I bought you a toilet case. Oh, sit down, please! You’ll die if you walk so much! Tomorrow we’ll go to the cemetery. We still have a lot to do tomorrow. A toilet case made of crocodile leather. Luzhin, please!”
But he did not halt and only slowed his step from time to time by the windows, raising his hand, thinking a moment and then going on. The table in the dining room was laid for eight people. She remembered that it was just time for the guests to arrive—it was too late to call them off—and here … this horror. “Luzhin,” she cried, “people will be here any minute. I don’t know what to do.… Say something to me. Perhaps you’ve had an accident, perhaps you met an unpleasant acquaintance? Tell me. I beg you, I can’t beg any more.…”
And suddenly Luzhin stopped. It was as if the whole world had stopped. It happened in the drawing room, by the phonograph.
“Full stop,” she said softly and burst into tears. Luzhin began to take things out of his pockets—first a fountain pen, then a crumpled handkerchief, then another handkerchief, neatly folded, which she had given him that morning; after this he took out a cigarette case with a troika on the lid (a present from his mother-in-law), then an empty, red cigarette pack and two separate cigarettes, slightly damaged; his wallet and a gold watch (a present from his father-in-law) were removed with particular care. Besides all this there turned up a large peach stone. All these objects were placed on the phonograph cabinet and he checked if there were anything he had forgotten.
“That’s all, I think,” he said, and buttoned his jacket over his stomach. His wife lifted her tearstained face and stared in amazement at the little collection of things laid out by Luzhin.
He went up to his wife and made a slight bow.
She transferred her gaze to his face, vaguely hoping she would see that familiar, crooked half-smile—and so she did: Luzhin was smiling.
“The only way out,” he said. “I have to drop out of the game.”
“Game? Are we going to play?” she asked tenderly, and thought simultaneously that she had to powder her face, the guests would be here any minute.
Luzhin held out his hand. She dropped her handkerchief into her lap and hastily gave him her fingers.
“It was nice,” said Luzhin and kissed one hand and then the other, the way she had taught him.
“What is it, Luzhin? You seem to be saying goodbye.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, feigning absentmindedness. Then he turned and went into the corridor. At that moment a bell sounded in the entrance hall—the ingenuous ring of a punctual guest. She caught her husband in the corridor and grasped his sleeve. Luzhin turned and not knowing what to say, looked at her legs. The maid ran out from the far end and since the corridor was fairly narrow, a minor, hasty collision took place: Luzhin stepped back slightly and then stepped forward, his wife also moved back and forth, unconsciously smoothing her hair, and the maid, muttering something and bending her head, tried to find a loophole where she could slip through.
When she had managed it and vanished behind the portiere that divided the corridor from the entrance hall, Luzhin bowed as before and quickly opened the door by which he was standing. His wife seized the handle of the door, which he was already shutting behind him; Luzhin pushed and she grasped it tighter, laughing convulsively and endeavoring to thrust her knee into the still fairly wide opening—but at this point Luzhin leaned with all his weight and the door closed; the bolt clicked and the key was turned twice in the lock. Meanwhile there were voices in the entrance hall, someone was puffing and someone was greeting someone else.
The first thing Luzhin did after locking the door was to turn on the light. Gleaming whitely, an enameled bathtub came into view by the left wall. On the right wall hung a pencil drawing: a cube casting a shadow. At the far end, by the window, stood a small chest. The lower part of the window was of frosted glass, sparkly-blue, opaque. In the upper part, a black rectangle of night was sheened mirror-like. Luzhin tugged at the handle of the lower frame, but something had got stuck or had caught, it did not want to open. He thought for a moment, then took hold of the back of a chair standing by the tub and looked from the sturdy white chair to the solid frost of the window.
Making up his mind finally, he lifted the chair by the legs and struck, using its edge as a battering ram. Something cracked, he swung again, and suddenly a black, star-shaped hole appeared in the frosted glass. There was a moment of expectant silence. Then, far below, something tinkled tenderly and disintegrated. Trying to widen the hole, he struck again, and a wedge of glass smashed at his feet. There were voices behind the door. Somebody knocked. Somebody called him loudly by his name and patronymic.
Then there was silence and his wife’s voice said with absolute clarity: “Dear Luzhin, open, please.” Restraining his heavy breathing, Luzhin lowered the chair to the floor and tried to thrust himself through the window. Large wedges and corners still stuck out of the frame. Something stung his neck and he quickly drew his head in again—no, he could not get through.
A fist slammed against the door. Two men’s voices were quarreling and his wife’s whisper wriggled through the uproar. Luzhin decided not to smash any more glass, it made too much noise. He raised his eyes. The upper window. But how to reach it? Trying not to make a noise or break anything, he began to take things off the chest; a mirror, a bottle of some sort, a glass. He did everything slowly and thoroughly, it was useless for the rumbling behind the door to hurry him like that. Removing the doily too he attempted to climb up on the chest; it reached to his waist, and he was unable to make it at first.
He felt hot and he peeled off his jacket, and here he noticed that his hands were bloodied and that there were red spots on the front of his shirt. Finally he found himself on the chest, which creaked under his weight. He quickly reached up to the upper frame, now feeling that the thumping and the voices were urging him on and that he could not help but hurry. Raising a hand he jerked at the frame and it swung open. Black sky. Thence, out of this cold darkness, came the voice of his wife, saying softly: “Luzhin, Luzhin.”
He remembered that farther to the left was the bedroom window: it was from there this whisper had emerged. Meanwhile the voices and the crashing behind the door had grown in volume, there must have been around twenty people out there—Valentinov, Turati, the old gentleman with the bunch of flowers … They were sniffing and grunting, and more of them came, and all together they were beating with something against the shuddering door.
The rectangular night, however, was still too high. Bending one knee, Luzhin hauled the chair onto the chest. The chair was unstable, it was difficult to balance, but still Luzhin climbed up. Now he could easily lean his elbows on the lower edge of the black night. He was breathing so loudly that he deafened himself, and now the cries behind the door were far, far away, but on the other hand the voice from the bedroom window was clearer, was bursting out with piercing force.
After many efforts he found himself in a strange and mortifying position: one leg hung outside, and he did not know where the other one was, while his body would in no wise be squeezed through. His shirt had torn at the shoulder, his face was wet. Clutching with one hand at something overhead, he got through the window sideways. Now both legs were hanging outside and he had only to let go of what he was holding on to—and he was saved.
Before letting go he looked down. Some kind of hasty preparations were under way there: the window reflections gathered together and leveled themselves out, the whole chasm was seen to divide into dark and pale squares, and at the instant when Luzhin unclenched his hand, at the instant when icy air gushed into his mouth, he saw exactly what kind of eternity was obligingly and inexorably spread out before him.
The door was burst in. “Aleksandr Ivanovich, Aleksandr Ivanovich,” roared several voices.
But there was no Aleksandr Ivanovich.
The End
