The Duel and Other Stories
such bells on his horses but the police captain, Medovsky, formerly
an officer in the hussars, a man in broken-down health, who had
been a great rake and spendthrift, and was a distant relation of
Pyotr Mihalitch. He was like one of the family at the Ivashins' and
had a tender, fatherly affection for Zina, as well as a great
admiration for her.
"I was coming to see you," he said, overtaking Pyotr Mihalitch.
"Get in; I'll give you a lift."
He was smiling and looked cheerful. Evidently he did not yet know
that Zina had gone to live with Vlassitch; perhaps he had been told
of it already, but did not believe it. Pyotr Mihalitch felt in a
difficult position.
"You are very welcome," he muttered, blushing till the tears came
into his eyes, and not knowing how to lie or what to say. "I am
delighted," he went on, trying to smile, "but . . . Zina is away
and mother is ill."
"How annoying!" said the police captain, looking pensively at Pyotr
Mihalitch. "And I was meaning to spend the evening with you. Where
has Zinaida Mihalovna gone?"
"To the Sinitskys', and I believe she meant to go from there to the
monastery. I don't quite know."
The police captain talked a little longer and then turned back.
Pyotr Mihalitch walked home, and thought with horror what the police
captain's feelings would be when he learned the truth. And Pyotr
Mihalitch imagined his feelings, and actually experiencing them
himself, went into the house.
"Lord help us," he thought, "Lord help us!"
At evening tea the only one at the table was his aunt. As usual,
her face wore the expression that seemed to say that though she was
a weak, defenceless woman, she would allow no one to insult her.
Pyotr Mihalitch sat down at the other end of the table (he did not
like his aunt) and began drinking tea in silence.
"Your mother has had no dinner again to-day," said his aunt. "You
ought to do something about it, Petrusha. Starving oneself is no
help in sorrow."
It struck Pyotr Mihalitch as absurd that his aunt should meddle in
other people's business and should make her departure depend on
Zina's having gone away. He was tempted to say something rude to
her, but restrained himself. And as he restrained himself he felt
the time had come for action, and that he could not bear it any
longer. Either he must act at once or fall on the ground, and scream
and bang his head upon the floor. He pictured Vlassitch and Zina,
both of them progressive and self-satisfied, kissing each other
somewhere under a maple tree, and all the anger and bitterness that
had been accumulating in him for the last seven days fastened upon
Vlassitch.
"One has seduced and abducted my sister," he thought, "another will
come and murder my mother, a third will set fire to the house and
sack the place. . . . And all this under the mask of friendship,
lofty ideas, unhappiness!"
"No, it shall not be!" Pyotr Mihalitch cried suddenly, and he brought
his fist down on the table.
He jumped up and ran out of the dining-room. In the stable the
steward's horse was standing ready saddled. He got on it and galloped
off to Vlassitch.
There was a perfect tempest within him. He felt a longing to do
something extraordinary, startling, even if he had to repent of it
all his life afterwards. Should he call Vlassitch a blackguard,
slap him in the face, and then challenge him to a duel? But Vlassitch
was not one of those men who do fight duels; being called a blackguard
and slapped in the face would only make him more unhappy, and would
make him shrink into himself more than ever. These unhappy, defenceless
people are the most insufferable, the most tiresome creatures in
the world. They can do anything with impunity. When the luckless
man responds to well-deserved reproach by looking at you with eyes
full of deep and guilty feeling, and with a sickly smile bends his
head submissively, even justice itself could not lift its hand
against him.
"No matter. I'll horsewhip him before her eyes and tell him what I
think of him," Pyotr Mihalitch decided.
He was riding through his wood and waste land, and he imagined Zina
would try to justify her conduct by talking about the rights of
women and individual freedom, and about there being no difference
between legal marriage and free union. Like a woman, she would argue
about what she did not understand. And very likely at the end she
would ask, "How do you come in? What right have you to interfere?"
"No, I have no right," muttered Pyotr Mihalitch. "But so much the
better. . . . The harsher I am, the less right I have to interfere,
the better."
It was sultry. Clouds of gnats hung over the ground and in the waste
places the peewits called plaintively. Everything betokened rain,
but he could not see a cloud in the sky. Pyotr Mihalitch crossed
the boundary of his estate and galloped over a smooth, level field.
He often went along this road and knew every bush, every hollow in
it. What now in the far distance looked in the dusk like a dark
cliff was a red church; he could picture it all down to the smallest
detail, even the plaster on the gate and the calves that were always
grazing in the church enclosure. Three-quarters of a mile to the
right of the church there was a copse like a dark blur--it was
Count Koltonovitch's. And beyond the church Vlassitch's estate
began.
From behind the church and the count's copse a huge black storm-cloud
was rising, and there were ashes of white lightning.
"Here it is!" thought Pyotr Mihalitch. "Lord help us, Lord help
us!"
The horse was soon tired after its quick gallop, and Pyotr Mihalitch
was tired too. The storm-cloud looked at him angrily and seemed to
advise him to go home. He felt a little scared.
"I will prove to them they are wrong," he tried to reassure himself.
"They will say that it is free-love, individual freedom; but freedom
means self-control and not subjection to passion. It's not liberty
but license!"
