The Duel

VII

Kirilin and Achmianov made their way up the mountain along a little path. Achmianov lingered and stopped, but Kirilin approached Nadezhda Fyodorovna.

“Good evening!” he said, touching the visor of his cap.

“Good evening.”

“Yes, milady!” Kirilin said, looking up at the sky and thinking.

“What do you mean—’Yes, milady’?” asked Nadezhda Fyodorovna, who was momentarily silent, noticing that Achmianov was observing them both.

“Well, what I mean is,” the officer spoke, slowly, “it seems that our love has withered before ever having blossomed, so to speak. This is what you expect me to understand? The coquetry was all from your side. It’s the way of your kind. Unless you consider me a vagrant, with whom you may act however you please.”

“It was all a mistake! Leave me alone!” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said harshly, on this brilliant evening full of wonder, looking at him with fear and asking herself in bewilderment: Could it be that in fact there was a moment when she had liked this man and he had been close to her?

“There you have it, then!” Kirilin said. He stood for a bit in silence, thought, then said: “Come, now. We can wait until you’re in a better mood, but in the meantime you can believe me when I say that I am a respectable man and I won’t allow anyone to question it. You cannot toy with me! Adieu!”

He touched the visor of his cap and walked off to the side, making his way through the bushes. After waiting a little while, Achmianov approached with uncertainty.

“This is a good evening!” he said with a subtle Armenian accent.

He wasn’t bad looking at all. Dressed according to the latest style, he carried himself without pretense, like a young man who’d received a seminary education, but Nadezhda Fyodorovna didn’t care for him because she owed his father three hundred rubles. It was unpleasant for her that a shopkeeper had been invited to the picnic, and it was also unpleasant that he had approached her on this particular evening, when her soul felt so pure.

“All in all, the picnic is a success,” he said, again falling silent.

“Yes,” she agreed, and, as though just remembering her debt at that very moment, carelessly said: “Yes, let them know, over at your store, that Ivan Andreich will come by in a day or so to pay the three hundred … or whatever the amount is.”

“I’m prepared to give you another three hundred if you would just stop reminding me of the debt every single day. What’s the point?”

Nadezhda Fyodorovna began to laugh. A funny thought had entered her mind, that if she were any less moral and, if she wished, then she could rid herself of the debt in a minute’s time. If, for instance, she were to turn the head of this attractive, young fool! How funny that would be in actuality, how absurd, how wild! And she suddenly wanted to love, fleece and leave him. Then see what would come of it all.

“Please allow me to give you one piece of advice,” Achmianov said timidly. “I’m asking you, guard yourself against Kirilin. He is saying horrible things about you wherever he goes.”

“I’m not interested in knowing what some fool is saying about me,” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said coldly, but she was seized by worry, and her funny idea about playing with the young, the sweet Achmianov had suddenly lost its luster.

“We have to go back down,” she said. “They’re calling us.”

Down below, the ukha was ready. It was being doled out in plates and eaten with the kind of ceremony that only occurs at picnics; and everyone found the ukha very tasty and that they’d never eaten anything nearly as tasty at home. As is the routine at all picnics the napkins were lost en masse, wrappings, discarded greasy papers crawled about in the wind, they didn’t know whose glass this was and whose bread that was, spilled wine on the rug and in their own laps, spilled salt, while the darkness encircled them and the fire no longer burned as brightly and every one of them felt too lazy to rise and add kindling to it. They were all drinking wine, even Kostya and Katya were given half a glass each. Nadezhda Fyodorovna drank a glass, then another, became a little bit intoxicated and forgot all about Kirilin.

“A luxurious picnic, a charming evening,” Laevsky said, chipper from the wine, “but I would still prefer a good winter to all of this. ‘Dusty frost sparkles silver on his beaver collar.’ ”

“Everyone to his own taste,” Von Koren observed.

Laevsky felt awkward. He felt the heat of the fire at his back, and Von Koren’s hatred at his chest and face. This respectable, intelligent man’s hatred likely harbored a sound cause. It humiliated him, weakened him, and he, not having enough strength to resist, said in a tone meant to curry favor:

“I love nature passionately and regret that I am not a naturalist. I envy you.”

“Well, I neither feel regret, nor do I envy you,” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said. “I don’t understand how anyone can seriously occupy their time with insects and bugs while people are suffering.”

Laevsky shared her opinion. He was totally unfamiliar with the natural sciences and could never sympathize with the authoritative and educated tone of people who thought profoundly about ant antennae and cockroach paws, and he was always annoyed that those people, on the basis of antennae, paws and some kind of proto-plasma (which he always imagined as an oyster), take it upon themselves to answer questions that factor into the origin and life of man. But he heard nothing but lies in the words of Nadezhda Fyodorovna, and, for no other reason than to contradict her, he said:

“The point is not the bugs, the point is research!”