The Duel

Von Koren, Superman

Von Koren thins the herd

“I don’t understand, Kolya, what it is that you hope to gain from him,” said Samoylenko, no longer looking at the zoologist in anger but guiltily. “He’s the same kind of man, as everyone else. Of course, he’s not without his weaknesses, but he’s abreast of contemporary thought, he serves, benefits his motherland. Ten years ago, there was a little old envoy stationed here with us, a person of superior intellect. Here’s what he used to say …”

“Enough, enough!” the zoologist interrupted. “You say he serves. Well how does he serve? As a result of his appearance here, have things started running more smoothly or has the efficiency, integrity and politeness among functionaries improved? It’s just the opposite, with the authority of an intelligent, university educated man he has only sanctioned their libertine behavior. There are times when he’s industrious, such as the twentieth of the month when he receives his salary, every other day he drags his shoes around the house and tries his best to impart onto himself the illusion that he’s doing the Russian government a tremendous favor by living in the Caucasus. No, Alexander Davidich, don’t stand up for him. You have not been earnest from beginning to end. If you really did love him and considered him a close friend, there would be no way that you could be so apathetic about his weaknesses, you wouldn’t kowtow to them, you would try to neutralize him for his own good.”

“What’s that?”

“Neutralize him. But since he is incorrigible, there’s only one way of neutralizing him …”

Von Koren drew a finger across his throat.

“Or we can drown him, perhaps.” he continued. “For the good of all mankind and in their own respective interests, such people must be annihilated. It’s necessary.”

“What are you saying?!” muttered Samoylenko, rising and casting his shocked expression on the calm, cold face of the zoologist. “Deacon, what is he saying? Are you out of your mind?”

“I don’t stand firm on capital punishment.” Von Koren said. “If it’s been proven to be harmful, then come up with something else. Since we can’t annihilate Laevsky, then let’s quarantine him, disenfranchise him, send him to hard labor …”

“What are you saying?” Samoylenko recoiled. “With pepper, with pepper!” he shouted in a desperate voice noticing that the Deacon was eating stuffed squash without pepper. “You’re a man of superior intellect, what are you saying?! You want to give our friend, a proud, intelligent man, over to hard labor?!”

“If he’s proud, then he’ll resist—they’ll have to shackle him!”

Samoylenko could not say a single word, all he could do was fidget his fingers, the Deacon took one look at his dumbfounded and in all actuality, funny face and burst into laughter.

“We can stop talking about this,” the zoologist said. “But remember one thing, Alexander Davidich, primitive mankind was protected from the likes of Laevsky by the battle for survival and natural selection; now our culture has significantly weakened the battle and natural selection and we ourselves must take on the responsibility of annihilating the weak and the worthless, or else, when Laevsky reproduces, civilization will collapse, and mankind will completely deteriorate. We will be to blame.”

“If it is people who are doing the drowning and the hanging,” Samoylenko said, “then to hell with your civilization, to hell with mankind! To hell with it! Here’s what I’d like to say to you: you are well-educated, a man of superior intellect and the pride of your motherland, but the Germans ruined you. Yes, the Germans! The Germans!

Ever since he’d left Dorpat¹ where he was educated in medicine Samoylenko rarely saw Germans, nor had he read a single German book but in his opinion, all the vice in politics and science transpired as a result of the Germans. He, himself, couldn’t explain where he’d gotten this idea from, but he held onto it dearly.

“Yes, the Germans!” he repeated one more time. “Let’s go have tea.”

—from The Duel by Anton Chekhov. Von Koren’s philosophy of Social Darwinism and his belief that man is weakened by a naïve, coddling society, clash violently with Laevsky’s lazy egoism. Laevsky and Von Koren trade slanders via their proxy Samoylenko. Their words serve as an accelerant to their mutual dislike, creating a parallel duel to the one they actually fight.

The Survival of The Fittest

Yet a further origin of moral dictates is to be recognized as having arisen simultaneously. Habits of conformity to rules of conduct have generated sentiments adjusted to such rules. The discipline of social life has produced in men conceptions and emotions which, irrespective of supposed divine commands, and irrespective of observed consequences, issue in certain degrees of liking for conduct favouring social welfare and aversion to conduct at variance with it. Manifestly such a moulding of human nature has been furthered by survival of the fittest; since groups of men having feelings least adapted to social requirements must, other things equal, have tended to disappear before groups of men having feelings most adapted to them.

