Chapter 13 Chapter Twelve

Plans for a long-term foreign trip were postponed until spring—the only concession Mrs. Luzhin made to her parents, who wanted them to refrain from traveling far, at least for the first few months of their marriage.Mrs. Luzhin was a little worried that life in Berlin would be bad for her husband, because Berlin life was actually entangled with the chess past.It turned out, however, that even in Berlin it was not difficult to cheer Luzhin up. I have been traveling abroad for a long time, and I have talked about it many times, and also mentioned the specific travel plan.Luzhin especially likes the study now, and they found a beautiful atlas on a bookshelf in the study.The world first unfolded as a solid sphere, tightly bound by a web of warp and weft.Then it spread out again, divided in two, and divided into several parts.A place like Greenland started out as a small piece, a mere appendage, but as the world unfolded it swelled to almost the size of the nearby continent.In the north and south poles, there are some white bald patches.The ocean unfolded smoothly and was azure.Even on this map, water is always plentiful.For example, there is always water for washing hands.With so much water, so deep, so vast, what does the world look like?Luzhin pointed out to his wife the various map shapes he had grown fond of—the Baltic Sea as a kneeling woman, Italy as a boot, Ceylon as a drop of snot from India's nose.He thinks the equator is bad luck - its roads are mostly across the ocean.It crosses two continents, it is true, but it has no relationship with Asia, which has been lifted up a bit and deviated from the course of the equator.The equator also squeezes the places it manages to cross—the tops of a place or two, and some straggling islands.Luzhin knew the highest mountain and the smallest country.He looked at the corresponding positions of North America and South America, and found that the connection between the two Americas was a bit of acrobatics. "But in general, all this could have been arranged more interestingly," he said, pointing to the map, "no Meaning." There was no purpose in the current arrangement, and he was even a little annoyed that he couldn't see what all these complex graphics could mean.He spent hours looking and looking, as he had done when he was a boy, trying to trace a route from the North Sea to the Mediterranean along the maze of rivers, or to discover some rational pattern in the arrangement of the mountains.

"Where are we going now?" his wife chuckled, as adults often do when they start playing games with their children, expressing their pleasant anticipation to the children.Then she announced a series of very romantic place names aloud. "Down here first, to the Riviera," she suggested, "to Monte Carlo, to Nice, or to the Alps." "Then come a little this way," said Luzhin, "the grapes in Crimea are very cheap." "What are you talking about, Luzhin? God bless you, we can't go to Russia." "Why?" asked Luzhin. "They invited me."

"Bullshit, please stop here," she said.She was angry not because Luzhin was talking about the impossible, but because he had vaguely mentioned something about chess. "Look down here," she said, and Luzhin obediently moved his gaze to another place on the map. "For example, here, here is Egypt, the pyramids. This is Spain, and the scene of Spanish bullfighting is terrible..." She knew that Luzhin might have visited many of the places they were likely to visit more than once, so she did not list the big cities, so as not to remind him of the past and hurt him.This worry is unnecessary.The world that Luzhin traveled at that time was not reflected on the map, so if she listed Rome or London, judging from the sound of these place names on her lips, and judging from the large circle marked on the map, he would It was a whole new place to think of, never seen before.In any case he would not have thought of that dimly lit chess café that looked the same in Rome as it did in London.She felt that Nice would not evoke harmful associations, so she said it with confidence. In fact, in Nice, the chess cafe is also the same.After reading the innumerable tourist brochures she had brought from the railway department, the world of his touring chess game seemed even more distinct from the new world of travel.In this new world of travel, tourists roam in white suits with binoculars slung across their chests.A few black palms stood upright under the rosy sunset, and these same palms stood upside down in the rosy Nile.There was a bay that was almost unreasonably blue.There was a hotel, white as sugar, with a colorful flag waving against the smoke of a steamer on the horizon.There are also snow-capped mountain tops, suspension bridges, lakes with boats, countless ancient churches, narrow alleys paved with large cobblestones, and small donkeys with two large bales of goods on both sides...everything is fascinating, every Everything is interesting, everything makes the nameless author of these pamphlets acclaimed... Musical names, innumerable saints, healing waters, ancient city walls, first-class, second-class, third-class Waiting hotels—all these rippled out before him, each so beautiful, everywhere waiting for Luzhin to see, calling to him with a voice like thunder, maddened by their hospitality.They scatter their sunshine here and there without asking their masters.

