A.P. Chekhov
- The Duel
I
II
III IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XV
Having made up his mind to lie, not all at
once but piecemeal, Laevsky went soon after one o'clock next day
to Samoylenko to ask for the money that he might be sure to get
off on Saturday. After his hysterical attack, which had added an
acute feeling of shame to his depressed state of mind, it was
unthinkable to remain in the town. If Samoylenko should insist
on his conditions, he thought it would be possible to agree to
them and take the money, and next day, just as he was starting,
to say that Nadyezhda Fyodorovna refused to go. He would be able
to persuade her that evening that the whole arrangement would be
for her benefit. If Samoylenko, who was obviously under the
influence of Von Koren, should refuse the money altogether or
make fresh conditions, then he, Laevsky, would go off that very
evening in a cargo vessel, or even in a sailing-boat, to Novy
Athon or Novorossiisk, would send from there an humiliating
telegram, and would stay there till his mother sent him the
money for the journey.
When he went into Samoylenko's, he found Von Koren in the
drawing-room. The zoologist had just arrived for dinner, and, as
usual, was turning over the album and scrutinising the gentlemen
in top-hats and the ladies in caps.
"How very unlucky!" thought Laevsky, seeing him. "He may be in
the way. Good-morning."
"Good-morning," answered Von Koren, without looking at him.
"Is Alexandr Daviditch at home?"
"Yes, in the kitchen."
Laevsky went into the kitchen, but seeing from the door that
Samoylenko was busy over the salad, he went back into the
drawing-room and sat down. He always had a feeling of
awkwardness in the zoologist's presence, and now he was afraid
there would be talk about his attack of hysterics. There was
more than a minute of silence. Von Koren suddenly raised his
eyes to Laevsky and asked:
"How do you feel after yesterday?"
"Very well indeed," said Laevsky, flushing. "It really was
nothing much. . . ."
"Until yesterday I thought it was only ladies who had hysterics,
and so at first I thought you had St. Vitus's dance."
Laevsky smiled ingratiatingly, and thought:
"How indelicate on his part! He knows quite well how unpleasant
it is for me. . . ."
"Yes, it was a ridiculous performance," he said, still smiling.
"I've been laughing over it the whole morning. What's so curious
in an attack of hysterics is that you know it is absurd, and are
laughing at it in your heart, and at the same time you sob. In
our neurotic age we are the slaves of our nerves; they are our
masters and do as they like with us. Civilisation has done us a
bad turn in that way. . . ."
As Laevsky talked, he felt it disagreeable that Von Koren
listened to him gravely, and looked at him steadily and
attentively as though studying him; and he was vexed with
himself that in spite of his dislike of Von Koren, he could not
banish the ingratiating smile from his face.
"I must admit, though," he added, "that there were immediate
causes for the attack, and quite sufficient ones too. My health
has been terribly shaky of late. To which one must add boredom,
constantly being hard up . . . the absence of people and general
interests. . . . My position is worse than a governor's."
"Yes, your position is a hopeless one," answered Von Koren.
These calm, cold words, implying something between a jeer and an
uninvited prediction, offended Laevsky. He recalled the
zoologist's eyes the evening before, full of mockery and
disgust. He was silent for a space and then asked, no longer
smiling:
"How do you know anything of my position?"
"You were only just speaking of it yourself. Besides, your
friends take such a warm interest in you, that I am hearing
about you all day long."
"What friends? Samoylenko, I suppose?"
"Yes, he too."
"I would ask Alexandr Daviditch and my friends in general not to
trouble so much about me."
"Here is Samoylenko; you had better ask him not to trouble so
much about you."
"I don't understand your tone," Laevsky muttered, suddenly
feeling as though he had only just realised that the zoologist
hated and despised him, and was jeering at him, and was his
bitterest and most inveterate enemy.
"Keep that tone for some one else," he said softly, unable to
speak aloud for the hatred with which his chest and throat were
choking, as they had been the night before with laughter.
Samoylenko came in in his shirt-sleeves, crimson and perspiring
from the stifling kitchen.
"Ah, you here?" he said. "Good-morning, my dear boy. Have you
had dinner? Don't stand on ceremony. Have you had dinner?"
"Alexandr Daviditch," said Laevsky, standing up, "though I did
appeal to you to help me in a private matter, it did not follow
that I released you from the obligation of discretion and
respect for other people's private affairs."
"What's this?" asked Samoylenko, in astonishment.
"If you have no money," Laevsky went on, raising his voice and
shifting from one foot to the other in his excitement, "don't
give it; refuse it. But why spread abroad in every back street
that my position is hopeless, and all the rest of it? I can't
endure such benevolence and friend's assistance where there's a
shilling-worth of talk for a ha'p'orth of help! You can boast of
your benevolence as much as you please, but no one has given you
the right to gossip about my private affairs!"
