The Duel and Other Stories
Kryukov looked at him again, then deliberately drew out a drawer
in the table, and taking out a thick roll of notes, gave it to his
cousin.
"Here's five thousand . . ." he said. "Though it's not my money,
yet, God bless you, it's all the same. I advise you to send for
post-horses at once and go away. Yes, really!"
The lieutenant in his turn looked searchingly at Kryukov and laughed.
"You've guessed right, Alyosha," he said, reddening. "It was to her
I meant to ride. Yesterday evening when the washerwoman gave me
that damned tunic, the one I was wearing then, and it smelt of
jasmine, why . . . I felt I must go!"
"You must go away."
"Yes, certainly. And my furlough's just over. I really will go
to-day! Yes, by Jove! However long one stays, one has to go in the
end. . . . I'm going!"
The post-horses were brought after dinner the same day; the lieutenant
said good-bye to the Kryukovs and set off, followed by their good
wishes.
Another week passed. It was a dull but hot and heavy day. From early
morning Kryukov walked aimlessly about the house, looking out of
window, or turning over the leaves of albums, though he was sick
of the sight of them already. When he came across his wife or
children, he began grumbling crossly. It seemed to him, for some
reason that day, that his children's manners were revolting, that
his wife did not know how to look after the servants, that their
expenditure was quite disproportionate to their income. All this
meant that "the master" was out of humour.
After dinner, Kryukov, feeling dissatisfied with the soup and the
roast meat he had eaten, ordered out his racing droshky. He drove
slowly out of the courtyard, drove at a walking pace for a quarter
of a mile, and stopped.
"Shall I . . . drive to her . . . that devil?" he thought, looking
at the leaden sky.
And Kryukov positively laughed, as though it were the first time
that day he had asked himself that question. At once the load of
boredom was lifted from his heart, and there rose a gleam of pleasure
in his lazy eyes. He lashed the horse. . . .
All the way his imagination was picturing how surprised the Jewess
would be to see him, how he would laugh and chat, and come home
feeling refreshed. . . .
"Once a month one needs something to brighten one up . . . something
out of the common round," he thought, "something that would give
the stagnant organism a good shaking up, a reaction . . . whether
it's a drinking bout, or . . . Susanna. One can't get on without
it."
It was getting dark when he drove into the yard of the vodka
distillery. From the open windows of the owner's house came sounds
of laughter and singing:
"'Brighter than lightning, more burning than flame. . . .'"
sang a powerful, mellow, bass voice.
"Aha! she has visitors," thought Kryukov.
And he was annoyed that she had visitors.
"Shall I go back?" he thought with his hand on the bell, but he
rang all the same, and went up the familiar staircase. From the
entry he glanced into the reception hall. There were about five men
there--all landowners and officials of his acquaintance; one, a
tall, thin gentleman, was sitting at the piano, singing, and striking
the keys with his long, thin fingers. The others were listening and
grinning with enjoyment. Kryukov looked himself up and down in the
looking-glass, and was about to go into the hall, when Susanna
Moiseyevna herself darted into the entry, in high spirits and wearing
the same black dress. . . . Seeing Kryukov, she was petrified for
an instant, then she uttered a little scream and beamed with delight.
"Is it you?" she said, clutching his hand. "What a surprise!"
"Here she is!" smiled Kryukov, putting his arm round her waist.
"Well! Does the destiny of Europe still lie in the hands of the
French and the Russians?"
"I'm so glad," laughed the Jewess, cautiously removing his arm.
"Come, go into the hall; they're all friends there. . . . I'll go
and tell them to bring you some tea. Your name's Alexey, isn't it?
Well, go in, I'll come directly. . . ."
She blew him a kiss and ran out of the entry, leaving behind her
the same sickly smell of jasmine. Kryukov raised his head and walked
into the hall. He was on terms of friendly intimacy with all the
men in the room, but scarcely nodded to them; they, too, scarcely
responded, as though the places in which they met were not quite
decent, and as though they were in tacit agreement with one another
that it was more suitable for them not to recognise one another.
From the hall Kryukov walked into the drawing-room, and from it
into a second drawing-room. On the way he met three or four other
guests, also men whom he knew, though they barely recognised him.
Their faces were flushed with drink and merriment. Alexey Ivanovitch
glanced furtively at them and marvelled that these men, respectable
heads of families, who had known sorrow and privation, could demean
themselves to such pitiful, cheap gaiety! He shrugged his shoulders,
smiled, and walked on.
"There are places," he reflected, "where a sober man feels sick,
and a drunken man rejoices. I remember I never could go to the
operetta or the gipsies when I was sober: wine makes a man more
good-natured and reconciles him with vice. . . ."
Suddenly he stood still, petrified, and caught hold of the door-post
with both hands. At the writing-table in Susanna's study was sitting
Lieutenant Alexandr Grigoryevitch. He was discussing something in
an undertone with a fat, flabby-looking Jew, and seeing his cousin,
flushed crimson and looked down at an album.
The sense of decency was stirred in Kryukov and the blood rushed
to his head. Overwhelmed with amazement, shame, and anger, he walked
up to the table without a word. Sokolsky's head sank lower than
ever. His face worked with an expression of agonising shame.