During the first few days of their marriage Luzhin visited his father-in-law in his office.My father-in-law was dictating something, but the typewriter was going its own way—a quick click, typing out a repeated word.The sound was like this tone: chug, hotten chug, chug chug, don't chug chug—and then it would jump over with a bang, and then hit down.His father-in-law showed him a lot of forms and account books with zigzag lines drawn on each page, some books with small windows on the spine, several volumes of very thick "German Business Directory", and a calculator, very Smart and very easy to use.Of all these things, however, Luzhin loved the sound of the typewriter the most, the way the words flowed out and landed on the paper, neatly arranged in lavender lines, amazing - and several copies could be typed at a time "... I don't know if I also... know how to learn," he said.The father-in-law nodded in approval, and a typewriter appeared in Luzhin's study.His father-in-law suggested to him that one of his office staff should teach him how to use a typewriter, but he refused, saying he could learn it himself.If so, he quickly figured out the mechanism of the typewriter, learned to install the ribbon and roll the paper on the cylinder, and made friends with all the small lever parts.It turned out that it was more difficult to remember the distribution of letters, so I typed very slowly.He can't type that quick "chug" sound at all, and somehow - from day one of typing - the exclamation point has stuck with him, the symbol keeps popping up where it's least expected .At first he typed half a column from a German newspaper, and then he made up a thing or two himself.A short note was written, which read: "You are on the hunt for murder. Today is the twenty-seventh of November. Murder and arson. Good day, dear lady. Now is the time you are needed, dear, Exclamation mark, where are you? The body has been found. Dear lady! The police will come today!!" Luzhin read the paper from the beginning three or four times, put the paper back in, fumbled to find the right letter, and typed the signature with a slight jump "Pastor Busoni".By this time he was getting bored, things were going too slowly.For some reason, he thought he had to use the finished letter.He searched in the telephone directory, found a lady named Louisa Altman, wrote her address by hand, and sent her his composition.

The phonograph also provided him with a degree of entertainment.Beneath the palm trees, the chocolate-coloured cabinets of the gramophone often sang in velvety voices, and Luzhin sat on the sofa with one arm around his wife and listened, thinking that it would soon be night.She always got up to change the record, held it up to the light, and there was always a part of the record that shimmered like silk, like the moonlight on the sea.And then that cabinet would start streaming music again.His wife would sit down next to him again, drop her chin on her crossed fingers, and listen with blinking eyes.Luzhin memorized those melodies and even wanted to hum them.There are all kinds of dance music, moaning, wah wah, talking, howling.A very gentle American sang in a low voice.There was also a whole set of operas, made up of fifteen discs—Boris Godunov—in which church bells sounded at one point, and there were ominous pauses at places.

