The Duel Read online

  “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 theaters 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 naïveté, 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 civil servant.”

  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 militari*, 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.”

  * By military aid.

  IX

  Arriving home, Laevsky and Nadezhda Fyodorovna entered their dark, stuffy, boring rooms. They were both silent. Laevsky lit a candle, as Nadezhda Fyodorovna sat down and, removing neither her manteau nor hat, cast her woeful, guilty eyes up at him.

  He understood that she was awaiting an explanation from him; but for him to explain himself would have been boring, useless and exhausting, and there was a weight on his soul from having been unable to contain himself and speaking to her crudely. He accidentally touched the letter in his pocket that he’d intended to read to her every day and thought that if he were to show her this letter now it would deflect her attention in a new direction.

  It’s time we determine what our relationship is, he thought. I’ll give it to her. Whatever will be, will be.

  He took out the letter and handed it to her.

  “Read it. It concerns you.”

  Having said this, he went into his study and lay in darkness on the divan without a pillow. Nadezhda Fyodorovna read the letter, and it seemed to her that the ceiling had dropped and the walls were closing in on her. It had suddenly become cramped, dark and frightful. She quickly crossed herself three times and began to utter:

  “Grant peace, O Lord … Grant peace, O Lord …”

  And she began to cry.

  “Vanya!” she called out. “Ivan Andreich!”

  There was no reply. Thinking that Laevsky had entered the room and was standing behind her chair, she sobbed like a baby, all the while saying:

  “Why didn’t you tell me that he’d died sooner? I wouldn’t have gone on the picnic, wouldn’t have laughed so frightfully … Men uttered vulgarities at me. What a sin, what a sin! Save me, Vanya, save me … I’m losing my mind … I’m lost …”

  Laevsky heard her sobs. He felt an unbearable lack of air, and his heart beat loudly. Filled with melancholy he rose, stood in the center of the room, groped around in the dark for the armchair near the table and sat down.

  This is a prison …, he thought. I must leave … I can’t go on …

  It was already too late to go play cards, there were no restaurants in the town. He lay down again and covered his ears, so as not to hear the sobbing, and suddenly remembered that he could go to Samoylenko’s. To avoid passing near Nadezhda Fyodorovna, he climbed out of the window into the garden, climbed through the small front garden and proceeded down the street. It was dark. Some sort of steamship had just arrived, judging from the lights, a large passenger liner … The anchor chain resounded. Offshore, a fast-moving little red light was heading in the direction of the liner. It was the customs boat at sail.

  All the passengers are asleep in their cabins …, thought Laevsky, envious of the strangers’ serenity.

  The windows of Samoylenko’s house were open. Laevsky looked in one of them, then another. It was dark and quiet in the rooms.

  “Alexander Davidich, as you sleeping?” he called out. “Alexander Davidich!”

  Coughing was heard, and an alarmed cry:

  “What the devil? Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, Alexander Davidich. Pardon me.”

  In a short while the door opened just a crack; soft light from a candle shone and the tremendous form of Samoylenko appeared all in white and in a white nightcap.

  “What do you want?” he asked, scratching himself and breathing heavily, having just awoken. “Wait a second, I’ll unlock the front door.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll go through the window …”

  Laevsky climbed through the window and, walking up to Samoylenko, grabbed him by the hand.

  “Alexander Davidich,” he said, his voice shaking, “rescue me! I beg of you, implore you, to understand me! My predicament is torturous. If it continues for even another day or two, then I shall strangle myself, like … like you would a dog!”

  “Hold it … What, exactly, have you come here for?”

  “Light a candle.”

  “Oh, my …” Samoylenko exhaled, lighting a candle. “My God, my God, we’re already in the second hour, brother.”

  “Pardon me, I can’t just sit at home,” Laevsky said, feeling a great sense of relief from the light and Samoylenko’s presence. “You, Alexander Davidich, are my only, my best, friend … All of my hopes hang on you. For God’s sake, whether you like it or not, help me. I must leave this place so that it doesn’t come to that. Loan me money!”

  “Oh, my God, my God! …” Samoylenko exhaled, scratching himself. “I fall asleep to the sound of a whistle blowing, the arrival of a liner, and then you … Do you need much?”

  “At the very least, about three hundred rubles. I need to leave her a hundred and I need two hundred for the road … I already owe you nearly four hundred, but I’ll send it all to you … everything …”

  Samoylenko, taking hold of both side-whiskers in one hand, planted both feet and began to think.

  “Now, then …” he muttered, lost in thought. “Three hundred … Yes … But I don’t have that much. I’ll have to borrow it from someone.”