"What private affairs?" asked Samoylenko, puzzled and beginning
to be angry. "If you've come here to be abusive, you had better
clear out. You can come again afterwards!"
He remembered the rule that when one is angry with one's
neighbour, one must begin to count a hundred, and one will grow
calm again; and he began rapidly counting.
"I beg you not to trouble yourself about me," Laevsky went on.
"Don't pay any attention to me, and whose business is it what I
do and how I live? Yes, I want to go away. Yes, I get into debt,
I drink, I am living with another man's wife, I'm hysterical,
I'm ordinary. I am not so profound as some people, but whose
business is that? Respect other people's privacy."
"Excuse me, brother," said Samoylenko, who had counted up to
thirty-five, "but . . ."
"Respect other people's individuality!" interrupted Laevsky.
"This continual gossip about other people's affairs, this
sighing and groaning and everlasting prying, this eavesdropping,
this friendly sympathy . . . damn it all! They lend me money and
make conditions as though I were a schoolboy! I am treated as
the devil knows what! I don't want anything," shouted Laevsky,
staggering with excitement and afraid that it might end in
another attack of hysterics. "I shan't get away on Saturday,
then," flashed through his mind. "I want nothing. All I ask of
you is to spare me your protecting care. I'm not a boy, and I'm
not mad, and I beg you to leave off looking after me."
The deacon came in, and seeing Laevsky pale and gesticulating,
addressing his strange speech to the portrait of Prince
Vorontsov, stood still by the door as though petrified.
"This continual prying into my soul," Laevsky went on, "is
insulting to my human dignity, and I beg these volunteer
detectives to give up their spying! Enough!"
"What's that . . . what did you say?" said Samoylenko, who had
counted up to a hundred. He turned crimson and went up to
Laevsky.
"It's enough," said Laevsky, breathing hard and snatching up his
cap.
"I'm a Russian doctor, a nobleman by birth, and a civil
councillor," said Samoylenko emphatically. "I've never been a
spy, and I allow no one to insult me!" he shouted in a breaking
voice, emphasising the last word. "Hold your tongue!"
The deacon, who had never seen the doctor so majestic, so
swelling with dignity, so crimson and so ferocious, shut his
mouth, ran out into the entry and there exploded with laughter.
As though through a fog, Laevsky saw Von Koren get up and,
putting his hands in his trouser-pockets, stand still in an
attitude of expectancy, as though waiting to see what would
happen. This calm attitude struck Laevsky as insolent and
insulting to the last degree.
"Kindly take back your words," shouted Samoylenko.
Laevsky, who did not by now remember what his words were,
answered:
"Leave me alone! I ask for nothing. All I ask is that you and
German upstarts of Jewish origin should let me alone! Or I shall
take steps to make you! I will fight you!"
"Now we understand," said Von Koren, coming from behind the
table. "Mr. Laevsky wants to amuse himself with a duel before he
goes away. I can give him that pleasure. Mr. Laevsky, I accept
your challenge."
"A challenge," said Laevsky, in a low voice, going up to the
zoologist and looking with hatred at his swarthy brow and curly
hair. "A challenge? By all means! I hate you! I hate you!"
"Delighted. To-morrow morning early near Kerbalay's. I leave all
details to your taste. And now, clear out!"
"I hate you," Laevsky said softly, breathing hard. "I have hated
you a long while! A duel! Yes!"
"Get rid of him, Alexandr Daviditch, or else I'm going," said
Von Koren. "He'll bite me."
Von Koren's cool tone calmed the doctor; he seemed suddenly to
come to himself, to recover his reason; he put both arms round
Laevsky's waist, and, leading him away from the zoologist,
muttered in a friendly voice that shook with emotion:
"My friends . . . dear, good . . . you've lost your tempers and
that's enough . . . and that's enough, my friends."
Hearing his soft, friendly voice, Laevsky felt that something
unheard of, monstrous, had just happened to him, as though he
had been nearly run over by a train; he almost burst into tears,
waved his hand, and ran out of the room.
"To feel that one is hated, to expose oneself before the man who
hates one, in the most pitiful, contemptible, helpless state. My
God, how hard it is!" he thought a little while afterwards as he
sat in the pavilion, feeling as though his body were scarred by
the hatred of which he had just been the object.
"How coarse it is, my God!"
