The Duel

XIX

“It’s the first time in my life that I’ve seen this! How glorious!” Von Koren said, appearing in the clearing and stretching both arms to the east. “Look: green rays of light!”

To the east two green rays of light extended from the mountains, and this, in actuality, was lovely. The sun rose.

“Greetings!” the zoologist continued, nodding his head at Laevsky’s seconds. “I’m not late, am I?”

His own seconds walked behind him, two very young officers of identical height, Boyko and Govorovsky, in white service jackets, and the emaciated, misanthropic doctor Ustimovich, who carried something tied up in a knot in one hand, the other he kept behind his back; as was his habit, a cane stretched lengthwise along his back. Placing the knot down on the ground, and without a word of greeting to anyone, he put his other hand behind his back and began to stride about the clearing.

Laevsky felt the weariness and unease of a man who may soon be dead and so drew everyone’s attention. He very much wanted either to be killed quickly or to be taken home. He was watching the sunrise now for the first time in his life; this early morning, the green rays of light, the damp and the people in wet boots all seemed superfluous to his life, unnecessary and a hindrance to him; none of this had anything to do with the night he’d just survived, with his thoughts and his feelings of guilt, and this is why he would have gladly left, not bothering to wait for the duel.

Von Koren was noticeably excited and attempted to conceal it by giving the appearance that the green rays of light excited him more than anything else. The seconds were confused and exchanged looks, as though inquiring why they were there and what they were expected to do.

“I fancy, gentlemen, that we need not go any further,” Sheshkovsky said. “Here’s all right.”

“Yes, of course,” Von Koren agreed.

Silence set in. Ustimovich, taking full strides, all of a sudden turned abruptly to Laevsky and, breathing in his face, said in a low voice:

“There’s probably not been time for you to be advised of my terms. Each side pays me fifteen rubles; if one of the opponents should die the one left alive pays the entire thirty.”

Laevsky had been acquainted with this man earlier, but it was only just now that he distinctly saw his lackluster eyes, his coarse whiskers and emaciated, consumptive neck: he was a usurer and not a doctor! His breath had an unpleasant, beefy scent to it.

The world is filled with all sorts of people, thought Laevsky, and answered:

“Fine.”

The doctor nodded his head and again began to stride about, and it was evident that he wasn’t actually in need of money but sought it out of spite. Everyone felt that it was time to either begin or conclude that which had already commenced, but they neither began nor concluded, but walked about, stood about and smoked. The young officers, who were participating in a duel for the first time in their lives and had now come to have little faith in this pedestrian and, in their opinion, unnecessary duel, guarded their service coats attentively and smoothed their cuffs. Sheshkovsky approached them and quietly said:

“Gentlemen, we must utilize all our strength, so that the duel does not take place. We must reconcile them.”

He reddened and continued:

“Yesterday, Kirilin called on me to complain that Laevsky caught him last night with Nadezhda Fyodorovna, and some such nonsense.”

“Yes, we know about that too,” Boyko said.

“Well, now do you see … Laevsky’s hands are shaking, and some such nonsense … He won’t even be able to raise his pistol. Fighting with him is as unjust as fighting with a drunkard or a typhoid patient. If the reconciliation can’t happen, then, gentlemen, it’s necessary to at least delay the duel, isn’t it … This is such devilry, I just can’t look.”

“You should go talk to Von Koren.”

“I don’t know the rules of conduct for the duel, to hell with maintaining them, I have no desire to know what they are; but perhaps, he’ll think that Laevsky has chickened out and sent me. Oh, whatever, I don’t care what he thinks, I’ll go talk to him.”

Indecisively Sheshkovsky, limping lightly, certainly from pins and needles in a numb leg, went toward Von Koren, and, as he went along hemming and hawing, his whole being exuded lethargy.

“There’s something I must tell you, my good sir,” he began, carefully scrutinizing the flowers on the zoologist’s shirt. “This is confidential … I don’t know the rules of the duel, damn them all to the devil, and I don’t have any desire to know them and I’m not discussing this with you as a second, or some such nonsense, but as a man and that’s all.”

“Yes, and?”

“When seconds offer a reconciliation, they are typically ignored, and it’s viewed as a formality. Saving face and nothing more. But I ask you to humbly turn your attention to Ivan Andreich. He’s not his usual self today, so to speak, not in a normal frame of mind but pitiful. Something unfortunate has happened to him. Now, I’m not one to gossip,” Sheshkovsky reddened and looked around them, “but in light of the duel I find it necessary to tell you. Yesterday evening in the home of Muridov he found his madam with … another gentleman.”

“What filth!” the zoologist muttered; growing pale, he made a wry face and spat loudly: “Phew!”

His lower lip trembled; he backed away from Sheshkovsky, not wanting to hear anything more, and, as though he had tasted something bitter by accident, spat loudly once more and looked over at Laevsky for the first time that entire morning, with hatred. His excitement and awkwardness passed, he shook his head and loudly said:

“Gentlemen, what, may I inquire, are we waiting for? Why don’t we begin?”

Sheshkovsky looked over at the officers and shrugged his shoulders.

“Gentlemen!” he said loudly, addressing no one in particular. “Gentlemen! We propose a reconciliation!”

