The Duel and Other Stories
night, and endless thinking about the same thing. At three o'clock
the sun rose; Alyona was already busy in the corridor, and Vera was
not asleep yet and was trying to read. She heard the creak of the
barrow: it was the new labourer at work in the garden. . . . Vera
sat at the open window with a book, dozed, and watched the soldier
making the paths for her, and that interested her. The paths were
as even and level as a leather strap, and it was pleasant to imagine
what they would be like when they were strewn with yellow sand.
She could see her aunt come out of the house soon after five o'clock,
in a pink wrapper and curl-papers. She stood on the steps for three
minutes without speaking, and then said to the soldier:
"Take your passport and go in peace. I can't have any one illegitimate
in my house."
An oppressive, angry feeling sank like a stone on Vera's heart. She
was indignant with her aunt, she hated her; she was so sick of her
aunt that her heart was full of misery and loathing. But what was
she to do? To stop her mouth? To be rude to her? But what would be
the use? Suppose she struggled with her, got rid of her, made her
harmless, prevented her grandfather from flourishing his stick--
what would be the use of it? It would be like killing one mouse or
one snake in the boundless steppe. The vast expanse, the long
winters, the monotony and dreariness of life, instil a sense of
helplessness; the position seems hopeless, and one wants to do
nothing--everything is useless.
Alyona came in, and bowing low to Vera, began carrying out the
arm-chairs to beat the dust out of them.
"You have chosen a time to clean up," said Vera with annoyance. "Go
away."
Alyona was overwhelmed, and in her terror could not understand what
was wanted of her. She began hurriedly tidying up the dressing-table.
"Go out of the room, I tell you," Vera shouted, turning cold; she
had never had such an oppressive feeling before. "Go away!"
Alyona uttered a sort of moan, like a bird, and dropped Vera's gold
watch on the carpet.
"Go away!" Vera shrieked in a voice not her own, leaping up and
trembling all over. "Send her away; she worries me to death!" she
went on, walking rapidly after Alyona down the passage, stamping
her feet. "Go away! Birch her! Beat her!" Then suddenly she came
to herself, and just as she was, unwashed, uncombed, in her
dressing-gown and slippers, she rushed out of the house. She ran
to the familiar ravine and hid herself there among the sloe-trees,
so that she might see no one and be seen by no one. Lying there
motionless on the grass, she did not weep, she was not horror-stricken,
but gazing at the sky open-eyed, she reflected coldly and clearly
that something had happened which she could never forget and for
which she could never forgive herself all her life.
"No, I can't go on like this," she thought. "It's time to take
myself in hand, or there'll be no end to it. . . . I can't go on
like this. . . ."
At midday Dr. Neshtchapov drove by the ravine on his way to the
house. She saw him and made up her mind that she would begin a new
life, and that she would make herself begin it, and this decision
calmed her. And following with her eyes the doctor's well-built
figure, she said, as though trying to soften the crudity of her
decision:
"He's a nice man. . . . We shall get through life somehow."
She returned home. While she was dressing, Auntie Dasha came into
the room, and said:
"Alyona upset you, darling; I've sent her home to the village. Her
mother's given her a good beating and has come here, crying."
"Auntie," said Vera quickly, "I'm going to marry Dr. Neshtchapov.
Only talk to him yourself . . . I can't."
And again she went out into the fields. And wandering aimlessly
about, she made up her mind that when she was married she would
look after the house, doctor the peasants, teach in the school,
that she would do all the things that other women of her circle
did. And this perpetual dissatisfaction with herself and every one
else, this series of crude mistakes which stand up like a mountain
before one whenever one looks back upon one's past, she would accept
as her real life to which she was fated, and she would expect nothing
better. . . . Of course there was nothing better! Beautiful nature,
dreams, music, told one story, but reality another. Evidently truth
and happiness existed somewhere outside real life. . . . One must
give up one's own life and merge oneself into this luxuriant steppe,
boundless and indifferent as eternity, with its flowers, its ancient
barrows, and its distant horizon, and then it would be well with
one. . . .
A month later Vera was living at the works.
EXPENSIVE LESSONS
FOR a cultivated man to be ignorant of foreign languages is a great
inconvenience. Vorotov became acutely conscious of it when, after
taking his degree, he began upon a piece of research work.
"It's awful," he said, breathing hard (although he was only twenty-six
he was fat, heavy, and suffered from shortness of breath).
"It's awful! Without languages I'm like a bird without wings. I
might just as well give up the work."
And he made up his mind at all costs to overcome his innate laziness,
and to learn French and German; and began to look out for a teacher.
One winter noon, as Vorotov was sitting in his study at work, the
servant told him that a young lady was inquiring for him.
"Ask her in," said Vorotov.
And a young lady elaborately dressed in the last fashion walked in.
She introduced herself as a teacher of French, Alice Osipovna
Enquête, and told Vorotov that she had been sent to him by one of
his friends.
"Delighted! Please sit down," said Vorotov, breathing hard and
putting his hand over the collar of his nightshirt (to breathe more
freely he always wore a nightshirt at work instead of a stiff linen
one with collar). "It was Pyotr Sergeitch sent you? Yes, yes . . .