Cold water with brandy in it revived him. He vividly pictured
Von Koren's calm, haughty face; his eyes the day before, his
shirt like a rug, his voice, his white hand; and heavy,
passionate, hungry hatred rankled in his breast and clamoured
for satisfaction. In his thoughts he felled Von Koren to the
ground, and trampled him underfoot. He remembered to the
minutest detail all that had happened, and wondered how he could
have smiled ingratiatingly to that insignificant man, and how he
could care for the opinion of wretched petty people whom nobody
knew, living in a miserable little town which was not, it
seemed, even on the map, and of which not one decent person in
Petersburg had heard. If this wretched little town suddenly fell
into ruins or caught fire, the telegram with the news would be
read in Russia with no more interest than an advertisement of
the sale of second-hand furniture. Whether he killed Von Koren
next day or left him alive, it would be just the same, equally
useless and uninteresting. Better to shoot him in the leg or
hand, wound him, then laugh at him, and let him, like an insect
with a broken leg lost in the grass -- let him be lost with his
obscure sufferings in the crowd of insignificant people like
himself.
Laevsky went to Sheshkovsky, told him all about it, and asked
him to be his second; then they both went to the superintendent
of the postal telegraph department, and asked him, too, to be a
second, and stayed to dinner with him. At dinner there was a
great deal of joking and laughing. Laevsky made jests at his own
expense, saying he hardly knew how to fire off a pistol, calling
himself a royal archer and William Tell.
"We must give this gentleman a lesson . . ." he said.
After dinner they sat down to cards. Laevsky played, drank wine,
and thought that duelling was stupid and senseless, as it did
not decide the question but only complicated it, but that it was
sometimes impossible to get on without it. In the given case,
for instance, one could not, of course, bring an action against
Von Koren. And this duel was so far good in that it made it
impossible for Laevsky to remain in the town afterwards. He got
a little drunk and interested in the game, and felt at ease.
But when the sun had set and it grew dark, he was possessed by a
feeling of uneasiness. It was not fear at the thought of death,
because while he was dining and playing cards, he had for some
reason a confident belief that the duel would end in nothing; it
was dread at the thought of something unknown which was to
happen next morning for the first time in his life, and dread of
the coming night. . . . He knew that the night would be long and
sleepless, and that he would have to think not only of Von Koren
and his hatred, but also of the mountain of lies which he had to
get through, and which he had not strength or ability to
dispense with. It was as though he had been taken suddenly ill;
all at once he lost all interest in the cards and in people,
grew restless, and began asking them to let him go home. He was
eager to get into bed, to lie without moving, and to prepare his
thoughts for the night. Sheshkovsky and the postal
superintendent saw him home and went on to Von Koren's to
arrange about the duel.
Near his lodgings Laevsky met Atchmianov. The young man was
breathless and excited.
"I am looking for you, Ivan Andreitch," he said. "I beg you to
come quickly. . . ."
"Where?"
"Some one wants to see you, some one you don't know, about very
important business; he earnestly begs you to come for a minute.
He wants to speak to you of something. . . . For him it's a
question of life and death. . . ." In his excitement Atchmianov
spoke in a strong Armenian accent.
"Who is it?" asked Laevsky.
"He asked me not to tell you his name."
"Tell him I'm busy; to-morrow, if he likes. . . ."
"How can you!" Atchmianov was aghast. "He wants to tell you
something very important for you . . . very important! If you
don't come, something dreadful will happen."
"Strange . . ." muttered Laevsky, unable to understand why
Atchmianov was so excited and what mysteries there could be in
this dull, useless little town.
"Strange," he repeated in hesitation. "Come along, though; I
don't care."
Atchmianov walked rapidly on ahead and Laevsky followed him.
They walked down a street, then turned into an alley.
"What a bore this is!" said Laevsky.
"One minute, one minute . . . it's near."
Near the old rampart they went down a narrow alley between two
empty enclosures, then they came into a sort of large yard and
went towards a small house.
"That's Muridov's, isn't it?" asked Laevsky.
"Yes."
"But why we've come by the back yards I don't understand. We
might have come by the street; it's nearer. . . ."
"Never mind, never mind. . . ."
It struck Laevsky as strange, too, that Atchmianov led him to a
back entrance, and motioned to him as though bidding him go
quietly and hold his tongue.
"This way, this way . . ." said Atchmianov, cautiously opening
the door and going into the passage on tiptoe. "Quietly,
quietly, I beg you . . . they may hear."
He listened, drew a deep breath and said in a whisper:
"Open that door, and go in . . . don't be afraid."
Laevsky, puzzled, opened the door and went into a room with a
low ceiling and curtained windows.
There was a candle on the table.
"What do you want?" asked some one in the next room. "Is it you,
Muridov?"
Laevsky turned into that room and saw Kirilin, and beside him
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna.
He didn't hear what was said to him; he staggered back, and did
not know how he found himself in the street. His hatred for Von
Koren and his uneasiness -- all had vanished from his soul. As
he went home he waved his right arm awkwardly and looked
carefully at the ground under his feet, trying to step where it
was smooth. At home in his study he walked backwards and
forwards, rubbing his hands, and awkwardly shrugging his
shoulders and neck, as though his jacket and shirt were too
tight; then he lighted a candle and sat down to the table. . . .
|
