The Duel Read online

  “What secrets?” Samoylenko asked, uncomprehending and growing angry. “If you’ve come here to swear, then leave. Come back when you’re over it!”

  He remembered a rule, that when enraged by one near and dear, mentally count to one hundred and calm will resume; and he began counting quickly.

  “I’m asking you not to concern yourself with me!” Laevsky continued. “Don’t pay attention to me. And whose business is it anyway how I live and how I conduct my life? Yes, I want to leave! Yes, I’m in debt, I drink, I live with another man’s wife, I have hysteria, I’m crass, not as introspective as some others, but whose business is any of this? Respect my individuality!”

  “You, brother, will pardon me,” Samoylenko, said reaching thirty-five, “but …”

  “Respect my individuality!” Laevsky cut him off. “These perpetual conversations at the cost of another, the ohs and ahs, the perpetual monitoring, eavesdropping, these intimations of friendship … the devil take them! I’m being loaned money and given conditions, like a little boy! I’m being degraded, the devil only knows how! I wish for nothing!” Laevsky shouted, staggering from agitation and fearful that he should be once again seized by hysteria. This means I won’t be leaving on Saturday flashed through his thoughts. “I wish for nothing! I only ask, please, spare me this patronage. I’m not a little boy and I’m not crazy and I’m asking that you remove this surveillance from me!”

  The deacon walked in and, seeing Laevsky, pale, gesticulating his arms and directing his strange speech to a portrait of Prince Vorontsov, stopped short at the door as though embedded.

  “This perpetual prying into my soul,” Laevsky continued, “is insulting to my human dignity, and I ask the gratuitous detectives to cease their spying! Enough!”

  “What did you … What are you saying?” Samoylenko asked, having counted to one hundred, flushing crimson and approaching Laevsky.

  “Enough!” Laevsky repeated, gasping and retrieving his service cap.

  “I am a Russian doctor, a nobleman and a Councilor of State!” Samoylenko said, measuring his words. “I have never been a spy, and I will not allow myself to be insulted by anyone!” he shouted in a rattling voice, placing the stress on the last word. “Shut your mouth!”

  The deacon, having never before witnessed the doctor so imposing, inflated, crimson and frightening, covered his mouth, ran out into the front drawing room and fell over laughing. As though in a haze, Laevsky saw Von Koren rise and, placing his hands in his pants’ pockets, strike a pose, as though he were awaiting what would follow; this calm pose seemed extremely insolent and insulting to Laevsky.

  “Kindly take back your words!” Samoylenko shouted.

  Laevsky, already having no recollection of what words he had spoken, answered:

  “Leave me in peace! I want for nothing! I only want that you and this German son of Yids leave me in peace! Otherwise I will take measures! I will fight!”

  “Now I understand,” Von Koren said, walking around from behind the table. “Mr. Laevsky would like to entertain himself prior to his departure with a duel. I can grant him the satisfaction. Mr. Laevsky, I accept your challenge.”

  “Challenge?” Laevsky quietly repeated, approaching the zoologist and staring in hatred at his swarthy brow and kinky hair. “Challenge? With pleasure! I hate you! Hate you!”

  “Oh, joy. Tomorrow morning, the earlier the better, by Kerbalay’s place, with all the details in keeping to your tastes. And now get out.”

  “Hate you!” Laevsky said quietly, breathing heavily. “I’ve hated you a long time! A duel! Yes!”

  “Get him out of here, Alexander Davidich, or else I’ll have to leave,” Von Koren said. “He’s about to take a bite out of me.”

  Von Koren’s calm tone cooled the doctor down: somehow or other he was suddenly himself again, came to his senses, took Laevsky by the waist with both his hands, led him away from the zoologist, muttering soothingly, in a voice shaking with intensity:

  “My friends … My good, my kind … Got themselves worked up into a heated state and are going to … and are going to … My friends …”

  Hearing the soft, friendly voice, Laevsky felt that something unprecedented had just occurred in his life, something beastly, as though he had very nearly been hit by a train; he barely kept from crying, waved them off with his hand and ran from the room.

