The Duel and Other Stories
"When you give that scoundrel the money, make it a condition that
he takes his lady with him, or sends her on ahead, and don't give
it him without. There's no need to stand on ceremony with him. Tell
him so, or, if you don't, I give you my word I'll go to his office
and kick him downstairs, and I'll break off all acquaintance with
you. So you'd better know it."
"Well! To go with her or send her on beforehand will be more
convenient for him," said Samoylenko. "He'll be delighted indeed.
Well, goodbye."
He said good-bye affectionately and went out, but before shutting
the door after him, he looked round at Von Koren and, with a ferocious
face, said:
"It's the Germans who have ruined you, brother! Yes! The Germans!"
XII
Next day, Thursday, Marya Konstantinovna was celebrating the birthday
of her Kostya. All were invited to come at midday and eat pies, and
in the evening to drink chocolate. When Laevsky and Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna arrived in the evening, the zoologist, who was already
sitting in the drawing-room, drinking chocolate, asked Samoylenko:
"Have you talked to him?"
"Not yet."
"Mind now, don't stand on ceremony. I can't understand the insolence
of these people! Why, they know perfectly well the view taken by
this family of their cohabitation, and yet they force themselves
in here."
"If one is to pay attention to every prejudice," said Samoylenko,
"one could go nowhere."
"Do you mean to say that the repugnance felt by the masses for
illicit love and moral laxity is a prejudice?"
"Of course it is. It's prejudice and hate. When the soldiers see a
girl of light behaviour, they laugh and whistle; but just ask them
what they are themselves."
"It's not for nothing they whistle. The fact that girls strangle
their illegitimate children and go to prison for it, and that Anna
Karenin flung herself under the train, and that in the villages
they smear the gates with tar, and that you and I, without knowing
why, are pleased by Katya's purity, and that every one of us feels
a vague craving for pure love, though he knows there is no such
love--is all that prejudice? That is the one thing, brother, which
has survived intact from natural selection, and, if it were not for
that obscure force regulating the relations of the sexes, the
Laevskys would have it all their own way, and mankind would degenerate
in two years."
Laevsky came into the drawing-room, greeted every one, and shaking
hands with Von Koren, smiled ingratiatingly. He waited for a
favourable moment and said to Samoylenko:
"Excuse me, Alexandr Daviditch, I must say two words to you."
Samoylenko got up, put his arm round Laevsky's waist, and both of
them went into Nikodim Alexandritch's study.
"To-morrow's Friday," said Laevsky, biting his nails. "Have you got
what you promised?"
"I've only got two hundred. I'll get the rest to-day or to-morrow.
Don't worry yourself."
"Thank God . . ." sighed Laevsky, and his hands began trembling
with joy. "You are saving me, Alexandr Daviditch, and I swear to
you by God, by my happiness and anything you like, I'll send you
the money as soon as I arrive. And I'll send you my old debt too."
"Look here, Vanya . . ." said Samoylenko, turning crimson and taking
him by the button. "You must forgive my meddling in your private
affairs, but . . . why shouldn't you take Nadyezhda Fyodorovna with
you?"
"You queer fellow. How is that possible? One of us must stay, or
our creditors will raise an outcry. You see, I owe seven hundred
or more to the shops. Only wait, and I will send them the money.
I'll stop their mouths, and then she can come away."
"I see. . . . But why shouldn't you send her on first?"
"My goodness, as though that were possible!" Laevsky was horrified.
"Why, she's a woman; what would she do there alone? What does she
know about it? That would only be a loss of time and a useless waste
of money."
"That's reasonable . . ." thought Samoylenko, but remembering his
conversation with Von Koren, he looked down and said sullenly: "I
can't agree with you. Either go with her or send her first; otherwise
. . . otherwise I won't give you the money. Those are my last
words. . ."
He staggered back, lurched backwards against the door, and went
into the drawing-room, crimson, and overcome with confusion.
"Friday . . . Friday," thought Laevsky, going back into the
drawing-room. "Friday. . . ."
He was handed a cup of chocolate; he burnt his lips and tongue with
the scalding chocolate and thought: "Friday . . . Friday. . . ."
For some reason he could not get the word "Friday" out of his head;
he could think of nothing but Friday, and the only thing that was
clear to him, not in his brain but somewhere in his heart, was that
he would not get off on Saturday. Before him stood Nikodim Alexandritch,
very neat, with his hair combed over his temples, saying:
"Please take something to eat. . . ."
Marya Konstantinovna showed the visitors Katya's school report and
said, drawling:
"It's very, very difficult to do well at school nowadays! So much
is expected . . ."
"Mamma!" groaned Katya, not knowing where to hide her confusion at
the praises of the company.
Laevsky, too, looked at the report and praised it. Scripture, Russian
language, conduct, fives and fours, danced before his eyes, and all
this, mixed with the haunting refrain of "Friday," with the carefully
combed locks of Nikodim Alexandritch and the red cheeks of Katya,
produced on him a sensation of such immense overwhelming boredom
that he almost shrieked with despair and asked himself: "Is it
possible, is it possible I shall not get away?"
They put two card tables side by side and sat down to play post.
Laevsky sat down too.
