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However, he turned in such a way that Luzhin could see nothing from behind his black shoulder. Luzhin moved cautiously, but a cushion slid onto the floor and the gentleman quickly looked round. “What are you doing here?” he asked, spying Luzhin in the dark corner. “My, my, how bad it is to eavesdrop!” Luzhin remained silent. “What’s your name?” asked the gentleman amiably. Luzhin slid off the divan and came closer. A number of carved figures lay closely packed in the box. “Excellent chessmen,” said the gentleman. “Does Papa play?” “I don’t know,” said Luzhin. “And do you play yourself?” Luzhin shook his head. “That’s a pity. You should learn. At ten I was already a good player. How old are you?”
    Carefully the door was opened. Luzhin senior came in—on tiptoe. He had been prepared to find the violinist still talking on the telephone and had thought to whisper very tactfully: “Continue, continue, but when you finish the audience would very much like to hear something more.” “Continue, continue,” he said mechanically and was brought up short upon seeing his son. “No, no, I’ve alreadyfinished,” replied the violinist, getting up. “Excellent chessmen. Do you play?” “Indifferently,” said Luzhin senior. (“What are you doing here? You too come and listen to the music …”) “What a game, what a game,” said the violinist, tenderly closing the box. “Combinations like melodies. You know, I can simply
hear
the moves.” “In my opinion one needs great mathematical skill for chess,” said Luzhin senior. “And in that respect I … They are awaiting you, Maestro.” “I would rather have a game,” laughed the violinist, as he left the room. “The game of the gods. Infinite possibilities.” “A very ancient invention,” said Luzhin senior and looked around at his son: “What’s the matter? Come with us!” But before reaching the drawing room Luzhin contrived to tarry in the dining room where the table was laid with refreshments. There he took a plateful of sandwiches and carried it away to his room. He ate while he undressed and then ate in bed. He had already put the light out when his mother looked in and bent over him, the diamonds around her neck glinting in the half-light. He pretended to be asleep. She went away and was a long, long time—so as not to make a noise—closing the door.
    He woke up next day with a feeling of incomprehensible excitement. The April morning was bright and windy and the wooden street pavements had a violet sheen; above the street near Palace Arch an enormous red-blue-white flag swelled elastically, the sky showing through it in three different tints: mauve, indigo and pale blue. As always on holidays he went for a walk with his father, but these were not the former walks of his childhood; the midday cannon no longer frightened him and father’s conversation wasunbearable, for finding a pretext in last night’s concert, he kept hinting that it would be a good idea to take up music. For lunch there was the remains of the paschal cream cheese (now a squat little cone with a grayish shading on its round summit) and a still untouched Easter cake. His aunt, the same sweet copper-haired aunt, second cousin to his mother, was gay in the extreme, threw cake crumbs across the table and related that for twenty-five rubles Latham was going to give her a ride in his “Antoinette” monoplane, which, by the way, was unable to leave the ground for the fifth day, while Voisin on the contrary kept circling the aerodrome like clockwork, and moreover so low that when he banked over the stands one could even see the cotton wool in the pilot’s ears. Luzhin for some reason remembered that morning and that lunch with unusual brightness, the way you remember the day preceding a long journey. His father said it would be a good idea after lunch to drive to the Islands beyond the Neva, where the clearings were carpeted with anemones, and while he