A.P. Chekhov
- The Duel
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When they got home, Laevsky and Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna went into their dark, stuffy, dull rooms. Both were
silent. Laevsky lighted a candle, while Nadyezhda Fyodorovna sat
down, and without taking off her cloak and hat, lifted her
melancholy, guilty eyes to him.
He knew that she expected an explanation from him, but an
explanation would be wearisome, useless and exhausting, and his
heart was heavy because he had lost control over himself and
been rude to her. He chanced to feel in his pocket the letter
which he had been intending every day to read to her, and
thought if he were to show her that letter now, it would turn
her thoughts in another direction.
"It is time to define our relations," he thought. "I will give
it her; what is to be will be."
He took out the letter and gave it her.
"Read it. It concerns you."
Saying this, he went into his own room and lay down on the sofa
in the dark without a pillow. Nadyezhda Fyodorovna read the
letter, and it seemed to her as though the ceiling were falling
and the walls were closing in on her. It seemed suddenly dark
and shut in and terrible. She crossed herself quickly three
times and said:
"Give him peace, O Lord . . . give him peace. . . ."
And she began crying.
"Vanya," she called. "Ivan Andreitch!"
There was no answer. Thinking that Laevsky had come in and was
standing behind her chair, she sobbed like a child, and said:
"Why did you not tell me before that he was dead? I wouldn't
have gone to the picnic; I shouldn't have laughed so horribly. .
. . The men said horrid things to me. What a sin, what a sin!
Save me, Vanya, save me. . . . I have been mad. . . . I am lost.
. . ."
Laevsky heard her sobs. He felt stifled and his heart was
beating violently. In his misery he got up, stood in the middle
of the room, groped his way in the dark to an easy-chair by the
table, and sat down.
"This is a prison . . ." he thought. "I must get away . . . I
can't bear it."
It was too late to go and play cards; there were no restaurants
in the town. He lay down again and covered his ears that he
might not hear her sobbing, and he suddenly remembered that he
could go to Samoylenko. To avoid going near Nadyezhda Fyodorovna,
he got out of the window into the garden, climbed over the
garden fence and went along the street. It was dark. A steamer,
judging by its lights, a big passenger one, had just come in. He
heard the clank of the anchor chain. A red light was moving
rapidly from the shore in the direction of the steamer: it was
the Customs boat going out to it.
"The passengers are asleep in their cabins . . ." thought
Laevsky, and he envied the peace of mind of other people.
The windows in Samoylenko's house were open. Laevsky looked in
at one of them, then in at another; it was dark and still in the
rooms.
"Alexandr Daviditch, are you asleep?" he called. "Alexandr
Daviditch!"
He heard a cough and an uneasy shout:
"Who's there? What the devil?"
"It is I, Alexandr Daviditch; excuse me."
A little later the door opened; there was a glow of soft light
from the lamp, and Samoylenko's huge figure appeared all in
white, with a white nightcap on his head.
"What now?" he asked, scratching himself and breathing hard from
sleepiness. "Wait a minute; I'll open the door directly."
"Don't trouble; I'll get in at the window. . . ."
Laevsky climbed in at the window, and when he reached Samoylenko,
seized him by the hand.
"Alexandr Daviditch," he said in a shaking voice, "save me! I
beseech you, I implore you. Understand me! My position is
agonising. If it goes on for another two days I shall strangle
myself like . . . like a dog."
"Wait a bit. . . . What are you talking about exactly?"
"Light a candle."
"Oh . . . oh! . . ." sighed Samoylenko, lighting a candle. "My
God! My God! . . . Why, it's past one, brother."
"Excuse me, but I can't stay at home," said Laevsky, feeling
great comfort from the light and the presence of Samoylenko.
"You are my best, my only friend, Alexandr Daviditch. . . . You
are my only hope. For God's sake, come to my rescue, whether you
want to or not. I must get away from here, come what may! . . .
Lend me the money!"
"Oh, my God, my God! . . ." sighed Samoylenko, scratching
himself. "I was dropping asleep and I hear the whistle of the
steamer, and now you . . . Do you want much?"
"Three hundred roubles at least. I must leave her a hundred, and
I need two hundred for the journey. . . . I owe you about four
hundred already, but I will send it you all . . . all. . . ."
Samoylenko took hold of both his whiskers in one hand, and
standing with his legs wide apart, pondered.
"Yes . . ." he muttered, musing. "Three hundred. . . . Yes. . .
. But I haven't got so much. I shall have to borrow it from some
one."
"Borrow it, for God's sake!" said Laevsky, seeing from
Samoylenko's face that he wanted to lend him the money and
certainly would lend it. "Borrow it, and I'll be sure to pay you
back. I will send it from Petersburg as soon as I get there. You
can set your mind at rest about that. I'll tell you what, Sasha,"
he said, growing more animated; "let us have some wine."
"Yes . . . we can have some wine, too."
They both went into the dining-room.
"And how about Nadyezhda Fyodorovna?" asked Samoylenko, setting
three bottles and a plate of peaches on the table. "Surely she's
not remaining?"
"I will arrange it all, I will arrange it all," said Laevsky,
feeling an unexpected rush of joy. "I will send her the money
afterwards and she will join me. . . . Then we will define our
relations. To your health, friend."
"Wait a bit," said Samoylenko. "Drink this first. . . . This is
from my vineyard. This bottle is from Navaridze's vineyard and
this one is from Ahatulov's. . . . Try all three kinds and tell
me candidly. . . . There seems a little acidity about mine. Eh?
Don't you taste it?"
"Yes. You have comforted me, Alexandr Daviditch. Thank you. . .
. I feel better."
"Is there any acidity?"
"Goodness only knows, I don't know. But you are a splendid,
wonderful man!"