"Ah, it's you, Alyosha!" he articulated, making a desperate effort
to raise his eyes and to smile. "I called here to say good-bye,
and, as you see. . . . But to-morrow I am certainly going."
"What can I say to him? What?" thought Alexey Ivanovitch. "How can
I judge him since I'm here myself?"
And clearing his throat without uttering a word, he went out slowly.
"'Call her not heavenly, and leave her on earth. . . .'"
The bass was singing in the hall. A little while after, Kryukov's
racing droshky was bumping along the dusty road.
NEIGHBOURS
PYOTR MIHALITCH IVASHIN was very much out of humour: his sister, a
young girl, had gone away to live with Vlassitch, a married man.
To shake off the despondency and depression which pursued him at
home and in the fields, he called to his aid his sense of justice,
his genuine and noble ideas--he had always defended free-love!
--but this was of no avail, and he always came back to the same
conclusion as their foolish old nurse, that his sister had acted
wrongly and that Vlassitch had abducted his sister. And that was
distressing.
His mother did not leave her room all day long; the old nurse kept
sighing and speaking in whispers; his aunt had been on the point
of taking her departure every day, and her trunks were continually
being brought down to the hall and carried up again to her room.
In the house, in the yard, and in the garden it was as still as
though there were some one dead in the house. His aunt, the servants,
and even the peasants, so it seemed to Pyotr Mihalitch, looked at
him enigmatically and with perplexity, as though they wanted to say
"Your sister has been seduced; why are you doing nothing?" And he
reproached himself for inactivity, though he did not know precisely
what action he ought to have taken.
So passed six days. On the seventh--it was Sunday afternoon--a
messenger on horseback brought a letter. The address was in a
familiar feminine handwriting: "Her Excy. Anna Nikolaevna Ivashin."
Pyotr Mihalitch fancied that there was something defiant, provocative,
in the handwriting and in the abbreviation "Excy." And advanced
ideas in women are obstinate, ruthless, cruel.
"She'd rather die than make any concession to her unhappy mother,
or beg her forgiveness," thought Pyotr Mihalitch, as he went to his
mother with the letter.
His mother was lying on her bed, dressed. Seeing her son, she rose
impulsively, and straightening her grey hair, which had fallen from
under her cap, asked quickly:
"What is it? What is it?"
"This has come . . ." said her son, giving her the letter.
Zina's name, and even the pronoun "she" was not uttered in the
house. Zina was spoken of impersonally: "this has come," "Gone
away," and so on. . . . The mother recognised her daughter's
handwriting, and her face grew ugly and unpleasant, and her grey
hair escaped again from her cap.
"No!" she said, with a motion of her hands, as though the letter
scorched her fingers. "No, no, never! Nothing would induce me!"
The mother broke into hysterical sobs of grief and shame; she
evidently longed to read the letter, but her pride prevented her.
Pyotr Mihalitch realised that he ought to open the letter himself
and read it aloud, but he was overcome by anger such as he had never
felt before; he ran out into the yard and shouted to the messenger:
"Say there will be no answer! There will be no answer! Tell them
that, you beast!"
And he tore up the letter; then tears came into his eyes, and feeling
that he was cruel, miserable, and to blame, he went out into the
fields.
He was only twenty-seven, but he was already stout. He dressed like
an old man in loose, roomy clothes, and suffered from asthma. He
already seemed to be developing the characteristics of an elderly
country bachelor. He never fell in love, never thought of marriage,
and loved no one but his mother, his sister, his old nurse, and the
gardener, Vassilitch. He was fond of good fare, of his nap after
dinner, and of talking about politics and exalted subjects. He had
in his day taken his degree at the university, but he now looked
upon his studies as though in them he had discharged a duty incumbent
upon young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five; at any
rate, the ideas which now strayed every day through his mind had
nothing in common with the university or the subjects he had studied
there.
In the fields it was hot and still, as though rain were coming. It
was steaming in the wood, and there was a heavy fragrant scent from
the pines and rotting leaves. Pyotr Mihalitch stopped several times
and wiped his wet brow. He looked at his winter corn and his spring
oats, walked round the clover-field, and twice drove away a partridge
with its chicks which had strayed in from the wood. And all the
while he was thinking that this insufferable state of things could
not go on for ever, and that he must end it one way or another. End
it stupidly, madly, but he must end it.
"But how? What can I do?" he asked himself, and looked imploringly
at the sky and at the trees, as though begging for their help.
But the sky and the trees were mute. His noble ideas were no help,
and his common sense whispered that the agonising question could
have no solution but a stupid one, and that to-day's scene with the
messenger was not the last one of its kind. It was terrible to think
what was in store for him!
As he returned home the sun was setting. By now it seemed to him
that the problem was incapable of solution. He could not accept the
accomplished fact, and he could not refuse to accept it, and there
was no intermediate course. When, taking off his hat and fanning
himself with his handkerchief, he was walking along the road, and
had only another mile and a half to go before he would reach home,
he heard bells behind him. It was a very choice and successful
combination of bells, which gave a clear crystal note. No one had