“Let’s be done with the formalities,” Von Koren said. “We’ve already spoken of reconciliation. What’s the next formality, then? Let’s get on with it, gentlemen, time waits for no man.”

“But we insist on a reconciliation,” Sheshkovsky said in a guilty voice, like a man compelled to interfere in the affairs of others; he reddened, placed his hand over his heart and continued: “Gentlemen, we do not see the connection between the insult and the duel. The insult itself, such that we occasionally inflict on one another out of human frailty, and the duel do not have anything in common. You are both university-educated and erudite people and, of course, you yourselves see the duel as obsolete, an empty formality and a tired cliché. That is how we see it too, otherwise we wouldn’t have come out here, we can’t just permit people to shoot at one another in our presence, and that’s that.” Sheshkovsky wiped the sweat from his face and continued: “Why not be done, gentlemen, with this misunderstanding, extend your hands to one another and let’s go home and toast the peace. Upon my honor, gentlemen!”

Von Koren was quiet. Laevsky, noticing, that everyone was looking at him, said:

“I have nothing against Nikolai Vasilievich. If he has found that I am at fault, then I am prepared to apologize before him.”

Von Koren took offense.

“It’s obvious, gentlemen,” he said, “that you would like to see Mr. Laevsky return home magnanimous and chivalrous, but I can grant neither you nor him the satisfaction. And there was no need to rise early and travel ten versts out of town only to toast the peace, eat a snack and explain to me that the duel is an antiquated formality. The duel is the duel, and it’s pointless to deem it any more foolish or inauthentic than it already is. I wish to fight!”

Silence set in. Officer Boyko retrieved two pistols from a case: handed one to Von Koren, the other to Laevsky. This was followed by confusion, which cheered up the zoologist and the seconds for a brief moment. It seemed that of all who were present not one of them had taken part in a duel once in their entire lives and no one knew for certain where to stand and what they were expected to say or do as seconds. But then Boyko remembered and, smiling, began to explain.

“Gentlemen, who remembers how it’s written in Lermontov?” Von Koren asked, laughing. “Didn’t Turgenev have Bazarov exchange shots with someone too …”

“What’s there to remember?” Ustimovich said impatiently, pausing. “Measure the distance—that’s all there is to it.”

And he took about three steps, as though demonstrating how to measure. Boyko counted steps as his companion unsheathed his saber and scratched the earth at the furthest ends to denote the barrier.

The opponents took their places in absolute silence.

“The moles,” recalled the deacon, sitting in the bushes.

Sheshkovsky was saying something, Boyko was again explaining something, but Laevsky didn’t hear them or, more likely, he heard them, but could not understand. When his time had come, he cocked the hammer and raised the heavy, cold barrel of the pistol. He had forgotten to unbutton his coat, and he felt tightly bound about his shoulder and beneath his armpit, and he raised his arm with such clumsiness, by the gesture it seemed as though his sleeve has been sewn to his coat. He recalled the hatred he had felt yesterday toward that swarthy face and woolly hair and thought that even yesterday, in a moment of intense hatred and wrath, he could not shoot another man. Concerned that the bullet may somehow unexpectedly hit Von Koren, he raised his pistol higher and higher and felt that this was too ostentatious a display of magnanimity and not at all magnanimous or delicate, but he did not know how to behave otherwise nor could he. Looking at the pale face of Von Koren smiling mockingly, which showed, it was obvious now, he had known from the very start that his opponent would shoot into the air, Laevsky thought that right now, by the grace of God, everything will be over and that he need only squeeze the trigger a bit tighter.

There was a powerful recoil to his shoulder, the shot rang out and the mountains replied with an echo: pakh–takh!

And Von Koren cocked his pistol and looked over to the side where Ustimovich was pacing as he had been earlier, his hands folded behind his back and paying attention to absolutely nothing.

“Doctor,” the zoologist said, “please be so kind as to not pace like a pendulum. You’re looming in my periphery.”

The doctor stopped. Von Koren began to take aim at Laevsky.

This is the end! Laevsky thought.

The barrel of the pistol was aimed straight at his face, the expression of hatred and contempt in the pose and the entire figure of Von Koren, and this murder that was about to be committed by a respectable person in broad daylight and in the presence of respectable people, and this quiet, and the inexplicable power that forced Laevsky to stand his ground, and to not run away—how mysterious this all was, and incomprehensible, and frightening! The time that it took for Von Koren to take aim seemed longer than the night had been to Laevsky. Pleadingly, he glanced over at the seconds; they did not stir and were pale.

Hurry up and shoot! Laevsky thought, and felt that his pale, quivering, pathetic face must arise feelings of even greater hatred in Von Koren.

I’m going to kill him now, Von Koren thought to himself, taking aim at the forehead and now sensing the trigger with his finger. Yes, of course, I’ll kill him …

“He’s going to kill him!” everyone heard a desperate cry from somewhere close by.

Instantly, a shot rang out. Seeing that Laevsky was still standing, and had not fallen, all looked over in the direction that the cry had come from, and saw the deacon. He was pale, his wet hair sticking to his forehead and cheeks, he was totally wet and dirty, standing on the far bank there in the corn, smiling somewhat strangely and waving his wet hat about. Sheshkovsky burst into laughter from joy, began to cry and walked off to the side …