  To experience another’s hatred directed at you, to display yourself before the man who hates you in a most pitiful, despicable, helpless state—my God, how burdensome! he thought, sitting in the pavilion a while later and indeed feeling corrosion cover his body from having just experienced another’s hatred. My God, how vulgar it all is!

  Cold water with cognac invigorated him. He lucidly envisioned Von Koren’s calm, arrogant face, the look he had in his eyes yesterday, his shirt, which resembled a rug, his voice, his white hands, and intense hatred, ardent, hungry, began to churn in his chest and to demand satisfaction. In his mind he threw Von Koren to the ground and stomped on him. He remembered in the minutest detail all that had occurred and was astonished by how he could have ingratiatingly smiled at such an insignificant man and generally held in high esteem nominal, little people who are of no value to anyone, who live in an insignificant little town, which seemingly doesn’t even show up on a map and which not one decent person in Petersburg had ever heard of. If this boondock suddenly met its downfall or burned to the ground, then the telegram delivering the news would be read in Russia with the same kind of boredom as an advertisement for secondhand furniture up for sale. To kill Von Koren tomorrow or to leave him among the living—it was all the same, equally pointless and uninteresting. To shoot him in the leg or the arm, wound him, then laugh at him, and like an insect with a severed limb that loses itself in the grass, so let him take his muted sufferings and lose himself afterwards in a crowd of other such insignificant people as himself.

  Laevsky went to Sheshkovsky, told him everything and invited him to be his second; then both set off to find the master of the postal-telegraph office, invited him to second also and stayed for dinner with him. During dinner they joked and laughed much; Laevsky poked fun at the fact that he barely knew how to shoot at all, and referred to himself as a royal rifleman and Wilhelm Tell.

  “We’ll have to teach this gentleman a thing or two …” he said.

  After dinner they sat down to a game of cards. Laevsky played, drank wine and thought that the duel was basically foolish and pointless, as it does not resolve the question but only complicates it further; however, such things are unavoidable at times. For instance, in this particular case: he couldn’t bring action against Von Koren in a court of law! And the impending duel was also good in that, afterwards, he would be unable to stay in town. He grew somewhat drunk, enjoyed his game of cards and felt good.

  But when the sun set and it grew dark, he was overcome by unease. It was not fear of impending death because a certainty nested in it, as he dined and played cards, that the duel would end in nothing: this was a fear of the unknown, that which was to occur tomorrow morning for the first time in his life, and a fear of the approaching night … He knew that the night would be long, sleepless, and that he’d be forced to think not only of Von Koren and his hatred, but of that mountain of lies, which lay ahead of him to cross and for which he had neither the strength nor the know-how. It was as though he’d unexpectedly fallen ill; he’d suddenly lost all interest in both cards and people, beginning to fuss about he stood and asked to be excused so that he may go home. He wanted to lie down in bed as soon as possible, to be still and prepare his thoughts for the night. Sheshkovsky and the postmaster saw him home then set off for Von Koren’s to discuss the duel.

  Near his apartments, Laevsky met Achmianov. The young man was out of breath and in an excited state.

  “I’ve been looking for you, Ivan Andreich!” he said. “If you please, let’s go, quickly …”

  “Where to?”

  “A certain gentleman whom you are
n’t acquainted with wishes to see you, it’s regarding a very important matter concerning you. He earnestly requests that you come see him for just one minute. He needs to discuss something with you … According to him, it’s a matter of life and death …”

  Agitated, Achmianov relayed all of this with a heavy Armenian accent, so when he said “life” it came out as “lathe.”

  “Who is he?” Laevsky asked.

  “He asked that I not tell you his name.”

  “Tell him I’m busy. Tomorrow, if he likes …”

  “That’s not possible!” panicked Achmianov. “He wants to tell you something very important that concerns you … very important! If you don’t go, then misfortune will befall us.”