I asked him about it. Delighted!"
As he talked to Mdlle. Enquête he looked at her shyly and with
curiosity. She was a genuine Frenchwoman, very elegant and still
quite young. Judging from her pale, languid face, her short curly
hair, and her unnaturally slim waist, she might have been eighteen;
but looking at her broad, well-developed shoulders, the elegant
lines of her back and her severe eyes, Vorotov thought that she was
not less than three-and-twenty and might be twenty-five; but then
again he began to think she was not more than eighteen. Her face
looked as cold and business-like as the face of a person who has
come to speak about money. She did not once smile or frown, and
only once a look of perplexity flitted over her face when she learnt
that she was not required to teach children, but a stout grown-up
man.
"So, Alice Osipovna," said Vorotov, "we'll have a lesson every
evening from seven to eight. As regards your terms--a rouble a
lesson--I've nothing to say against that. By all means let it be
a rouble. . . ."
And he asked her if she would not have some tea or coffee, whether
it was a fine day, and with a good-natured smile, stroking the baize
of the table, he inquired in a friendly voice who she was, where
she had studied, and what she lived on.
With a cold, business-like expression, Alice Osipovna answered that
she had completed her studies at a private school and had the diploma
of a private teacher, that her father had died lately of scarlet
fever, that her mother was alive and made artificial flowers; that
she, Mdlle. Enquête, taught in a private school till dinnertime,
and after dinner was busy till evening giving lessons in different
good families.
She went away leaving behind her the faint fragrance of a woman's
clothes. For a long time afterwards Vorotov could not settle to
work, but, sitting at the table stroking its green baize surface,
he meditated.
"It's very pleasant to see a girl working to earn her own living,"
he thought. "On the other hand, it's very unpleasant to think that
poverty should not spare such elegant and pretty girls as Alice
Osipovna, and that she, too, should have to struggle for existence.
It's a sad thing!"
Having never seen virtuous Frenchwomen before, he reflected also
that this elegantly dressed young lady with her well-developed
shoulders and exaggeratedly small waist in all probability followed
another calling as well as giving French lessons.
The next evening when the clock pointed to five minutes to seven,
Mdlle. Enquête appeared, rosy from the frost. She opened Margot,
which she had brought with her, and without introduction began:
"French grammar has twenty-six letters. The first letter is called
_A_, the second _B_ . . ."
"Excuse me," Vorotov interrupted, smiling. "I must warn you,
mademoiselle, that you must change your method a little in my case.
You see, I know Russian, Greek, and Latin well. . . . I've studied
comparative philology, and I think we might omit Margot and pass
straight to reading some author."
And he explained to the French girl how grown-up people learn
languages.
"A friend of mine," he said, "wanting to learn modern languages,
laid before him the French, German, and Latin gospels, and read
them side by side, carefully analysing each word, and would you
believe it, he attained his object in less than a year. Let us do
the same. We'll take some author and read him."
The French girl looked at him in perplexity. Evidently the suggestion
seemed to her very naïve and ridiculous. If this strange proposal
had been made to her by a child, she would certainly have been angry
and have scolded it, but as he was a grown-up man and very stout
and she could not scold him, she only shrugged her shoulders hardly
perceptibly and said:
"As you please."
Vorotov rummaged in his bookcase and picked out a dog's-eared French
book.
"Will this do?"
"It's all the same," she said.
"In that case let us begin, and good luck to it! Let's begin with
the title . . . 'Mémoires.'"
"Reminiscences," Mdlle. Enquête translated.
With a good-natured smile, breathing hard, he spent a quarter of
an hour over the word "Mémoires," and as much over the word _de_,
and this wearied the young lady. She answered his questions languidly,
grew confused, and evidently did not understand her pupil well, and
did not attempt to understand him. Vorotov asked her questions, and
at the same time kept looking at her fair hair and thinking:
"Her hair isn't naturally curly; she curls it. It's a strange thing!
She works from morning to night, and yet she has time to curl her
hair."
At eight o'clock precisely she got up, and saying coldly and dryly,
"Au revoir, monsieur," walked out of the study, leaving behind her
the same tender, delicate, disturbing fragrance. For a long time
again her pupil did nothing; he sat at the table meditating.
During the days that followed he became convinced that his teacher
was a charming, conscientious, and precise young lady, but that she
was very badly educated, and incapable of teaching grown-up people,
and he made up his mind not to waste his time, to get rid of her,
and to engage another teacher. When she came the seventh time he
took out of his pocket an envelope with seven roubles in it, and
holding it in his hand, became very confused and began:
"Excuse me, Alice Osipovna, but I ought to tell you . . . I'm under
painful necessity . . ."
Seeing the envelope, the French girl guessed what was meant, and
for the first time during their lessons her face quivered and her
cold, business-like expression vanished. She coloured a little, and
dropping her eyes, began nervously fingering her slender gold chain.
And Vorotov, seeing her perturbation, realised how much a rouble
meant to her, and how bitter it would be to her to lose what she
was earning.