strong like some anaconda, and which he longed to destroy without delay, was somewhere else—but where? He did not know. With extraordinary distinctness he pictured Margot and Rex—both quick and alert, with terrible, beaming, goggle eyes and long, lithe limbs—packing after his departure; Margot fawned, and caressed Rex among the open trunks and then they both went away—but where, where? Not a light in the darkness. But their sinuous path burned in him like the trace which a foul, crawling creature leaves on the skin.

  Three silent days passed. On the fourth, early in the morning, it so happened that Albinus was alone. Paul had just gone to the police (there were certain things which he wanted to elucidate), the maid was in a back room and Elisabeth, who had not slept all night, was not yet up. Albinus wandered about in an agony of restlessness, fingering the furniture and the doors. For some time the telephone had been ringing in the study, and this reminded him that there was, by this means, the possibility of getting certain information: someone might tell him whether the artist Rex was back in Berlin. But he could not remember a single telephone number and he knew moreover that he would not be able to pronounce that name in spite of its shortness. The ringing became more and more insistent. Albinus found his way to the table, took up the invisible receiver …

  A voice which seemed to him familiar asked for Herr Hochenwart—that is, for Paul.

  “He is out,” answered Albinus.

  The voice hesitated, then suddenly exclaimed brightly:

  “Why, is it you, Herr Albinus?”

  “Yes. And who are you?”

  “Schiffermiller. I just rang up Herr Hochenwart’s office, but he had not arrived. So I thought I’d get him here. How lucky my getting you, Herr Albinus!”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Albinus.

  “Well, probably it’s quite all right, but I thought my duty was to make quite sure. You see, Fräulein Peters has just come to fetch some things, and … well … I let her into your flat, but I don’t quite know … So I thought I’d better …”

  “That’s all right,” said Albinus, moving his lips with difficulty (they felt numb as though from cocaine).

  “What did you say, Herr Albinus?”

  Albinus made a great effort to conquer speech: “That’s all right,” he repeated distinctly, and hung up with a trembling hand.

  He blundered back into his room, unlocked the sacred chest, then went, groping, into the hall and tried to find his hat and stick. But that took too long and he gave it up. Cautiously he patted and shuffled his way down the stairs, clutching the banisters and muttering to himself feverishly. In a few moments he was standing in the street. Something cold and tickling was dripping on his forehead: rain. He held onto the iron railing of the front garden and desperately prayed for the sound of a taxi-horn. Soon he heard the moist, leisurely swish of tires. He shouted, but the sound moved away unheedingly.

  “May I help you across?” asked a pleasant young voice.

  “For heaven’s sake, get me a cab,” implored Albinus.

  Once more the sound of tires approached. Someone helped him into the taxi and slammed the door. (A window opened in the fourth story, but it was too late.)

  “Straight ahead, straight ahead,” said Albinus softly, and, when the taxi was once in motion, he tapped with his finger on the glass and gave the address.

  “I’ll count the turnings,” thought Albinus. The first one—this will be Motzstrasse. To the left he heard the shrill jingle of an electric tram. Albinus passed his hand over the seat, the front partition and the floor, suddenly disquieted by the thought that someone might be sitting beside him. Another turning. This must be the Victoria-Luisenplatz or the Pragerplatz? In a moment he would be at the Kaiserallee.

  The taxi stopped. Am I really there already? It can’t be. It’s
only a cross-road. It must be at least another five minutes … But the door opened.

  “This is number fifty-six,” said the taxi driver.

  Albinus stepped out of the taxi. Through the air in front of him arose cheerfully a complete edition of the voice which he had just heard on the telephone. Schiffermiller, the house-porter, said:

  “Glad to see you again, Herr Albinus. The young lady is upstairs, in your flat. She …”

  “Hush, hush,” whispered Albinus, “pay the taxi, please. My eyes are …”

  His knee hit against something which wobbled and jingled—probably a child’s bicycle on the pavement.

  “Lead me into the house,” he said. “Give me the key of my flat. Quick, please. And now take me to the lift. No, no, you can stay downstairs. I’ll go up alone. I’ll press the button myself.”

  The lift made a low, moaning sound and he felt a faint dizziness. Then the floor seemed to jerk against the soles of his felt slippers. He had arrived.

  He got out of the lift, moved forward and stepped with one foot into an abyss—no, it was nothing, only the step leading downstairs. He had to keep still for a moment, he was quivering so.

  “It’s to the right, more to the right,” he whispered, and, with outstretched hand, he walked across the landing. At last he found the keyhole, thrust in the key and turned it.

  Ah, there it was, the sound he had coveted for days—just to the left, in the little drawing room … a crackle of wrapping paper and then a soft creaking like the sound made by the joints of a person who is crouching down.

  “I shall want you in a minute, Herr Schiffermiller,” said Margot’s strained voice. “You must help me to carry this thing …”

  The voice broke off.

  “She has seen me,” thought Albinus, drawing the pistol out of his pocket.

  To the left, in the drawing room, he heard the click of a valise-lock closing. Margot gave a little grunt of satisfaction—it had closed after all—and continued in a sing-song tone: