The Duel, Anton Chekhov [most interesting books to read TXT] 📗

the rain. The deacon walked cautiously over the narrow bridge, which by now was reached by the topmost crests of the dirty water, and went up through the little copse to the drying-shed.

“A splendid head,” he thought, stretching himself on the straw, and thinking of Von Koren. “A fine head⁠—God grant him health; only there is cruelty in him.⁠ ⁠…”

Why did he hate Laevsky and Laevsky hate him? Why were they going to fight a duel? If from their childhood they had known poverty as the deacon had; if they had been brought up among ignorant, hardhearted, grasping, coarse and ill-mannered people who grudged you a crust of bread, who spat on the floor and hiccuped at dinner and at prayers; if they had not been spoilt from childhood by the pleasant surroundings and the select circle of friends they lived in⁠—how they would have rushed at each other, how readily they would have overlooked each other’s shortcomings and would have prized each other’s strong points! Why, how few even outwardly decent people there were in the world! It was true that Laevsky was flighty, dissipated, queer, but he did not steal, did not spit loudly on the floor; he did not abuse his wife and say, “You’ll eat till you burst, but you don’t want to work;” he would not beat a child with reins, or give his servants stinking meat to eat⁠—surely this was reason enough to be indulgent to him? Besides, he was the chief sufferer from his failings, like a sick man from his sores. Instead of being led by boredom and some sort of misunderstanding to look for degeneracy, extinction, heredity, and other such incomprehensible things in each other, would they not do better to stoop a little lower and turn their hatred and anger where whole streets resounded with moanings from coarse ignorance, greed, scolding, impurity, swearing, the shrieks of women.⁠ ⁠…

The sound of a carriage interrupted the deacon’s thoughts. He glanced out of the door and saw a carriage and in it three persons: Laevsky, Sheshkovsky, and the superintendent of the post-office.

“Stop!” said Sheshkovsky.

All three got out of the carriage and looked at one another.

“They are not here yet,” said Sheshkovsky, shaking the mud off. “Well? Till the show begins, let us go and find a suitable spot; there’s not room to turn round here.”

They went further up the river and soon vanished from sight. The Tatar driver sat in the carriage with his head resting on his shoulder and fell asleep. After waiting ten minutes the deacon came out of the drying-shed, and taking off his black hat that he might not be noticed, he began threading his way among the bushes and strips of maize along the bank, crouching and looking about him. The grass and maize were wet, and big drops fell on his head from the trees and bushes. “Disgraceful!” he muttered, picking up his wet and muddy skirt. “Had I realised it, I would not have come.”

Soon he heard voices and caught sight of them. Laevsky was walking rapidly to and fro in the small glade with bowed back and hands thrust in his sleeves; his seconds were standing at the water’s edge, rolling cigarettes.

“Strange,” thought the deacon, not recognising Laevsky’s walk; “he looks like an old man.⁠ ⁠…”

“How rude it is of them!” said the superintendent of the post-office, looking at his watch. “It may be learned manners to be late, but to my thinking it’s hoggish.”

Sheshkovsky, a stout man with a black beard, listened and said:

“They’re coming!”

XIX

“It’s the first time in my life I’ve seen it! How glorious!” said Von Koren, pointing to the glade and stretching out his hands to the east. “Look: green rays!”

In the east behind the mountains rose two green streaks of light, and it really was beautiful. The sun was rising.

“Good morning!” the zoologist went on, nodding to Laevsky’s seconds. “I’m not late, am I?”

He was followed by his seconds, Boyko and Govorovsky, two very young officers of the same height, wearing white tunics, and Ustimovitch, the thin, unsociable doctor; in one hand he had a bag of some sort, and in the other hand, as usual, a cane which he held behind him. Laying the bag on the ground and greeting no one, he put the other hand, too, behind his back and began pacing up and down the glade.

Laevsky felt the exhaustion and awkwardness of a man who is soon perhaps to die, and is for that reason an object of general attention. He wanted to be killed as soon as possible or taken home. He saw the sunrise now for the first time in his life; the early morning, the green rays of light, the dampness, and the men in wet boots, seemed to him to have nothing to do with his life, to be superfluous and embarrassing. All this had no connection with the night he had been through, with his thoughts and his feeling of guilt, and so he would have gladly gone away without waiting for the duel.

Von Koren was noticeably excited and tried to conceal it, pretending that he was more interested in the green light than anything. The seconds were confused, and looked at one another as though wondering why they were here and what they were to do.

“I imagine, gentlemen, there is no need for us to go further,” said Sheshkovsky. “This place will do.”

“Yes, of course,” Von Koren agreed.

A silence followed. Ustimovitch, pacing to and fro, suddenly turned sharply to Laevsky and said in a low voice, breathing into his face:

“They have very likely not told you my terms yet. Each side is to pay me fifteen roubles, and in the case of the death of one party, the survivor is to pay thirty.”

Laevsky was already acquainted with the man, but now for the first time he had a distinct view of his lustreless eyes, his stiff moustaches, and wasted, consumptive neck; he was a moneygrubber, not a