A.P. Chekhov
- The Duel
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"It's the first time in my life I've seen it!
How glorious!" said Von Koren, pointing to the glade and
stretching out his hands to the east. "Look: green rays!"
In the east behind the mountains rose two green streaks of
light, and it really was beautiful. The sun was rising.
"Good-morning!" the zoologist went on, nodding to Laevsky's
seconds. "I'm not late, am I?"
He was followed by his seconds, Boyko and Govorovsky, two very
young officers of the same height, wearing white tunics, and
Ustimovitch, the thin, unsociable doctor; in one hand he had a
bag of some sort, and in the other hand, as usual, a cane which
he held behind him. Laying the bag on the ground and greeting no
one, he put the other hand, too, behind his back and began
pacing up and down the glade.
Laevsky felt the exhaustion and awkwardness of a man who is soon
perhaps to die, and is for that reason an object of general
attention. He wanted to be killed as soon as possible or taken
home. He saw the sunrise now for the first time in his life; the
early morning, the green rays of light, the dampness, and the
men in wet boots, seemed to him to have nothing to do with his
life, to be superfluous and embarrassing. All this had no
connection with the night he had been through, with his thoughts
and his feeling of guilt, and so he would have gladly gone away
without waiting for the duel.
Von Koren was noticeably excited and tried to conceal it,
pretending that he was more interested in the green light than
anything. The seconds were confused, and looked at one another
as though wondering why they were here and what they were to do.
"I imagine, gentlemen, there is no need for us to go further,"
said Sheshkovsky. "This place will do."
"Yes, of course," Von Koren agreed.
A silence followed. Ustimovitch, pacing to and fro, suddenly
turned sharply to Laevsky and said in a low voice, breathing
into his face:
"They have very likely not told you my terms yet. Each side is
to pay me fifteen roubles, and in the case of the death of one
party, the survivor is to pay thirty."
Laevsky was already acquainted with the man, but now for the
first time he had a distinct view of his lustreless eyes, his
stiff moustaches, and wasted, consumptive neck; he was a
money-grubber, not a doctor; his breath had an unpleasant smell
of beef.
"What people there are in the world!" thought Laevsky, and
answered: "Very good."
The doctor nodded and began pacing to and fro again, and it was
evident he did not need the money at all, but simply asked for
it from hatred. Every one felt it was time to begin, or to end
what had been begun, but instead of beginning or ending, they
stood about, moved to and fro and smoked. The young officers,
who were present at a duel for the first time in their lives,
and even now hardly believed in this civilian and, to their
thinking, unnecessary duel, looked critically at their tunics
and stroked their sleeves. Sheshkovsky went up to them and said
softly: "Gentlemen, we must use every effort to prevent this
duel; they ought to be reconciled."
He flushed crimson and added:
"Kirilin was at my rooms last night complaining that Laevsky had
found him with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and all that sort of
thing."
"Yes, we know that too," said Boyko.
"Well, you see, then . . . Laevsky's hands are trembling and all
that sort of thing . . . he can scarcely hold a pistol now. To
fight with him is as inhuman as to fight a man who is drunk or
who has typhoid. If a reconciliation cannot be arranged, we
ought to put off the duel, gentlemen, or something. . . . It's
such a sickening business, I can't bear to see it.
"Talk to Von Koren."
"I don't know the rules of duelling, damnation take them, and I
don't want to either; perhaps he'll imagine Laevsky funks it and
has sent me to him, but he can think what he likes -- I'll speak
to him."
Sheshkovsky hesitatingly walked up to Von Koren with a slight
limp, as though his leg had gone to sleep; and as he went
towards him, clearing his throat, his whole figure was a picture
of indolence.
"There's something I must say to you, sir," he began, carefully
scrutinising the flowers on the zoologist's shirt. "It's
confidential. I don't know the rules of duelling, damnation take
them, and I don't want to, and I look on the matter not as a
second and that sort of thing, but as a man, and that's all
about it."
"Yes. Well?"
"When seconds suggest reconciliation they are usually not
listened to; it is looked upon as a formality. Amour propre and
all that. But I humbly beg you to look carefully at Ivan
Andreitch. He's not in a normal state, so to speak, to-day --
not in his right mind, and a pitiable object. He has had a
misfortune. I can't endure gossip. . . ."
Sheshkovsky flushed crimson and looked round.
"But in view of the duel, I think it necessary to inform you,
Laevsky found his madam last night at Muridov's with . . .
another gentleman."
"How disgusting!" muttered the zoologist; he turned pale,
frowned, and spat loudly. "Tfoo!"
His lower lip quivered, he walked away from Sheshkovsky,
unwilling to hear more, and as though he had accidentally tasted
something bitter, spat loudly again, and for the first time that
morning looked with hatred at Laevsky. His excitement and
awkwardness passed off; he tossed his head and said aloud:
"Gentlemen, what are we waiting for, I should like to know? Why
don't we begin?"
Sheshkovsky glanced at the officers and shrugged his shoulders.
"Gentlemen," he said aloud, addressing no one in particular.
"Gentlemen, we propose that you should be reconciled."