His wife's parents often came to see, came very frequently, and made a rule: the Luzhin couple had to have dinner with them three times a week.The mother tried several times, trying to learn from her daughter the specifics of their married life, always asking curiously: "Are you pregnant? You must be having a baby soon, right?" "Not one," the daughter replied, "I'm pregnant with twins." She was still her usual quiet self, still smiling with downcast brows, still calling Luzhin by his last name and "you." "My poor Luzhin," she always said, pursing her lips slightly, "my poor, poor thing." Luzhin would always rest his cheek on her shoulder. She also vaguely feels that there may be greater happiness than the happiness brought by pity, but the greater happiness has nothing to do with her.Her only concern in life was to arouse, minute by minute, Luzhin's curiosity about things other than chess, so that he could keep his head above the black water and breathe freely.Every morning she would ask Luzhin what his dreams were, whet his appetite for breakfast with schnitzel or English marmalade, and then take him for a walk and walk with him in shop windows.Read aloud to him after dinner, wander with him over a map, read some sentences for him to practice typing.She took him to museums several times, showed him her favorite paintings, and explained to him that Flanders is rainy and foggy, painters often use bright colors, and Spain is a sunny country, so the masters with the most gloomy colors was born there.She also said that the author of the painting over there is good at appreciating glass products, and the author of this painting here likes to paint lilies, and likes to paint delicate faces that are slightly flushed due to a cold after catching a cold in heaven.She directed his attention to The Last Supper, where two dogs were expertly foraging for crumbs under the narrow, crude dining table.Luzhin nodded, narrowed his eyes seriously, and studied a huge oil painting for a long time.On the screen, the painter depicts the various tortures of sinners in hell - the details are amazing.They also went to the theater and the zoo, and also went to the movies, only then did they discover that Luzhin had never seen movies before.The drama progresses to a fever pitch, and eventually the girl—by this time a famous actress—returns to her parents' home after many adventures.She stopped at the door, where her gray-haired father was playing chess with a doctor and hadn't noticed her yet.The doctor was a loyal friend of the family, and his affection for her family had not changed in the years.Luzhin's laughter suddenly came from the darkness. "In this situation, there's absolutely no way the pieces can go any further," he said.But at this moment, everything changed on the screen, and his wife breathed a sigh of relief.I saw the father getting bigger and bigger, walking towards the audience, and performing with all his strength: the eyes were wide open, then trembled slightly, the eyelashes fluttered and trembled again, and the wrinkles on his face gradually faded away. Stretched, more and more amiable, an infinitely friendly smile slowly appeared on the face.The face was still trembling—but you must know that the old man had cursed his daughter...but the doctor—the doctor stood aside and began to remember.This poor doctor, a humble doctor—at the beginning of the film, she was a young girl throwing flowers at him through the fence. Just fences.But suddenly a girl's head with parted hair appeared on the other side of the fence, and then a pair of eyes appeared, which opened wider and wider—oh, how naughty, how playful!Go after her, doctor, jump over the fence-- she's running that way, sweet fairy, she's hiding behind those trees-- catch her, catch her, doctor!But now all this is a thing of the past.With her head bowed and her hands limply hanging, holding a hat in one hand, she is the famous film star of today (a fallen woman, alas!).The father was still trembling, and slowly opened his arms, and she suddenly knelt down in front of him.Luzhin began to blow his nose.His eyes were red as they left the movie theater.But he cleared his throat, denying that he had been crying just now.Over coffee the next morning, leaning one elbow on the dining table, he mused, "Good, good—the film." He thought for a moment, then added, "But they I don't understand something."

"What do you mean, they don't understand?" his wife asked in amazement, "They are all first-rate actors." Luzhin gave her a sideways look, and then looked away immediately, the remark would refer to something she didn't like.She suddenly understood what was going on, and began to think secretly how to make Luzhin forget about the bad luck in the movie.That director is so stupid that he thinks that chess is suitable for creating "atmosphere".But Luzhin seemed to have forgotten about it immediately—he was engrossed in tasting the authentic Russian bread sent by his mother-in-law, and his eyes became clear again.

In this way, one month passed, and another month passed.The winter of that year was a white winter, like the winter in St. Petersburg.She made a cotton coat for Luzhin and gave some of his old belongings to impoverished Russian refugees—among them a green woolen scarf made in Switzerland that smelled so pungent of mothballs that one smelled it. Just worry.Hanging in the foyer was a jacket that had been judged unsuitable. "The clothes are very comfortable," pleaded Luzhin, "very comfortable." "Don't touch it," said his wife's voice from the bedroom, "I haven't looked at it yet. Maybe it's full of moths." Luzhin took off the jacket he wore for dinner, in which he always tried to gain weight, See if he's put on a lot of weight in the past month (he's fat, he's fat--there's a big Russian ball tomorrow for charity) and lovingly picks up the condemned piece Jacket, slip arms into sleeves.A lovely jacket without the slightest moth-eaten look.It's just a tiny hole in the pocket, but it's not like the bottom of the pocket is ripped open sometimes. "Brilliant," he exclaimed.His wife, stocking in hand, poked her head out of the bedroom and looked into the hall. "Take it off, Luzhin. It's broken and dirty, God knows how long."