Looking at his pale, excited, good-natured face, Samoylenko
remembered Von Koren's view that men like that ought to be
destroyed, and Laevsky seemed to him a weak, defenceless child,
whom any one could injure and destroy.
"And when you go, make it up with your mother," he said. "It's
not right."
"Yes, yes; I certainly shall."
They were silent for a while. When they had emptied the first
bottle, Samoylenko said:
"You ought to make it up with Von Koren too. You are both such
splendid, clever fellows, and you glare at each other like
wolves."
"Yes, he's a fine, very intelligent fellow," Laevsky assented,
ready now to praise and forgive every one. "He's a remarkable
man, but it's impossible for me to get on with him. No! Our
natures are too different. I'm an indolent, weak, submissive
nature. Perhaps in a good minute I might hold out my hand to
him, but he would turn away from me . . . with contempt."
Laevsky took a sip of wine, walked from corner to corner and
went on, standing in the middle of the room:
"I understand Von Koren very well. His is a resolute, strong,
despotic nature. You have heard him continually talking of 'the
expedition,' and it's not mere talk. He wants the wilderness,
the moonlit night: all around in little tents, under the open
sky, lie sleeping his sick and hungry Cossacks, guides, porters,
doctor, priest, all exhausted with their weary marches, while
only he is awake, sitting like Stanley on a camp-stool, feeling
himself the monarch of the desert and the master of these men.
He goes on and on and on, his men groan and die, one after
another, and he goes on and on, and in the end perishes himself,
but still is monarch and ruler of the desert, since the cross
upon his tomb can be seen by the caravans for thirty or forty
miles over the desert. I am sorry the man is not in the army. He
would have made a splendid military genius. He would not have
hesitated to drown his cavalry in the river and make a bridge
out of dead bodies. And such hardihood is more needed in war
than any kind of fortification or strategy. Oh, I understand him
perfectly! Tell me: why is he wasting his substance here? What
does he want here?"
"He is studying the marine fauna."
"No, no, brother, no!" Laevsky sighed. "A scientific man who was
on the steamer told me the Black Sea was poor in animal life,
and that in its depths, thanks to the abundance of sulphuric
hydrogen, organic life was impossible. All the serious
zoologists work at the biological station at Naples or
Villefranche. But Von Koren is independent and obstinate: he
works on the Black Sea because nobody else is working there; he
is at loggerheads with the university, does not care to know his
comrades and other scientific men because he is first of all a
despot and only secondly a zoologist. And you'll see he'll do
something. He is already dreaming that when he comes back from
his expedition he will purify our universities from intrigue and
mediocrity, and will make the scientific men mind their p's and
q's. Despotism is just as strong in science as in the army. And
he is spending his second summer in this stinking little town
because he would rather be first in a village than second in a
town. Here he is a king and an eagle; he keeps all the
inhabitants under his thumb and oppresses them with his
authority. He has appropriated every one, he meddles in other
people's affairs; everything is of use to him, and every one is
afraid of him. I am slipping out of his clutches, he feels that
and hates me. Hasn't he told you that I ought to be destroyed or
sent to hard labour?"
"Yes," laughed Samoylenko.
Laevsky laughed too, and drank some wine.
"His ideals are despotic too," he said, laughing, and biting a
peach. "Ordinary mortals think of their neighbour -- me, you,
man in fact -- if they work for the common weal. To Von Koren
men are puppets and nonentities, too trivial to be the object of
his life. He works, will go for his expedition and break his
neck there, not for the sake of love for his neighbour, but for
the sake of such abstractions as humanity, future generations,
an ideal race of men. He exerts himself for the improvement of
the human race, and we are in his eyes only slaves, food for the
cannon, beasts of burden; some he would destroy or stow away in
Siberia, others he would break by discipline, would, like
Araktcheev, force them to get up and go to bed to the sound of
the drum; would appoint eunuchs to preserve our chastity and
morality, would order them to fire at any one who steps out of
the circle of our narrow conservative morality; and all this in
the name of the improvement of the human race. . . . And what is
the human race? Illusion, mirage . . . despots have always been
illusionists. I understand him very well, brother. I appreciate
him and don't deny his importance; this world rests on men like
him, and if the world were left only to such men as us, for all
our good-nature and good intentions, we should make as great a
mess of it as the flies have of that picture. Yes."
Laevsky sat down beside Samoylenko, and said with genuine
feeling: "I'm a foolish, worthless, depraved man. The air I
breathe, this wine, love, life in fact -- for all that, I have
given nothing in exchange so far but lying, idleness, and
cowardice. Till now I have deceived myself and other people; I
have been miserable about it, and my misery was cheap and
common. I bow my back humbly before Von Koren's hatred because
at times I hate and despise myself."
Laevsky began again pacing from one end of the room to the other
in excitement, and said:
"I'm glad I see my faults clearly and am conscious of them. That
will help me to reform and become a different man. My dear
fellow, if only you knew how passionately, with what anguish, I
long for such a change. And I swear to you I'll be a man! I
will! I don't know whether it is the wine that is speaking in
me, or whether it really is so, but it seems to me that it is
long since I have spent such pure and lucid moments as I have
just now with you."
"It's time to sleep, brother," said Samoylenko.
"Yes, yes. . . . Excuse me; I'll go directly."
Laevsky moved hurriedly about the furniture and windows, looking
for his cap.
"Thank you," he muttered, sighing. "Thank you. . . . Kind and
friendly words are better than charity. You have given me new
life."
He found his cap, stopped, and looked guiltily at Samoylenko.
"Alexandr Daviditch," he said in an imploring voice.
"What is it?"
"Let me stay the night with you, my dear fellow!"
"Certainly. . . . Why not?"
Laevsky lay down on the sofa, and went on talking to the doctor
for a long time.
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