The Duel

XI

“You look as though you’re coming to arrest me,” Von Koren said, seeing the approaching Samoylenko in formal uniform.

“I was just walking past and thought to myself: Why not go in, I’ll pay a call on zoology,” Samoylenko said, sitting down at a large table that had been cobbled together by the zoologist himself from common boards. “Hello, holy father!” he nodded to the deacon, who was sitting at the window transcribing something. “I’ll stay a moment then run home to arrange dinner. It’s about that time … I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

“Not in the least,” the zoologist answered, arranging small pieces of paper with particular notations out on the table. “We’re occupying ourselves with transcription.”

“Well, there you have it … Oh, my God, my God …” sighed Samoylenko; he carefully removed a dust-covered book from the table, on which a dead dehydrated arachnid lay, and said: “And yet! To think, some little green beetle is going about its business when suddenly it encounters this pariah in the road. I can only imagine the horror!”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“Is it venomous, as a form of defense against enemies?”

“Yes, as a form of defense and also to allow for attack.”

“Well, well, well … And so everything in nature, my good men, is intentional and explicable,” sighed Samoylenko. “Only here’s what I don’t understand. Won’t you, as a man of superior intellect, please explain it to me? You know, there are little beasts, not much larger than rats, that are attractive to the eye, but in the overall scheme of things, I’ll tell you, they are base and wicked. Such a beast goes about his business, let’s say through a forest, he sees a little bird, he catches it and eats it. He goes a little further and sees a nest in the grass with eggs; he’s already gobbled down his fill, he’s satiated, but he’ll bite into the egg anyway, the rest he’ll knock out of the nest with his paw. Then he encounters a frog and toys with it. Having finished tormenting the frog he continues on licking his chops, then he meets a beetle. The beetle gets the paw … And so he spoils and ruins everything along his path … He climbs into strangers’ dens … He tears anthills apart for no good reason, he’ll bite into a snail … If he encounters a rat—he’ll fight it; if he sees a snake or a little mouse—he’ll have to suffocate it. The whole day is spent like this. Well, tell me, what use is this beast? Why was it created?”

“I don’t know what beast you’re referring to,” Von Koren said, “most likely some type of insectivore. Well, let’s see. He caught the bird, because it wasn’t careful; he ruined the nest that contained the eggs, because the bird failed and had constructed the nest stupidly and didn’t conceal it successfully. The frog, most likely, had some sort of defect in its coloration, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to see it, and so on. Your beast only pulverizes the weak, the hapless, the careless; in a word, those who are lacking, those that nature does not see fit to pass down through posterity. The cunning, the careful, the strong and the cultivated are left among the living. In this manner, your little beast is serving the greater good of progress without realizing it.”

“Yes, yes, yes … By the way, brother,” Samoylenko said in an overly casual way, “give me a hundred rubles on loan.”

“Very well. You can find some very interesting subjects among the insectivores. The mole, for instance. They say that he is beneficial, seeing as how he exterminates harmful insects. There’s a story that some German sent Emperor Wilhelm I a fur coat made of mole hides and that the Emperor ordered he be reprimanded for having destroyed such a useful animal in such great number. By the way, the savagery of the mole does not capitulate in the least to that of your little beast and he is quite malevolent as well, he ruins meadows frightfully.”

Von Koren unlocked a wooden box and retrieved a hundred-ruble note from it.

“The mole has a very strong rib cage, like the bat,” he continued, locking the wooden box, “frightfully evolved bones and muscles, uncommonly armored jaws. If he were the size of an elephant, he would be an all-powerful, invincible animal. Interestingly, when two moles encounter one another belowground, they both, in absolute unison, begin to burrow a tract; they need the tract so that it will be easier for them to do battle. Having completed it, they enter into brutal combat and fight until the weaker opponent has fallen. Go on, take the hundred rubles,” Von Koren said, lowering his voice, “but on the condition that you’re not taking it for Laevsky.”

“And what if it is for Laevsky!” Samoylenko flared up. “What business is it of yours?”

“I can’t give if it’s for Laevsky. I know that you love to loan out money. You’d loan to Karim the thief if he asked you, but, you’ll pardon me, I can’t help you go down this road you’ve chosen.”

“Yes, I’m asking for Laevsky!” Samoylenko said, standing and flailing his right arm. “Yes! For Laevsky! And no damned beast, nor devil, has the right to instruct me on how to handle my own money. Are you not inclined to give it to me? No?”

The Deacon burst out laughing.

“Don’t get all worked up over it, but use your reason,” the zoologist said. “To be charitable to Mr. Laevsky is as stupid, in my opinion, as watering weeds or feeding locust.”

“Well, in my opinion, we are obligated to help those near and dear to us!” cried Samoylenko.

“If that’s the case, then help that hungry Turk, who lies about beneath the palisade! He’s a worker, and more necessary, more of use than your Laevsky. Why don’t you give him the hundred rubles! Or donate one hundred rubles to me for the expedition!”

“Will you give it to me, or not? I’m asking you?”

“Tell me in all honesty, what does he need the money for?”

“It’s no secret. He needs to leave for Petersburg Saturday.”

“So that’s how it is!” Von Koren said in a protracted manner. “Aha … We understand. And is she going with him, or what?”

“She’ll remain here for now. He’ll settle his affairs in Petersburg and will send her money, and then she’ll follow.”

“That’s clever! …” the zoologist said, and began laughing curt tenor chuckles. “Clever! It’s intelligently devised.”

He briskly approached Samoylenko and, standing face-to-face, glaring into his eyes, asked:

“You tell me in all honesty: has he fallen out of love with her? Yes? Tell me: he’s fallen out of love? Yes?”

“Yes,” Samoylenko uttered, and began to sweat.