"Friday . . . Friday . . ." he kept thinking, as he smiled and took
a pencil out of his pocket. "Friday. . . ."
He wanted to think over his position, and was afraid to think. It
was terrible to him to realise that the doctor had detected him in
the deception which he had so long and carefully concealed from
himself. Every time he thought of his future he would not let his
thoughts have full rein. He would get into the train and set off,
and thereby the problem of his life would be solved, and he did not
let his thoughts go farther. Like a far-away dim light in the fields,
the thought sometimes flickered in his mind that in one of the
side-streets of Petersburg, in the remote future, he would have to
have recourse to a tiny lie in order to get rid of Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna and pay his debts; he would tell a lie only once, and
then a completely new life would begin. And that was right: at the
price of a small lie he would win so much truth.
Now when by his blunt refusal the doctor had crudely hinted at his
deception, he began to understand that he would need deception not
only in the remote future, but to-day, and to-morrow, and in a
month's time, and perhaps up to the very end of his life. In fact,
in order to get away he would have to lie to Nadyezhda Fyodorovna,
to his creditors, and to his superiors in the Service; then, in
order to get money in Petersburg, he would have to lie to his mother,
to tell her that he had already broken with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna;
and his mother would not give him more than five hundred roubles,
so he had already deceived the doctor, as he would not be in a
position to pay him back the money within a short time. Afterwards,
when Nadyezhda Fyodorovna came to Petersburg, he would have to
resort to a regular series of deceptions, little and big, in order
to get free of her; and again there would be tears, boredom, a
disgusting existence, remorse, and so there would be no new life.
Deception and nothing more. A whole mountain of lies rose before
Laevsky's imagination. To leap over it at one bound and not to do
his lying piecemeal, he would have to bring himself to stern,
uncompromising action; for instance, to getting up without saying
a word, putting on his hat, and at once setting off without money
and without explanation. But Laevsky felt that was impossible for
him.
"Friday, Friday . . ." he thought. "Friday. . . ."
They wrote little notes, folded them in two, and put them in Nikodim
Alexandritch's old top-hat. When there were a sufficient heap of
notes, Kostya, who acted the part of postman, walked round the table
and delivered them. The deacon, Katya, and Kostya, who received
amusing notes and tried to write as funnily as they could, were
highly delighted.
"We must have a little talk," Nadyezhda Fyodorovna read in a little
note; she glanced at Marya Konstantinovna, who gave her an almond-oily
smile and nodded.
"Talk of what?" thought Nadyezhda Fyodorovna. "If one can't tell
the whole, it's no use talking."
Before going out for the evening she had tied Laevsky's cravat for
him, and that simple action filled her soul with tenderness and
sorrow. The anxiety in his face, his absent-minded looks, his pallor,
and the incomprehensible change that had taken place in him of late,
and the fact that she had a terrible revolting secret from him, and
the fact that her hands trembled when she tied his cravat--all
this seemed to tell her that they had not long left to be together.
She looked at him as though he were an ikon, with terror and
penitence, and thought: "Forgive, forgive."
Opposite her was sitting Atchmianov, and he never took his black,
love-sick eyes off her. She was stirred by passion; she was ashamed
of herself, and afraid that even her misery and sorrow would not
prevent her from yielding to impure desire to-morrow, if not to-day
--and that, like a drunkard, she would not have the strength to
stop herself.
She made up her mind to go away that she might not continue this
life, shameful for herself, and humiliating for Laevsky. She would
beseech him with tears to let her go; and if he opposed her, she
would go away secretly. She would not tell him what had happened;
let him keep a pure memory of her.
"I love you, I love you, I love you," she read. It was from Atchmianov.
She would live in some far remote place, would work and send Laevsky,
"anonymously," money, embroidered shirts, and tobacco, and would
return to him only in old age or if he were dangerously ill and
needed a nurse. When in his old age he learned what were her reasons
for leaving him and refusing to be his wife, he would appreciate
her sacrifice and forgive.
"You've got a long nose." That must be from the deacon or Kostya.
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna imagined how, parting from Laevsky, she would
embrace him warmly, would kiss his hand, and would swear to love
him all her life, all her life, and then, living in obscurity among
strangers, she would every day think that somewhere she had a friend,
some one she loved--a pure, noble, lofty man who kept a pure
memory of her.
"If you don't give me an interview to-day, I shall take measures,
I assure you on my word of honour. You can't treat decent people
like this; you must understand that." That was from Kirilin.
XIII
Laevsky received two notes; he opened one and read: "Don't go away,
my darling."
"Who could have written that?" he thought. "Not Samoylenko, of
course. And not the deacon, for he doesn't know I want to go away.
Von Koren, perhaps?"
The zoologist bent over the table and drew a pyramid. Laevsky fancied
that his eyes were smiling.
"Most likely Samoylenko . . . has been gossiping," thought Laevsky.
In the other note, in the same disguised angular handwriting with
long tails to the letters, was written: "Somebody won't go away on
Saturday."
"A stupid gibe," thought Laevsky. "Friday, Friday. . . ."
Something rose in his throat. He touched his collar and coughed,
but instead of a cough a laugh broke from his throat.
"Ha-ha-ha!" he laughed. "Ha-ha-ha! What am I laughing at? Ha-ha-ha!"