  “Borrow, for t
he love of God!” Laevsky said, seeing from Samoylenko’s face that he not only wanted to give him the money but certainly would. “Borrow, and I’ll certainly pay you back. I’ll dispatch it from Petersburg as soon as I arrive. Rest assured. Here’s what we’ll do, Sasha,” he said, feeling revived, “let’s have some wine!”

  “Sure … We can even have wine.”

  They both went to the dining room.

  “What will become of Nadezhda Fyodorovna?” Samoylenko asked, placing three bottles on the table and a plate of peaches. “Will she really stay here?”

  “I’ll arrange everything, everything …” Laevsky said, feeling an unexpected surge of happiness. “I’ll send her money later, and she’ll come to me … And then we can sort out our relationship there. To your health, my friend.”

  “Wait a second!” Samoylenko said. “Drink this first … It’s from my vineyard. This here bottle is from the Navaridez vineyard, and this one is from Akhatulov … Try all three of them, then tell me in all honesty … Mine seem to have acid. Well? Do you taste them?”

  “Yes. You’ve calmed me, Alexander Davidich. Thank you … I’ve been revived.”

  “Because of the tannins?”

  “The devil only knows, I don’t know. But you are a magnificent and wonderful man!”

  Looking at his pale, anxious, kind face, Samoylenko remembered the opinions of Von Koren, that people like him must be annihilated, and Laevsky seemed weak to him, a defenseless child that anything could harm or destroy.

  “Oh, and once you’ve set off, make amends with your mother,” he said. “It’s not good as it stands.”

  “Yes, yes, certainly.”

  They were silent for a while. When they had finished drinking the first bottle, Samoylenko said:

  “Why don’t you make peace with Von Koren. You are both splendiferous, knowledgeable people, but you glare at one another like wolves.”

  “Yes, he’s a splendiferous, knowledgeable man,” agreed Laevsky, prepared to praise and forgive everyone. “He’s a remarkable man, but it’s impossible for me to reconcile with him. No! Our natures are too different. I am inert by nature, weak, submissive; maybe during one of my better moments I’d extend a hand to him, but he’d turn away from me … with contempt.”

  Laevsky gulped his wine, crossed the room from one corner to the other and, standing in the center of the room, continued:

  “I understand Von Koren perfectly. His nature is rigid, strong, despotic. You’ve heard how he’s perpetually speaking of the expedition, and these aren’t empty words. He requires a wasteland, a moon-filled night: all around him, his hungry and his sick, tormented by difficult crossings, asleep in tents and under the open sky—Cossacks, guides, porters, the doctor, the priest, but he alone does not sleep; like Stanley, he sits on a folding chair and perceives himself to be Tsar of the wasteland and master of these people. He persists, and persists, and persists to someplace, his people groan and die one after the other, but he persists and persists, until the very end when he himself perishes, nevertheless remaining despot and Tsar of the wasteland, just as the cross above his grave lords over the wasteland as it’s seen by caravans for thirty to forty miles away. How I pity that such a man isn’t in military service. He’d reveal himself to be a superb, ingenious commander. One who’d know how to drown his own cavalry in a river and build bridges using their corpses, this sort of boldness is paramount to any fortification or strategy in wartime. Oh, I understand him perfectly well! Tell me: why is he corroding here? What does he expect to gain?”

  “He is researching marine fauna.”

  “No. No, brother, no!” sighed Laevsky. “On the liner to here, a passenger who was a man of science told me that the Black Sea is fauna poor and that its depths, thanks to the abundance of hydrogen sulfide, are inhospitable to organic life. All serious zoologists work at biological research in Naples or Villefranche. But Von Koren is independent and pigheaded: he must work on the Black Sea, because there is no one else working here; he’s severed ties with the university, he doesn’t want to associate with scientists or his colleagues, because first and foremost he is a despot, then he is a zoologist. You’ll see that something will come of him yet. Right now, he’s dreaming of returning from the expedition, he’ll rid our universities of intrigue and mediocrity, replacing them with scientists who knuckle under. Despotism is as prevalent in science as it is in war. This is the second summer that he’s lived in this stinking boondock because it’s better to be first in the village than second in the city. Here, he’s both king and eagle; he pigeonholes all who reside here, oppressing them with his authority. He’s got his hands in everything, involves himself in the affairs of others, he finds a use for everyone and everyone fears him. I’ve slipped from his grasp, he senses this and hates me for it. Hasn’t he told you that I should either be annihilated or sent to hard labor?”

