The Duel

XIV

“Nonetheless, it’s time for me to play Vint … They’re expecting me,” Laevsky said. “Farewell, ladies and gentlemen.”

“And I’m with you, hold on,” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said, and took him by the arm.

They bid farewell to the company and were on their way. Kirilin also bid farewell and proceeded alongside them; he was going the same way, he said.

Whatever will be, will be …, Nadezhda Fyodorovna thought. Let it be …

It appeared to her that every bad remembrance had left her head and now walked through the darkness beside her and breathed heavily, as if she were a fly that had fallen into ink, crawled along the pavement using all its strength and sullied Laevsky’s side and arm with black. If Kirilin, she thought, did anything stupid, then the blame would lie not with him but with her alone. Indeed, there had been a time when not a single man would have spoken to her in such a manner as Kirilin, and she herself had sheared that time, as you would a thread, and had ruined it irrevocably—who could possibly be to blame here? Inebriated by her own desires, she’d begun smiling at this man who was a total stranger only because, apparently, he was stately and tall in height, then after two rendezvous he had bored her, and she had dumped him, and is this truly the reason—she thought now—that he had the right to behave however he liked with her?

“Here, my dove, is where I say goodbye to you,” Laevsky said, stopping. “Ilya Mikhailich will see you the rest of the way.”

He bowed to Kirilin and quickly walked across the boulevard, proceeding along the street to the home of Sheshkovsky, where the windows were aglow, and the sound of his clanking the gate followed.

“Allow me to explain myself to you,” Kirilin began, “I’m not a little boy, not some sort of Atchkasov or Latchkasov, Zatchkasov … I demand serious attention!”

Nadezhda Fyodorovna’s heart began to pound. She answered to nothing.

“I initially attributed the severe change in your attitude toward me to coquettishness,” Kirilin continued, “but now I see that you’re simply incapable of relating to decent people. You simply wanted to play with me, as you did with that Armenian boy, but I am a decent person and I demand that I be treated as a decent person. Thus, I am at your service …”

“I’ve melancholy …” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said, and began to cry, and turned away to hide her tears.

“I too have melancholy, but what is to be done about it?”

Kirilin was silent for a moment, then spoke precisely, with deliberateness:

“I’ll repeat myself, my good lady, that if you do not grant me a rendezvous today, then this very day I will start a scandal.”

“Release me this day,” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said, not recognizing her own voice, as it had become so extremely piteous and thin.

“I must teach you a lesson … Please forgive the vulgar tone, but it is imperative that you be taught a lesson. Yes, milady, unfortunately I must teach you a lesson. I demand two rendezvous: today and tomorrow. The day after tomorrow you are completely free and may go to the four corners of the earth with whomever it is you choose. Today and tomorrow.”

Nadezhda Fyodorovna had reached her own gate and stopped.

“Release me!” she whispered, her whole body shaking and seeing nothing before her in the darkness save for a white service jacket. “You are correct, I am a horrible woman … I am to blame, but release me … I’m asking you …” She reached out for his cold hand and shuddered … “I’m begging you …”

“Alas!” Kirilin drew a long breath. “Alas! It isn’t in my plans to release you, I only want to teach you a lesson, to make you understand, and by the way, madam, I have very little faith in women.”

“I’ve melancholy …”

Nadezhda Fyodorovna listened to the repetitive noise of the sea, looked up at the sky sprinkled with stars, and she had the desire to promptly end everything, and to be rid of the accursed sensation of life by this sea, these stars, these men, this fever …

“Only not in my home …” she said coldly. “Take me somewhere.”

“Let’s go to Muridov’s. That’ll be best.”

“Where is that?”

“By the old seawall.”

She quickly walked along the street and then turned in to the side street that led to the mountains. It was dark. Here and there along the pavement lay pale, luminous stripes from illuminated windows, and it seemed to her that she, like a fly, either found herself immersed in ink or crawled out of it into the light. Kirilin walked behind her. At one point, he stumbled, nearly fell over and burst out laughing.

He’s drunk …, thought Nadezhda Fyodorovna. Either way … either way … Let it be.

Achmianov also excused himself from the gathering in a hurry and followed the trail of Nadezhda Fyodorovna, so that he could invite her to go for a boat ride. Nearing her house, he peered through the small front garden: the windows were wide open, no flame shone.

“Nadezhda Fyodorovna!” he called out.

A minute passed. He called out again.

“Who’s there?” Olga’s voice was heard.

“Is Nadezhda Fyodorovna home?”

“She’s not here. She hasn’t returned yet.”

That’s strange … Very strange, Achmianov thought, beginning to feel a powerful unease. “She went home …”

He walked along the boulevard, then along the street and glanced in Sheshkovsky’s windows. Laevsky was sitting at the table without his frock coat and attentively gazed into his cards.

“Strange, strange …” muttered Achmianov, and faced with the recollection of the hysterics that had occurred with Laevsky, he became embarrassed. “If she’s not home, then where is she?”

He once again returned to Nadezhda Fyodorovna’s chambers and looked at the dark windows.

This is deceit, deceit …, he thought, remembering that she herself had met him at noon that day at Bityugov’s and had promised that they would take a boat ride together in the evening.

The windows of the house where Kirilin lived were dark, and at the gateway a policeman sat on a little bench and slept. Everything became clear to Achmianov when he looked at the windows and the policeman. He decided to go home, and went on his way, but again wound up near the chambers of Nadezhda Fyodorovna. He sat down on a little bench there and removed his hat, feeling that his head was aflame with jealousy and hurt.

The town church bells rung the time only twice in the twenty-four-hour cycle: at noon and at midnight. Right after they’d tolled midnight, hastened steps could be heard.

“This means once again tomorrow evening at Muridov’s!” Achmianov heard, and recognized Kirilin’s voice. “At eight o’clock. Goodbye, milady!”

Nadezhda Fyodorovna appeared near the little front garden. Not noticing that Achmianov sat on the bench, she passed him as a shadow, opened the little gate and, leaving it unlatched, entered her home. She lit a candle in her room, quickly undressed, but did not get into bed, instead got down on her knees before a chair, embraced it and pressed her forehead against it.

Laevsky returned home in the third hour.