The Duel, Aleksandr Kuprin [if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT] 📗

these gloomy hours of spiritual depression, abandonment, and weariness of life, he needed a trusty, intelligent, and sympathetic friend⁠—a man with brains and heart.

Then he thought of Nasanski.

XXI

Nasanski was, as always, at home. He had only just awakened from a heavy sleep following intoxication, and was lying on his back with only his underclothing on and his hands under his head. In his troubled eyes might be read sickness of life and physical weariness. His face had not yet lost its sleepy and lifeless expression when Romashov, stooping over his friend, said in a troubled and uncertain voice⁠—

“Good day, Vasili Nilich. Perhaps I have come at an inconvenient time?”

“Good day,” replied Nasanski, in a hoarse and weak voice. “Any news? Sit down.”

He offered Romashov his hot, clammy hand, but looked at him, not as at a dear and ever-welcome friend, but as it were a troublous dream-picture that still lingered after his drunken sleep.

“Aren’t you well?” asked Romashov shyly, as he threw himself down on the corner of the bed. “In that case I’ll go at once, I won’t disturb you.”

Nasanski lifted his head a couple of inches from the pillow, and by an effort he peered, with deeply puckered forehead, at Romashov.

“No⁠—wait. Oh, how my head aches! Listen, Georgi Alexievich. I see that something unusual has happened. If I could only collect my thoughts! What is it?”

Romashov looked at him with silent pity. Nasanski’s whole appearance had undergone a terrible change since the two friends had last seen each other. His eyes were sunken and surrounded by black rings; his temples had a yellow hue; the rough, wrinkled skin over his cheekbones hung limply down, and was partly concealed by the sticky, wet tufts of hair that drooped.

“Nothing particular. I only wanted to see you. Tomorrow I am to fight a duel with Nikoläiev, and I was loath to go home. But nothing matters now. Au revoir. You see⁠—I had nobody else to talk to and my heart is heavy.”

Nasanski closed his eyes, and his features made a still more painful impression. It was evident that he had, by a really abnormal effort of will, tried to recover consciousness, and now, when he opened his eyes, a spark of keen understanding was at last visible in his glance.

“Well, well, I’ll tell you what we’ll do⁠—” Nasanski turned on his side by an effort and raised himself on his elbow. “But first give me⁠—out of the cupboard, you know⁠—No, let the apples be⁠—there should be a few peppermint drops⁠—thanks, my friend. I’ll tell you what we’ll do⁠—Faugh, how disgusting! Take me out into the fresh air. Here it’s intolerable. Always the same hideous hallucinations. Come with me; we’ll get a boat, then we can chat. Will you?”

With a stern face, and an expression of utter loathing on his countenance, he drained glass after glass. Romashov observed Nasanski’s ashy complexion gradually assume a deeper hue, and his beautiful blue eyes regain life and brilliancy.

When they reached the street they took a fly and drove to the river flowing past the very outskirts of the town, which there swells out to a dam, on one side of which stood a mill driven by turbines, an enormous red building belonging to a Jew. On the other shore stood a few bathing-houses, and there, too, boats might be hired. Romashov sat by the oars, and Nasanski assumed a half-recumbent position in the stern.

The river was very broad here, the stream weak, the banks low and overgrown with long, juicy grass that hung down over the water, and out of it rose tall green reeds and masses of big, white water-lilies.

Romashov related the particulars of his fight with Nikoläiev. Nasanski listened abstractedly and gazed down at the river, which in lazy, sluggish eddies flowed away like molten glass in the wake of the boat.

“Tell me candidly, Romashov, have you any fear?” asked Nasanski, in a low voice.

“Of the duel? No, I’m not afraid of that,” replied Romashov irritably, but he became abruptly silent, whilst, in the flash of a second, he saw himself standing face to face with Nikoläiev, and with hypnotized eyes gazing at the black, threatening muzzle of his revolver. “No, no,” added Romashov hastily, “I will not lie and boast that I’m not afraid. On the contrary, I think it terrible; but I also know that I shall not behave like a coward, and that I shall never apologize.”

Nasanski dipped the tips of his fingers in the softly rippling water, warm with the evening glow, and said slowly, in a weak voice often interrupted by coughing:

“Ah, my friend, my dear Romashov, why will you do this thing? Only think if what you say is true, and you are not a coward. Why not then show your moral courage in a still higher degree by refusing to fight this duel?”

“He has insulted me, struck me⁠—on the face,” replied Romashov, with newly kindled, burning indignation.

“Well, admitting that,” resumed Nasanski gently, with his tender, sorrowful eyes fixed on Romashov, “what does that signify? Time heals all wounds; everything in the world is buried and disappears, even the recollection of this scandal. You yourself will in time forget both your hatred and your sufferings; but you’ll never forget a man you have killed. He will stand ever at your side, at the head of your bed, at your dinner-table, when you are alone, and when you are amidst the bustle of the world. Empty-heads, idiots, pretentious imitators and parrots will, of course, at all times solemnly assure you that a murder in the course of a duel is no murder. What madmen! No, a murder is, and always will be, a murder. And the most horrible thing about it is not in death and suffering, in pools of blood or in corpses, but inasmuch as it deprives a human being of the joys of life. Oh, how priceless is life!” exclaimed Nasanski suddenly, in a high voice and with tears