"Don't take it off, don't take it off," said Luzhin.She checked it from various angles, Luzhin stood there reaching out to pat the hem, and unexpectedly felt something in the pocket.He reached in and felt - nothing, nothing, just a hole. "Too old," said his wife, frowning, "but it can be worn as work clothes..." "I beg you," said Luzhin. "Okay then, do as you want - take it off and give it to the maid later, let her pat and pat." "No, it's clean," he said to himself, and decided to hang it in some inconspicuous place in the study, taking off his clothes and hanging them up like a civil official.When he took it off, he felt that the left side of the clothes was a little heavier again, but he remembered that the pockets were empty, so he didn't check the reason for the weight on one side.As for the dinner jacket, it's gotten a little tight now—yes, definitely a little tight. "The ball," said Luzhin, imagining to himself a multitude of people circling in pairs.

The ball was held in one of the best hotels in the city of Berlin.A crowd surrounded the cloakroom, and the waiter took the clothes of the guests and carried them away like a sleeping child.They gave Luzhin a clean metal number plate.He got separated from his wife, but found her right away: she was standing in front of a mirror.He stuck the metal number plate to the slightly concave soft flesh on her smooth powdered back. "Oh, it's cold," she exclaimed, moving her shoulder blades. "Arms, arms," ​​said Luzhin, "we must go in, arm in arm." So they went in, arm in arm.The first thing Luzhin saw after entering was his mother-in-law, who looked much younger, with a rosy complexion, wearing a jeweled headdress—the kokoshnik often worn by Russian women.She was promoting punch, and an elderly Englishman (who had just come downstairs from his room) was quickly drunk, with one elbow resting on the table where she had set it.Another table, not far from a fir tree festooned with lights, had a pile of raffle prizes on it: a stately Russian teapot, reflecting the reds and blues of the tree towards the side of the tree lanterns.There were dolls in jerkins, a gramophone, and various liquors (donated by Smirnovsky).On the third table there were sandwiches, Italian salad, caviar - a beautiful blonde was calling someone: "Maria Vasilyevna, Maria Vasilyevna, why did they take it away again . . . I've already said it..." A neighbor "I wish you a very pleasant evening!" said Mrs. Luzhin, raising a hand arched in the shape of a swan.Further inside, there was music in the next room, and dancers were circling to the beat in the space between the tables.A person bumped into Luzhin's body at full speed with a bang on his back, and he backed away repeatedly with a grunt.His wife had long since disappeared. After searching with his eyes, he returned to the first room.The lottery game here attracted him again.Every time he paid a mark, he reached into the box and took out a small round stick made of rolled paper.He sniffed and pouted again, and each time he took a long time to open the paper roll. If there were no numbers inside, he turned the paper over to see if there was any on the outer side—it didn’t work Yes, but it is also human nature.At the end of the game, he picked up a children's book such as "Mimi Cat", and he didn't know what to do with it, so he put it on the table.There were two full glasses of wine on the table, waiting for the return of a dancing couple.The crowd was crowded, walking up and down, and often singing loudly, his nerves were stimulated, and there was nowhere to hide.Maybe everyone was looking at him and wondering why he wasn't dancing.During the interval between dance music, his wife looked for him in another room, but at every step she was called by acquaintances.Many people came to the ball--among them was a foreign consul, who had gone to great trouble to get him.There is also a famous Russian singer and two actresses.Someone pointed her out to the table of two female movie stars, two ladies with smug smiles, and their male companions were three fat, manufacturer-type men who kept clucking with their tongues, He also snapped his fingers and lost his temper at the pale and sweaty waiter, thinking that his movements were too slow and inefficient.One of the three seemed to particularly annoy her: a man with very white teeth and gleaming brown eyes who, after dismissing the waiter, began talking loudly about other things, Russian mixed with the most common German words .Suddenly she felt very lost. Everyone was paying attention to those two movie stars, the singer, and the consul. No one seemed to know that there was also a chess genius at the ball whose name had appeared in millions of copies. In the newspapers, the game he played has been called the "immortal game". "Strange to say, it's easy to dance with you. The floor here is very nice. Sorry. It's too crowded. The ball must pay a lot of money. The gentleman over here is from the French embassy. It's strange to dance with you It's no trouble at all." This usually ended the conversation, and they danced with her without knowing exactly what to say to her.A rather pretty lady, but lifeless.And that marriage to an unsuccessful musician, or something like that. "What do you say—an ex-Socialist? A what? A player? A card player? Have you ever visited them, Oleg Sergeyevich?"