“How disgusting this is!” Von Koren said, and it was evident by his face that he felt disgust. “It can only be one of two things, Alexander Davidich: either you’re negotiating some agreement with him or, pardon me, you’re a nincompoop. Do you really not understand that he is taking advantage of you, as you would a little boy, in the most unscrupulous way possible? It’s as clear as day that he wants to get rid of her and to dump her here. She’ll be left hanging off your neck, and it’s clear as day that you’ll have to send her off to Petersburg at your own expense. Could it really be that your magnificent friend has blinded you with his merits to the point that you are unable to see the very simplest of things?”

“That’s just one hypothesis,” Samoylenko said, sitting down.

“Hypothesis? Then why is he going alone, and not together with her? And why, ask him, doesn’t she go ahead and he follow? Crafty devil!”

From the pressure of unexpected doubts and apprehensions regarding his friend, Samoylenko suddenly relented and lowered his tone.

“But it’s impossible!” he said, remembering the night Laevsky had stayed overnight with him. “He is suffering so much!”

“What of it? Thieves and arsonists suffer too!”

“Let’s just say that you’re right …” Samoylenko said, absorbed in thought. “Let’s say … But he’s a young man, on foreign shores … a student, we too were students, and besides us there is no one here to lend him a hand.”

“To help him do odious things only because you and he were at university, at different times, and neither of you managed to get anything done there? What rubbish!”

“Hold it, let’s cool our blood and sort this out. I propose that it’s possible to set things up this way …” Samoylenko pondered, his fingers stirring. “You understand I will give him the money, but I will take from him his honest, noble word that in a week’s time he will send Nadezhda Fyodorovna money for the road.”

“And he’ll give you his honest word, he’ll even get teary-eyed and believe in it himself, but what is the value of his word? He won’t stand by it, and when in a year or two you run into him on Nevsky, arm in arm with a new lover, he will vindicate himself by saying that he’s been crippled by civilization and that he’s a chip off of Rudin^*. Will you drop him, for God’s sake! Step away from the dirt and stopping digging in it with both hands!”

Samoylenko thought for a moment and then decisively said:

“Well, I’m still going to give him money. You do as you please. My stance is not to refuse a man on the basis of mere hypothesis alone.”

“That’s superb. Kiss him goodbye.”

“Well, then, give me the hundred rubles,” Samoylenko asked bashfully.

“I won’t.”

Silence set in. Samoylenko had totally weakened: his face took on a guilty, chastened expression seeking to curry favor, and it was somewhat strange to see this pitiful face of childlike befuddlement on an enormous man with epaulets and orders.

“In this region, His Eminence tours the diocese not in a carriage, but on horseback,” said the deacon, putting down his pen. “The sight of him riding on horseback is extraordinarily moving. His simplicity and modesty embody the grandeur of the Bible.”

“Is he a good man?” Von Koren asked, happy to change the subject.

“How could it be otherwise? If he were not a good man, would he have been appointed bishop?”

“One encounters many good and gifted men among the bishops,” said Von Koren. “It’s just unfortunate that so many of them have a weakness—they imagine themselves to be statesmen. One occupies himself with spreading Russification, another criticizes the sciences. That’s none of their business. They’d be better off looking in on the consistory more often.”

“A secular man cannot judge the bishops.”

“Why not, Deacon? A bishop is a man, just the same as I am.”

“The same but not the same,” the deacon said, taking offense, picking up his pen. “If it were the case that you’re the same, then grace would have been bestowed upon you and you would be a bishop yourself, but since it’s the case that you’re not a bishop then, it means you’re not the same.”

“Don’t you start, Deacon!” Samoylenko said with melancholy. “Listen, here’s what I’ve thought up,” turning his attention to Von Koren. “Do not give me the hundred rubles. You’re still going to eat at my table d’hote for the next three months until the winter, so why don’t you just pay me in advance for those three months.”

“I won’t.”

Samoylenko blinked his eyes and flushed crimson; mechanically he drew the book with the fanalgae on it to himself and looked at it, then rose to retrieve his hat. Von Koren began to pity him.

“Fine, if that’s the kind of gentleman you deign to have in your life and conduct business with!” said the zoologist, and in indignation kicked some piece of paper into the corner. “Just understand that this is not kindness, nor love, but cowardice, a lack of discipline, poison! What the intellect creates, your flaccid, good-for-nothing heart destroys! When I was ill with typhoid as a schoolboy, my auntie glutted me with marinated mushrooms out of compassion and I nearly died. Understand, right along with my auntie, that love for a person must be situated not in the heart, not at the end of a spoon and not in the loins, but right here!”

Von Koren smacked himself on the forehead.

“Take it!” he said, and threw the hundred-ruble note.

“There’s nothing for you to be angry about, Kolya,” Samoylenko meekly said, folding the note. “I understand you perfectly, but … try to put yourself in my predicament.”

“Woman, you’re old, how’s that!”

The deacon burst out laughing.

“Listen, Alexander Davidich, to a final request!” Von Koren hotly said. “When you give that scoundrel the money, attach a condition: have him leave with his mistress or have him send her on ahead, otherwise don’t give it to him. Don’t stand on ceremony with him. Tell him, just like that, and if you don’t tell him, then I give you my honest word, I’ll go to his office myself and throw him down the stairs, and I won’t associate with you any longer. Know this!”

“What? If he leaves with her or sends her ahead, it’ll be more convenient for him,” Samoylenko said. “He’ll even be happy. Come now, bid me farewell!”

He demonstratively bid farewell and exited, but, before closing the door behind him, he looked back at Von Koren, made a dreadful face and said:

“Brother, it’s the Germans that ruined you! Yes! The Germans!”

* The “superfluous man” who is the title character of Turgenev’s first novel.