  “How strange …” muttered Laevsky, not comprehending why Achmianov was so excited and what kind of secrets could exist in a boring boondock that is of no value to anyone. “How strange,” he repeated, lost in thought. “Nevertheless, let’s go. It’s all the same.”

  Achmianov quickly walked ahead, and he followed. They walked along the street, then through the side street.

  “How boring this is,” Laevsky said.

  “Almost, almost … We’re near.”

  Near the old rampart they crossed a narrow side street between two enclosed vacant lots, there they entered a sort of large yard and proceeded in the direction of a little house …

  “This is the house of Muridov, isn’t it?” Laevsky asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But I don’t understand, why are we walking through the yards? We could have taken the street. It’s closer that way …”

  “No reason, no reason …”

  It seemed equally strange to Laevsky that Achmianov had led him to a pitch-black passage and then waved him in with his hand, as though beckoning him to proceed stealthily and to be quiet.

  “This way, this way …” Achmianov said, carefully opening a door and entering on tiptoe over hay. “Quiet, quiet, I’m asking you … They may hear us.”

  He listened carefully, took a long breath and said in a whisper:

  “Open this door here and enter … Don’t be afraid.”

  Laevsky, perplexed, opened the door and entered a room with a low ceiling and curtained windows. A candle stood on the table.

  “Who do you want?” someone asked from a neighboring room. “That you, Muridik?”

  Laevsky turned and entered the room and saw Kirilin, and beside him, Nadezhda Fyodorovna.

  He did not hear what was being said to him; moving backwards, he did not notice how he ended up on the street. His hatred of Von Koren and all that had been troubling him—all disappeared from his soul. Going home, he awkwardly flapped his right hand and concentrated on looking down at his feet, trying his best to walk smoothly. At home, in his study, pacing from one corner of the room to the other, he rubbed his hands and moved his shoulders and neck at odd angles as though his jacket and shirt were too tight on him, then he lit a candle and sat down at the table …

  XVI

  “This science of the humanities, of which you speak, will only comply with the human psyche, once it encounters true science and moves forward alongside it. Whether they’ll meet beneath a microscope, or in the monologues of a new Hamlet, or in a new religion, I don’t know, but I do think that the earth will be covered in a blanket of ice, before it occurs. The most steadfast and life-affirming of all humanitarian knowledge—is, of course, the teachings of Christ, but draw your attention to how diversely even they are interpreted! Some teach that we should love those near and dear but make an exception for soldiers, criminals and the insane: it’s permissible for the first among them to be killed during wartime, the second imprisoned or executed, and the third to be denied the union of marriage. Other interpreters teach to love those near and dear unconditionally, without taking into account the pluses and minuses. According to their teachings, if a consumptive or a murderer or an epileptic should come along and propose marriage to your daughter—give your blessing; if cretins wage war against the physical and cerebral status quo—lay down your heads. This is the propagation of love for love’s sake, like art for art’s sake; if empowered, it would drive the human race to extinction, and thus the super-colossus of all evil deeds ever seen on the face of the earth would be realized. There are very many interpretations, and if there are many, then serious thought cannot find any one of them satisfying and rushes to add its own interpretation to this mass. For this very reason, never base a question on, how would you say, philosophical or Christian ground; by doing so, you only grow further estranged from the question.”

  The deacon listened attentively to the zoologist, thought for a moment and inquired:

  “Is moral law, idiosyncratic to each individual, conceived of by philosophers or created by God together with the body?”

  “I don’t know. But this law is so extremely common among all people and all epochs, that to me, it seems necessary to recognize it as being organically interlinked with man. It is not conceived of but simply is and will be. I’m not telling you that it will be seen beneath a microscope one day, but its organic link has already proven evident: severe illness of the brain and all that we have deemed disorders of the soul arise first and foremost from a perversion of moral law, as far as I know.”

  “All right, sir. This means that, as the stomach wants to eat, so moral feeling wants for us to love those near and dear to us. Isn’t that so? However, our essential nature of self-love is resistant to the voice of sense and reason, and thus many head-splitting questions arise. Who are we supposed to turn to in order to solve these problems if you would not have them based on philosophical ground?”