"Let us make haste and get the formalities over," said Von Koren.
"Reconciliation has been discussed already. What is the next
formality? Make haste, gentlemen, time won't wait for us."
"But we insist on reconciliation all the same," said Sheshkovsky
in a guilty voice, as a man compelled to interfere in another
man's business; he flushed, laid his hand on his heart, and went
on: "Gentlemen, we see no grounds for associating the offence
with the duel. There's nothing in common between duelling and
offences against one another of which we are sometimes guilty
through human weakness. You are university men and men of
culture, and no doubt you see in the duel nothing but a foolish
and out-of-date formality, and all that sort of thing. That's
how we look at it ourselves, or we shouldn't have come, for we
cannot allow that in our presence men should fire at one
another, and all that." Sheshkovsky wiped the perspiration off
his face and went on: "Make an end to your misunderstanding,
gentlemen; shake hands, and let us go home and drink to peace.
Upon my honour, gentlemen!"
Von Koren did not speak. Laevsky, seeing that they were looking
at him, said:
"I have nothing against Nikolay Vassilitch; if he considers I'm
to blame, I'm ready to apologise to him."
Von Koren was offended.
"It is evident, gentlemen," he said, "you want Mr. Laevsky to
return home a magnanimous and chivalrous figure, but I cannot
give you and him that satisfaction. And there was no need to get
up early and drive eight miles out of town simply to drink to
peace, to have breakfast, and to explain to me that the duel is
an out-of-date formality. A duel is a duel, and there is no need
to make it more false and stupid than it is in reality. I want
to fight!"
A silence followed. Boyko took a pair of pistols out of a box;
one was given to Von Koren and one to Laevsky, and then there
followed a difficulty which afforded a brief amusement to the
zoologist and the seconds. It appeared that of all the people
present not one had ever in his life been at a duel, and no one
knew precisely how they ought to stand, and what the seconds
ought to say and do. But then Boyko remembered and began, with a
smile, to explain.
"Gentlemen, who remembers the description in Lermontov?" asked
Von Koren, laughing. "In Turgenev, too, Bazarov had a duel with
some one. . . ."
"There's no need to remember," said Ustimovitch impatiently.
"Measure the distance, that's all."
And he took three steps as though to show how to measure it.
Boyko counted out the steps while his companion drew his sabre
and scratched the earth at the extreme points to mark the
barrier. In complete silence the opponents took their places.
"Moles," the deacon thought, sitting in the bushes.
Sheshkovsky said something, Boyko explained something again, but
Laevsky did not hear -- or rather heard, but did not understand.
He cocked his pistol when the time came to do so, and raised the
cold, heavy weapon with the barrel upwards. He forgot to
unbutton his overcoat, and it felt very tight over his shoulder
and under his arm, and his arm rose as awkwardly as though the
sleeve had been cut out of tin. He remembered the hatred he had
felt the night before for the swarthy brow and curly hair, and
felt that even yesterday at the moment of intense hatred and
anger he could not have shot a man. Fearing that the bullet
might somehow hit Von Koren by accident, he raised the pistol
higher and higher, and felt that this too obvious magnanimity
was indelicate and anything but magnanimous, but he did not know
how else to do and could do nothing else. Looking at the pale,
ironically smiling face of Von Koren, who evidently had been
convinced from the beginning that his opponent would fire in the
air, Laevsky thought that, thank God, everything would be over
directly, and all that he had to do was to press the trigger
rather hard. . . .
He felt a violent shock on the shoulder; there was the sound of
a shot and an answering echo in the mountains: ping-ting!
Von Koren cocked his pistol and looked at Ustimovitch, who was
pacing as before with his hands behind his back, taking no
notice of any one.
"Doctor," said the zoologist, "be so good as not to move to and
fro like a pendulum. You make me dizzy."
The doctor stood still. Von Koren began to take aim at Laevsky.
"It's all over!" thought Laevsky.
The barrel of the pistol aimed straight at his face, the
expression of hatred and contempt in Von Koren's attitude and
whole figure, and the murder just about to be committed by a
decent man in broad daylight, in the presence of decent men, and
the stillness and the unknown force that compelled Laevsky to
stand still and not to run -- how mysterious it all was, how
incomprehensible and terrible!
The moment while Von Koren was taking aim seemed to Laevsky
longer than a night: he glanced imploringly at the seconds; they
were pale and did not stir.
"Make haste and fire," thought Laevsky, and felt that his pale,
quivering, and pitiful face must arouse even greater hatred in
Von Koren.
"I'll kill him directly," thought Von Koren, aiming at his
forehead, with his finger already on the catch. "Yes, of course
I'll kill him."
"He'll kill him!" A despairing shout was suddenly heard
somewhere very close at hand.
A shot rang out at once. Seeing that Laevsky remained standing
where he was and did not fall, they all looked in the direction
from which the shout had come, and saw the deacon. With pale
face and wet hair sticking to his forehead and his cheeks, wet
through and muddy, he was standing in the maize on the further
bank, smiling rather queerly and waving his wet hat. Sheshkovsky
laughed with joy, burst into tears, and moved away. . . .
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