A.P. Chekhov
- The Duel
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"It's time I went to my vint. . . . They will
be waiting for me," said Laevsky. "Good-bye, my friends."
"I'll come with you; wait a minute," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna,
and she took his arm.
They said good-bye to the company and went away. Kirilin took
leave too, and saying that he was going the same way, went along
beside them.
"What will be, will be," thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna. "So be
it. . . ."
And it seemed to her that all the evil memories in her head had
taken shape and were walking beside her in the darkness,
breathing heavily, while she, like a fly that had fallen into
the inkpot, was crawling painfully along the pavement and
smirching Laevsky's side and arm with blackness.
If Kirilin should do anything horrid, she thought, not he but
she would be to blame for it. There was a time when no man would
have talked to her as Kirilin had done, and she had torn up her
security like a thread and destroyed it irrevocably -- who was
to blame for it? Intoxicated by her passions she had smiled at a
complete stranger, probably just because he was tall and a fine
figure. After two meetings she was weary of him, had thrown him
over, and did not that, she thought now, give him the right to
treat her as he chose?
"Here I'll say good-bye to you, darling," said Laevsky. "Ilya
Mihalitch will see you home."
He nodded to Kirilin, and, quickly crossing the boulevard,
walked along the street to Sheshkovsky's, where there were
lights in the windows, and then they heard the gate bang as he
went in.
"Allow me to have an explanation with you," said Kirilin. "I'm
not a boy, not some Atchkasov or Latchkasov, Zatchkasov. . . . I
demand serious attention."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's heart began beating violently. She made
no reply.
"The abrupt change in your behaviour to me I put down at first
to coquetry," Kirilin went on; "now I see that you don't know
how to behave with gentlemanly people. You simply wanted to play
with me, as you are playing with that wretched Armenian boy; but
I'm a gentleman and I insist on being treated like a gentleman.
And so I am at your service. . . ."
"I'm miserable," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna beginning to cry, and
to hide her tears she turned away.
"I'm miserable too," said Kirilin, "but what of that?"
Kirilin was silent for a space, then he said distinctly and
emphatically:
"I repeat, madam, that if you do not give me an interview this
evening, I'll make a scandal this very evening."
"Let me off this evening," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and she
did not recognise her own voice, it was so weak and pitiful.
"I must give you a lesson. . . . Excuse me for the roughness of
my tone, but it's necessary to give you a lesson. Yes, I regret
to say I must give you a lesson. I insist on two interviews --
to-day and to-morrow. After to-morrow you are perfectly free and
can go wherever you like with any one you choose. To-day and
to-morrow."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna went up to her gate and stopped.
"Let me go," she murmured, trembling all over and seeing nothing
before her in the darkness but his white tunic. "You're right:
I'm a horrible woman. . . . I'm to blame, but let me go . . . I
beg you." She touched his cold hand and shuddered. "I beseech
you. . . ."
"Alas!" sighed Kirilin, "alas! it's not part of my plan to let
you go; I only mean to give you a lesson and make you realise.
And what's more, madam, I've too little faith in women."
"I'm miserable. . . ."
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna listened to the even splash of the sea,
looked at the sky studded with stars, and longed to make haste
and end it all, and get away from the cursed sensation of life,
with its sea, stars, men, fever.
"Only not in my home," she said coldly. "Take me somewhere
else."
"Come to Muridov's. That's better."
"Where's that?"
"Near the old wall."
She walked quickly along the street and then turned into the
side-street that led towards the mountains. It was dark. There
were pale streaks of light here and there on the pavement, from
the lighted windows, and it seemed to her that, like a fly, she
kept falling into the ink and crawling out into the light again.
At one point he stumbled, almost fell down and burst out
laughing.
"He's drunk," thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna. "Never mind. . . .
Never mind. . . . So be it."
Atchmianov, too, soon took leave of the party and followed
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna to ask her to go for a row. He went to her
house and looked over the fence: the windows were wide open,
there were no lights.
"Nadyezhda Fyodorovna!" he called.
A moment passed, he called again.
"Who's there?" he heard Olga's voice.
"Is Nadyezhda Fyodorovna at home?"
"No, she has not come in yet."
"Strange . . . very strange," thought Atchmianov, feeling very
uneasy. "She went home. . . ."
He walked along the boulevard, then along the street, and
glanced in at the windows of Sheshkovsky's. Laevsky was sitting
at the table without his coat on, looking attentively at his
cards.
"Strange, strange," muttered Atchmianov, and remembering
Laevsky's hysterics, he felt ashamed. "If she is not at home,
where is she?"
He went to Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's lodgings again, and looked at
the dark windows.
"It's a cheat, a cheat . . ." he thought, remembering that,
meeting him at midday at Marya Konstantinovna's, she had
promised to go in a boat with him that evening.
The windows of the house where Kirilin lived were dark, and
there was a policeman sitting asleep on a little bench at the
gate. Everything was clear to Atchmianov when he looked at the
windows and the policeman. He made up his mind to go home, and
set off in that direction, but somehow found himself near
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna's lodgings again. He sat down on the bench
near the gate and took off his hat, feeling that his head was
burning with jealousy and resentment.
The clock in the town church only struck twice in the
twenty-four hours -- at midday and midnight. Soon after it
struck midnight he heard hurried footsteps.
"To-morrow evening, then, again at Muridov's," Atchmianov heard,
and he recognised Kirilin' s voice. "At eight o'clock;
good-bye!"
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna made her appearance near the garden.
Without noticing that Atchmianov was sitting on the bench, she
passed beside him like a shadow, opened the gate, and leaving it
open, went into the house. In her own room she lighted the
candle and quickly undressed, but instead of getting into bed,
she sank on her knees before a chair, flung her arms round it,
and rested her head on it.
It was past two when Laevsky came home.
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