He reached the count's big pond; it looked dark blue and frowning
under the cloud, and a smell of damp and slime rose from it. Near
the dam, two willows, one old and one young, drooped tenderly towards
one another. Pyotr Mihalitch and Vlassitch had been walking near
this very spot only a fortnight before, humming a students' song:
"'Youth is wasted, life is nought, when the heart is cold and
loveless.'"
A wretched song!
It was thundering as Pyotr Mihalitch rode through the copse, and
the trees were bending and rustling in the wind. He had to make
haste. It was only three-quarters of a mile through a meadow from
the copse to Vlassitch's house. Here there were old birch-trees on
each side of the road. They had the same melancholy and unhappy air
as their owner Vlassitch, and looked as tall and lanky as he. Big
drops of rain pattered on the birches and on the grass; the wind
had suddenly dropped, and there was a smell of wet earth and poplars.
Before him he saw Vlassitch's fence with a row of yellow acacias,
which were tall and lanky too; where the fence was broken he could
see the neglected orchard.
Pyotr Mihalitch was not thinking now of the horsewhip or of a slap
in the face, and did not know what he would do at Vlassitch's. He
felt nervous. He felt frightened on his own account and on his
sister's, and was terrified at the thought of seeing her. How would
she behave with her brother? What would they both talk about? And
had he not better go back before it was too late? As he made these
reflections, he galloped up the avenue of lime-trees to the house,
rode round the big clumps of lilacs, and suddenly saw Vlassitch.
Vlassitch, wearing a cotton shirt, and top-boots, bending forward,
with no hat on in the rain, was coming from the corner of the house
to the front door. He was followed by a workman with a hammer and
a box of nails. They must have been mending a shutter which had
been banging in the wind. Seeing Pyotr Mihalitch, Vlassitch stopped.
"It's you!" he said, smiling. "That's nice."
"Yes, I've come, as you see," said Pyotr Mihalitch, brushing the
rain off himself with both hands.
"Well, that's capital! I'm very glad," said Vlassitch, but he did
not hold out his hand: evidently he did not venture, but waited for
Pyotr Mihalitch to hold out his. "It will do the oats good," he
said, looking at the sky.
"Yes."
They went into the house in silence. To the right of the hall was
a door leading to another hall and then to the drawing-room, and
on the left was a little room which in winter was used by the
steward. Pyotr Mihalitch and Vlassitch went into this little room.
"Where were you caught in the rain?"
"Not far off, quite close to the house."
Pyotr Mihalitch sat down on the bed. He was glad of the noise of
the rain and the darkness of the room. It was better: it made it
less dreadful, and there was no need to see his companion's face.
There was no anger in his heart now, nothing but fear and vexation
with himself. He felt he had made a bad beginning, and that nothing
would come of this visit.
Both were silent for some time and affected to be listening to the
rain.
"Thank you, Petrusha," Vlassitch began, clearing his throat. "I am
very grateful to you for coming. It's generous and noble of you. I
understand it, and, believe me, I appreciate it. Believe me."
He looked out of the window and went on, standing in the middle of
the room:
"Everything happened so secretly, as though we were concealing it
all from you. The feeling that you might be wounded and angry has
been a blot on our happiness all these days. But let me justify
myself. We kept it secret not because we did not trust you. To begin
with, it all happened suddenly, by a kind of inspiration; there was
no time to discuss it. Besides, it's such a private, delicate matter,
and it was awkward to bring a third person in, even some one as
intimate as you. Above all, in all this we reckoned on your generosity.
You are a very noble and generous person. I am infinitely grateful
to you. If you ever need my life, come and take it."
Vlassitch talked in a quiet, hollow bass, always on the same droning
note; he was evidently agitated. Pyotr Mihalitch felt it was his
turn to speak, and that to listen and keep silent would really mean
playing the part of a generous and noble simpleton, and that had
not been his idea in coming. He got up quickly and said, breathlessly
in an undertone:
"Listen, Grigory. You know I liked you and could have desired no
better husband for my sister; but what has happened is awful! It's
terrible to think of it!"
"Why is it terrible?" asked Vlassitch, with a quiver in his voice.
"It would be terrible if we had done wrong, but that isn't so."
"Listen, Grigory. You know I have no prejudices; but, excuse my
frankness, to my mind you have both acted selfishly. Of course, I
shan't say so to my sister--it will distress her; but you ought
to know: mother is miserable beyond all description."
"Yes, that's sad," sighed Vlassitch. "We foresaw that, Petrusha,
but what could we have done? Because one's actions hurt other people,
it doesn't prove that they are wrong. What's to be done! Every
important step one takes is bound to distress somebody. If you went
to fight for freedom, that would distress your mother, too. What's
to be done! Any one who puts the peace of his family before everything
has to renounce the life of ideas completely."
There was a vivid flash of lightning at the window, and the lightning
seemed to change the course of Vlassitch's thoughts. He sat down
beside Pyotr Mihalitch and began saying what was utterly beside the
point.
"I have such a reverence for your sister, Petrusha," he said. "When
I used to come and see you, I felt as though I were going to a holy
shrine, and I really did worship Zina. Now my reverence for her