Meanwhile Luzhin had found a deep armchair not far from the stairs, and was watching the crowd from behind a pillar, smoking his thirteenth cigarette.There was an armchair beside it, and a dark-skinned gentleman with a moustache came over and first asked if the chair was occupied, and then sat down.People were still coming and going nearby, and Luzhin gradually became frightened.Wherever he looked, he met curious eyes, and it was a shame that he had to look somewhere, so he had to fix his eyes on the mustache of the man next to him.This person is obviously tired of making noise everywhere, so he came here to avoid unnecessary entertainment.Sensing Luzhin's gaze, he turned his head towards him. "I haven't been to a prom in a long time," he said kindly, grinning and shaking his head. "The important thing is not to look at anything," said Luzhin in a muffled voice, gesticulating with his hand to blink his eyes. "I came all the way here," the man explained, "and a friend insisted on dragging me here. To be honest, I'm tired." "I feel tired and heavy," Luzhin nodded in agreement. "Who knows what's the point of doing this? It's beyond my comprehension." "Especially for someone like me, working on a plantation in Brazil, it's even more incomprehensible," the person said. "Plantation," Luzhin repeated shortly thereafter, like his echo. "It's a queer way of life here," went on the stranger, "that the world spreads out in every direction, and here people dance the Charleston on a very limited floor." "I'm going on a long journey too," said Luzhin. "I've got the tourist brochure." "There is nothing like freedom," exclaimed the stranger, "to roam freely and enjoy the wind. How many wonderful countries have I been to... I once met a German botanist in the remote forests of the Rio Negro , also lived on Madagascar with the wife of a French engineer." "I'm sure I'll get tourist brochures for these places, too," Luzhin said. "It's very attractive—those brochures. Everything is explained in great detail." "Luzhin, so you are here!" suddenly came the voice of his wife, who was hurrying past on her father's arm. "I'll be right back, and I'll go find us a table," she said. Turned around and yelled, then disappeared. "Your name is Luzhin?" asked the gentleman curiously. "Yes, yes," said Luzhin, "but it doesn't matter." "I used to know a Luzhin," said the gentleman, squinting his eyes (for the memory is short-sighted), "I used to know one. Did you go to the Balashevsky school, did you?" ?” "Maybe I did," Luzhin replied, feeling suspicious and uncomfortable, and carefully scrutinized his companion's face. "Then we're in the same class!" exclaimed the other. "I'm Petrishchev. Remember me? Hey, of course you do! What a coincidence. I can't recognize you by your face." From you. Tell me, Luzhin...what was your first name and your paternal name?...Ah, I think I remember—Tony...Anton...what's next?" "You've made a mistake, you've made a mistake," Luzhin said with a shudder. "It's a mistake, I have a bad memory," Petrishchev went on, "I have forgotten many names. Like the quiet boy in our class, do you remember him? He was later in the battle of Wrangel Island Lost an arm during the retreat—just before the retreat. I saw him go to church in Paris. Well, what's his name?" "Why do you have to say this?" Luzhin said, "why do you have to say so much?" "I don't know, I can't remember," sighed Petrishchev, reluctantly removing his palm from his forehead. "But to give another example, there is a Gromov, who is also in Paris now, and seems to be living very comfortably. But where are the other classmates now? Where are they all? They all dissipated and turned into smoke Disappeared. It's strange to think about it. So, Lu Zhin's old classmate, how is your situation, how is your situation?" "Not bad," Luzhin replied, looking away from the talkative Petrishchev, and suddenly recognized the face of his old classmate: small, pink, with an unbearable sneer. "It was such a good time," Petrishchev exclaimed, "do you remember our geography teacher, Luzhin? Remember how he used to fly into the classroom like a hurricane with a map of the world in his hand? And the little old man—oh, I forgot his name too—remember? He used to tremble and say, 'Have fun, huh, you big fool.' Good times. We used to fly Running downstairs and into the yard, do you remember? Remember that time at the school party when it was discovered that