The Luzhin Defense

by Vladimir Nabokov

  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 "goodbye" 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 semispect
ral 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 fiance, 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 sighe
d, 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.