  “Turn to those few precise facts that we do have. Trust in the clarity and logic of facts. It’s true this is meager, but it’s not really as shaky or blurry as philosophy. The moral law, let’s say, demands that you love people. But why? The result of love should be the elimination of all that is harmful to people in one way or another and threatens their present and future with danger. Our knowledge and this clarity are telling you that humankind is menaced by danger from the side of the morally and physically abnormal. If this is so, then fight the abnormal. If you don’t have the power to elevate them to normalcy, then you must surely have the strength and intelligence to neutralize them, that is destroy them.”

  “Which means that love is when the strong destroy the weak?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “But, you see, the strong crucified our Lord Jesus Christ!” the deacon hotly said.

  “Therein lies the whole point, that he was crucified not by the strong but by the weak. The culture of mankind has weakened and aspires to nullify the battle for existence and selection; this is behind the speedy propagation of the weak and their predominance over the strong. Imagine that you’ve managed to impress human ideas in their primitive, rudimentary form upon bees. What can come of this? Drones that should be killed will be left among the living, will eat the honey, corrupt and stifle the hive—the result will be a predominance of the weak over the strong and the degeneration of the latter. The very same thing is occurring now with mankind: the weak are oppressing the strong. Amongst savages, who have not yet been touched by culture, the strongest, the wisest and the most moral leads the way; he is chief and ruler. And we, the cultured, crucified Christ and continue to crucify Him. This means we are lacking something … And that something must be restored in us, otherwise there’ll be no end to these misconceptions.”

  “But what kind of criteria do you have for separating the strong from the weak?”

  “Knowledge and clarity. The consumptive and the scrofulous will be recognizable by their illnesses, while the immoral and the insane by their actions.”

  “But don’t you see that mistakes happen!”

  “Yes, but it’s useless to worry about getting your feet wet when there’s danger of a flood.”

  “That’s philosophy,” the deacon laughed.

  “Not really. You’ve been so ru
ined by your seminary philosophy that you look for nothing but murk in everything. The abstract sciences, which your young head is stuffed full of, are called abstract for a reason, in that they distract your intellect from what’s clear. Look the devil straight in the eye, and if he’s a devil, then say that this is a devil, but don’t go riffling through Kant or Hegel for an explanation.”

  The zoologist was quiet a moment and then continued.

  “Two by two is four, a rock is a rock. Tomorrow, lo and behold, we’re having a duel. You and I will say that it’s foolish and absurd, that the duel has outlived its era, that in reality the aristocratic duel in no way differs from a drunken brawl in a tavern, but still we will not disengage, will go and will fight. This means that there is a power that is stronger than our reason. We cry out that war is plunder, barbarism, horror, fratricide, we cannot stand the sight of blood without swooning; but at the first insult from the French or Germans, within the hour we’ll feel our spirits stir, we’ll give the most heartfelt shout of hurrah and throw ourselves at the enemy, you will invoke the Lord’s prayer over our artillery and our valor will arouse a consensual and, what’s more, heartfelt delight. This means, yet again, that there is a power, and if it is not higher than us, then it is stronger than us and our philosophy. We cannot stop it in the same way that we cannot stop that storm cloud slowly drifting in from the sea. Don’t be a hypocrite, don’t flip it the bird without removing your hand from your pocket, and don’t say: Oh, how silly! Oh, how outdated! Oh, it doesn’t conform to Scripture! But look it straight in the eyes, acknowledge its lawfulness according to reason, and when, for instance, it would like to be rid of the decrepit, the scrofulous, the corrupt race, then don’t interfere with your pills and quotations of ill-interpreted Gospel. Leskov has a conscientious Daniel, who comes across a leper outside of town and feeds him and warms him all in the name of love for Christ. If that Daniel really loved people, he would have led the leper further out of town and thrown him in a ditch, then he could have gone off to serve the healthy. Christ, I hope, has bestowed upon us love that is reasonable, sensible and benevolent.”