  “Yes,” Samoylenko said, beginning to laugh.

  Laevsky also began to laugh and took a drink of wine.

  “His ideals are despotic as well,” he said, still laughing and took the peach. “All ordinary mortals, if their profession benefits the common good, keep their fellow man in their sights: myself, yourself—in a word, all people. But for Von Koren, people are puppies and nominal, too irrelevant to comprise the whole of his life. He works, he’ll go on his expedition and he’ll break his own neck there, not for love of his fellow man, but in the name of abstractions such as humanity, progeny, an ideal race of people. He fusses over the improvement of the human race. In these terms we are nothing but slaves to him, cannon fodder, beasts of burden; some he’d annihilate or stick in hard labor, others he’d put to the screws of discipline, and as Arakcheyev forcing them to rise and retire to the beat of a drum, he’d station eunuchs to guard our chastity and morality, ordering anyone that falls outside the narrow circle of our conservative morals to be shot, and all this in the name of improving the human race … And what is the human race anyway … An illusion, a mirage … Despots have always been illusionists. I understand him perfectly, brother. I appreciate and do not refute his significance; the world is upheld by those like him, and if the world were left in our hands, then we, for all our kindness and good intentions, would do the very same thing to it as those flies have to that painting. Yes.”

  Laevsky sat close to Samoylenko and aflame with sincerity said:

  “I am an empty, insignificant, fallen man! The air that I breathe is made up of wine, of love, in a word my life up to now has been the purchasing of over-priced nothingness, merriment and cowardice. Up to now I have deceived other people and myself, I have suffered as a result of this, and my sufferings have been cheap and vulgar. I bend over cowering before Von Koren’s hatred because there are times when I hold myself in contempt and hate myself.”

  In his excitement, Laevsky once again crossed the room from one corner to the other and said:

  “I am happy, that I clearly see my shortcomings and own up to them. It will help me to be reborn and to become a different man. My good man, if you only knew how passionately and with what despondence I thirst for my renewal. And I swear to you, that I will become a real man! I will! I don’t know if it’s the wine talking or if it’s just the way things are, but it seems to me that it has been a long time since I have experienced such bright, pure moments as I have here with you.”

  “It’s time for bed, little brother,” Samoylenko said.

  “Yes, yes. Pardon me. I’ll go now.”

  Laevsky began to fumble about near the furniture and the window, in search of his service-cap.

  “Thank you …” he muttered, sighing. “Thank you … for the generosity and the kind words. You have revived me.”

  He located his service-cap, stood still for a moment and looked at Samoylenko guiltily.

  “Alexander Davidich!” he said in a pleading voice.

  “What?”

  “Will you, my good man, permit me to stay here the night?”

  “For goodness sake … you
needn’t ask.”

  Though Laevsky lay down on the divan to sleep, his conversation with the doctor continued for a long time.

  X

  Three days or so after the picnic, Nadezhda Fyodorovna received an unexpected visit from Maria Konstantinovna, who, without a greeting, without removing her hat, grabbed her by both hands, pressed them to her breast and said in a great state of alarm:

  “My dear, I’m terribly worried, stupefied. Yesterday, our sweet and sympathetic doctor relayed to my husband, Nikodim Aleksandrich, that it seems your husband has met his end. Tell me, my dear … Tell me, is this true?”

  “Yes, it’s true, he’s died,” answered Nadezhda Fyodorovna.

  “This is horrible! Horrible, my dear! But you can’t have the good without the bad. Your husband must certainly have been a delightful, wondrous, godly person, indeed those are needed in heaven more than on earth.”

  All the tiny lines and tiny dots of Maria Konstantinovna’s face were aquiver, as though tiny needles were vibrating beneath her skin. She gave an almond-infused smile and said enthusiastically, panting:

  “And so, you are free, my dear. You can hold your head up high now and boldly look people in the eye. From now on, God and man will bless your union with Ivan Andreich. It’s enchanting. I’m trembling from joy, I can’t find the words. Darling, I shall be your marriage-broker … Nikodim Aleksandrich and I have loved you so much, will you permit us to bless your lawful, pure union. When, when do you think you’ll be married?”

  “I haven’t even thought of it,” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said, freeing her hands.

  “That’s not possible, darling. You’ve thought of it. You’ve thought of it!”

  “For God’s sake, I haven’t thought of it,” Nadezhda Fyodorovna said, laughing. “What do we have to get married for? I don’t see any need for it. We’ll go on living, just as we’ve been living.”

  “What are you saying!” Maria Konstantinovna was aghast. “For the love of God, what are you saying!”