The effects of moral sentiments thus arising are shown among races partially civilized. Cook says:—

The Otaheitans “have a knowledge of right and wrong from the mere dictates of natural conscience; and involuntarily condemn themselves when they do that to others, which they would condemn others for doing to them.”

So too that moral sentiments were influential during early stages of some civilized races, proof is yielded by ancient Indian books. In the Mahabharata, Draupadi complains of the hard lot of her righteous husband, and charges the Deity with injustice; but is answered by Yudishthira:—

“Thou utterest infidel sentiments. I do not act from a desire to gain the recompense of my works. I give what I ought to give … Whether reward accrues to me or not, I do to the best of my power what a man should do.… It is on duty alone that my thoughts are fixed, and this, too, naturally. The man who seeks to make of righteousness a gainful merchandise, is low. The man who seeks to milk righteousness does not obtain its reward.… Do not doubt about righteousness he who does so is on the way to be a born brute.”

And similarly, in another of these ancient books, the Ramayana, we read:—

“Virtue is a service man owes himself, and though there were no Heaven, nor any God to rule the world, it were not less the binding law of life. It is man’s privilege to know the Right and follow it.”

In like manner, according to Edkins, conscience is regarded among the Chinese as the supreme authority. He says:—

“When the evidence of a new religion is presented to them they at once refer it to a moral standard, and give their approval with the utmost readiness, if it passes the test. They do not ask whether it is Divine, but whether it is good.”

And elsewhere he remarks that sin, according to the Confucian moral standard, “becomes an act which robs a man of his self-respect, and offends his sense of right,” and is not regarded as a transgression of God’s law.”

Of modern writers who, asserting the existence of a moral sense, consider the intuitions it yields as guides to conduct, we may distinguish two classes. There are those who, taking a view like that of Confucius just indicated, hold that the dicta of conscience are authoritative, irrespective of alleged divine commands; and, indeed, furnish a test by which commands may be known as not divine if they do not withstand it. On the other hand there are those who regard the authority of conscience as second to that of commands which they accept as divine, and as having for its function to prompt obedience to such commands. But the two are at one in so far as they place the dicta of conscience above considerations of expediency; and also in so far as they tacitly regard conscience as having a supernatural origin. To which add that while alike in recognizing the moral sentiment as innate, and in accepting the ordinary dogma that human nature is everywhere the same, they are, by implication, alike in supposing that the moral sentiment is identical in all men.

But, as the beginning of this section shows, it is possible to agree with moralists of the intuitive school respecting the existence of a moral sense, while differing from them respecting its origin. I have contended in the foregoing division of this work, and elsewhere, that though there exist feelings of the kind alleged, they are not of supernatural origin but of natural origin; that, being generated by the discipline of the social activities, internal and external, they are not alike in all men, but differ more or less everywhere in proportion as the social activities differ; and that, in virtue of their mode of genesis, they have a co-ordinate authority with the inductions of utility.

Before going further it will be well to sum up these various detailed statements, changing somewhat the order and point of view.

Survival of the fittest insures that the faculties of every species of creature tend to adapt themselves to its mode of life. It must be so with man. From the earliest times groups of men whose feelings and conceptions were congruous with the conditions they lived under, must, other things equal, have spread and replaced those whose feelings and conceptions were incongruous with their conditions.

—from The Principles Of Ethics by Herbert Spencer. Spencer (1829–1903) was an English philosopher, biologist and seminal figure in sociology. He was heavily influenced by the work of Charles Darwin. Herbert Spencer is credited with coining the expression, “the survival of the fittest” and whether intentional or not, Spencer is considered the founder of the line of thought known as Social-Darwinism. Spencer’s theories were influential in the late 19^th century through the early 20^th century.