Abuzov could play the piano? I never saw him practice at all. Do you remember? We gave him a homonym Nickname - 'Why don't you get drunk', remember?" "Don't answer him," thought Luzhin quickly. "These good times are all gone now," continued Petrishchev, "and now we meet at the ball... oh, just to ask, I seem to remember... What did you do when you left school, what was it?" A profession? What is it? By the way, of course—chess!" "No, no," said Luzhin, "why on earth do you have to..." "Oh, I'm sorry," said Petrishchev kindly, "then I was confused. Yes, yes, I was confused. . . Know that I have traveled all over the world... How beautiful are Cuban women! Or to give another example, that time in the jungle..." "It's a lie," said a lazy voice behind the man, "he hasn't been to any jungle at all..." "Why are you so disappointed in everything?" Petrishchev drawled back. "Don't listen to him," went on a lanky, bald man who was the owner of the languid voice just now, and who had been away for the first time the day before yesterday. "He's been living in France since the Revolution, and he's driven to Paris." "Luzhin, allow me to introduce you," said Peterlishchev with a smile.But Luzhin left in a hurry, his head tucked into his shoulders, his body swaying and trembling because he was walking so fast, and he looked very strange. "Going away," said Petrishchev in surprise, and then added thoughtfully, "after all, maybe I've got the wrong person." Luzhin bumped into people on the way, and he kept shouting in a tearful voice, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" He kept bumping into other people, so he had to avoid looking at their faces.He looked around for his wife, saw her at last, and grabbed her by the elbow.Startled, she turned around.But he couldn't say a word at first, he was panting too much. "What's wrong?" she asked anxiously. "Let's go, let's go," he murmured, still holding her elbow. "Calm down, Luzhin, it's unnecessary," she said, pushing him aside gently so that the people next to them could not hear what they were saying. "Why are you leaving?" "There's a man over there," said Luzhin breathlessly. "It's very unpleasant to talk to him." "...someone you knew before?" she asked calmly. "Yes, yes," Luzhin nodded, "Let's go, please." Luzhin half closed his eyes so that Petrishchev would not pay attention to him.He pushed his way through the crowd to the vestibule and began rummaging through all the pockets for his metal number plate.After three or four times of panic and despair lasting tens of seconds each, he finally found it.The cloakroom attendant looked for his clothes like a sleepwalker while he shuffled anxiously from side to side. ... He was the first of the guests to dress, and the first to go out the door, followed by his wife hurriedly, wrapping up her terry coat as he went.It wasn't until after getting into the car that Luzhin's breath became easier, and the disturbed and sullen expression on his face also receded, turning into an embarrassed half-smile. "Dear Luzhin has met a nasty man," said his wife, stroking his hand. "A classmate from high school -- of dubious character," Luzhin explained. "But now, my dear Luzhin is all right," whispered his wife, kissing his soft hand. "It's all over now," Luzhin said. It wasn't quite so, however, leaving a legacy—a mystery, a thorn.He began to wonder, night after night, why meeting a classmate this time made him so uncomfortable.There are, of course, all kinds of personal factors here, which are unpleasant to think about—Petrishchev once bullied him at school, and this time there is a vague reference to a torn book about the novel Tony's story.Also, a tourist world that was supposed to be full of exotic charms suddenly turned into a braggart's mouth full of nonsense, which makes it impossible to trust travel brochures in the future.But the scary thing is not the encounter with a classmate itself, but other things caused by it-this encounter with a classmate has a hidden meaning, and he has to explore it carefully.He began to brood over the night, as Holmes was wont to brood over the ashes.Gradually, the code to unravel the mystery of the matter seemed to become more complicated than he had imagined at first.Meeting Petrishchev was only a continuation of something, so it was necessary to investigate deeply, to go back in time and replay his life step by step from the day of his illness to this ball.