Give them an inch …

“There go the macaques for you …” Von Koren began, wrapping himself up in his raincoat and closing his eyes. “Did you hear, she doesn’t want to study insects and bugs because people are suffering. That’s how we brothers are judged by all macaques. A race of slaves, cunning, taught fear by ten generations of the lash and the fist. It trembles, is adoring and burns incense only in the face of violence, but you release a macaque into open territory where there is no one to grab it by the scruff of its neck, that’s where it unfurls and makes a name for itself. Just look at the audacity she displays at art exhibitions, in the museums, in the theatres or drawing conclusions about science: she bristles, rears, argues, criticizes … And will criticize without fail—it’s a slavish trait! You heed what I say: people belonging to the liberal professions are berated more often than swindlers—that’s because three quarters of society are made up of slaves, of these very same macaques. It’s unheard of for a slave to extend his hand and to say in all sincerity thank you, for the work that you do.”

“I don’t know what you want!” Samoylenko said, yawning. “In her naiveté, the poor little thing just wanted to chat with you about intelligent matters, but you pass judgment. You’re angry at him for some reason, and with her by association. And she’s an excellent woman!”

“Hey, enough already! She’s a typical kept woman, debauched and crass. Listen to me, Alexander Davidich, if you encounter a simple broad, one who’s not living with her husband, who does nothing except hee-hees, agrees, and haa-haas, you’d tell her: get to work. Why are you being so timid about this, afraid of speaking the truth? It’s only that Nadezhda Fyodorovna is kept not by some sailor, but by a functionary.”

Samoylenko grew angry, “What would you have me do? Would you have me beat her?”

“Don’t pander to her vices. We curse vice only when it is out of sight, but that’s just flipping it the bird without removing your hand from your pocket. I am a zoologist, or a sociologist, they’re one and the same, you—you’re a doctor. Society trusts in us. We are obligated to point out that frightful detriment that menaces it and future generations to come, the likes of ladies like Nadezhda Ivanovna.”

“Fyodorovna,” Samoylenko corrected. “And what is society to do about this?”

“Do? That’s society’s business. In my opinion, the most direct and reliable path is force. Manu militari², she should be sent back to her husband, and if her husband won’t have her, then give her over to hard labor or some sort of correctional facility.”

“Oofff!” Samoylenko sighed. He was silent, then inquired quietly: “Some days ago you spoke of how those kinds of people, like Laevsky, must be annihilated … Tell me, if it were the case … for argument’s sake, that government or society entrusted you with the task of annihilating him, would you then … resolve the matter?”

“My hand would be steady.”

—from The Duel by Anton Chekhov.

The Savagery of The Unfurled Macaque

The slave-revolt in morality begins by resentment itself becoming creative and giving birth to values—the resentment of such beings, as real reaction, the reaction of deeds, is impossible to, and as nothing but an imaginary vengeance will serve to indemnify. Whereas, on the one hand, all noble morality takes its rise from a triumphant Yea-saying to one’s self, slave-morality will, on the other hand, from the very beginning, say No to something “exterior,” “different,” “not-self;” this No being its creative deed. This reversion of the value-positing eye—this necessary glance outwards instead of backwards upon itself—is part of resentment. Slave-morality, in order to arise, needs in the first place, an opposite and outer world; it needs, physiologically speaking, external irritants, in order to act at all;—its action is, throughout, reaction. The reverse is true in the case of noble valuation. It acts and grows spontaneously. It only seeks for its antithesis in order to say, still more thankfully, still more rejoicing, Yea to itself. Its negative concept “low,” “mean,” “bad,” is merely a late-born and pale afterimage in comparison with the positive fundamental concept of the noble valuation which is thoroughly saturated with the life and passion and says: “We, the noble, we, the good, we, the fair, we, the happy!” If the noble manner of valuation mistakes in, and sins against reality, this happens in respect to the sphere, which is not sufficiently known to it,—the true knowledge of which, in fact, it stubbornly opposes. Under certain circumstances it will mistake the sphere it despises, the sphere of the common man, of the lower people. On the other hand, one should observe, that in any case the emotion of contempt, of looking down upon, of looking superior (supposing even that the picture of the despised be falsified by it), will remain far behind the falsification, with which suppressed hatred, the revenge of the impotent, will—of course in effigy—maltreat its opponent.

—from The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). At the time of Chekhov’s publication of The Duel, Nietzsche’s writings were in vogue all over Europe and Russia. This popularity was due in part to the proliferation of disparate editions and interpretations of his philosophy. The bombastic character of Von Koren draws heavily on this popular wave of interest.

1 German for Tartu, Estonia.

2 By military aid.