The Duel and Other Stories
the lamp, and Samoylenko's huge figure appeared all in white, with
a white nightcap on his head.
"What now?" he asked, scratching himself and breathing hard from
sleepiness. "Wait a minute; I'll open the door directly."
"Don't trouble; I'll get in at the window. . . ."
Laevsky climbed in at the window, and when he reached Samoylenko,
seized him by the hand.
"Alexandr Daviditch," he said in a shaking voice, "save me! I beseech
you, I implore you. Understand me! My position is agonising. If it
goes on for another two days I shall strangle myself like . . .
like a dog."
"Wait a bit. . . . What are you talking about exactly?"
"Light a candle."
"Oh . . . oh! . . ." sighed Samoylenko, lighting a candle. "My God!
My God! . . . Why, it's past one, brother."
"Excuse me, but I can't stay at home," said Laevsky, feeling great
comfort from the light and the presence of Samoylenko. "You are my
best, my only friend, Alexandr Daviditch. . . . You are my only
hope. For God's sake, come to my rescue, whether you want to or
not. I must get away from here, come what may! . . . Lend me the
money!"
"Oh, my God, my God! . . ." sighed Samoylenko, scratching himself.
"I was dropping asleep and I hear the whistle of the steamer, and
now you . . . Do you want much?"
"Three hundred roubles at least. I must leave her a hundred, and I
need two hundred for the journey. . . . I owe you about four hundred
already, but I will send it you all . . . all. . . ."
Samoylenko took hold of both his whiskers in one hand, and standing
with his legs wide apart, pondered.
"Yes . . ." he muttered, musing. "Three hundred. . . . Yes. . . .
But I haven't got so much. I shall have to borrow it from some one."
"Borrow it, for God's sake!" said Laevsky, seeing from Samoylenko's
face that he wanted to lend him the money and certainly would lend
it. "Borrow it, and I'll be sure to pay you back. I will send it
from Petersburg as soon as I get there. You can set your mind at
rest about that. I'll tell you what, Sasha," he said, growing more
animated; "let us have some wine."
"Yes . . . we can have some wine, too."
They both went into the dining-room.
"And how about Nadyezhda Fyodorovna?" asked Samoylenko, setting
three bottles and a plate of peaches on the table. "Surely she's
not remaining?"
"I will arrange it all, I will arrange it all," said Laevsky, feeling
an unexpected rush of joy. "I will send her the money afterwards
and she will join me. . . . Then we will define our relations. To
your health, friend."
"Wait a bit," said Samoylenko. "Drink this first. . . . This is
from my vineyard. This bottle is from Navaridze's vineyard and this
one is from Ahatulov's. . . . Try all three kinds and tell me
candidly. . . . There seems a little acidity about mine. Eh? Don't
you taste it?"
"Yes. You have comforted me, Alexandr Daviditch. Thank you. . . .
I feel better."
"Is there any acidity?"
"Goodness only knows, I don't know. But you are a splendid, wonderful
man!"
Looking at his pale, excited, good-natured face, Samoylenko remembered
Von Koren's view that men like that ought to be destroyed, and
Laevsky seemed to him a weak, defenceless child, whom any one could
injure and destroy.
"And when you go, make it up with your mother," he said. "It's not
right."
"Yes, yes; I certainly shall."
They were silent for a while. When they had emptied the first bottle,
Samoylenko said:
"You ought to make it up with Von Koren too. You are both such
splendid, clever fellows, and you glare at each other like wolves."
"Yes, he's a fine, very intelligent fellow," Laevsky assented, ready
now to praise and forgive every one. "He's a remarkable man, but
it's impossible for me to get on with him. No! Our natures are too
different. I'm an indolent, weak, submissive nature. Perhaps in a
good minute I might hold out my hand to him, but he would turn away
from me . . . with contempt."
Laevsky took a sip of wine, walked from corner to corner and went
on, standing in the middle of the room:
"I understand Von Koren very well. His is a resolute, strong,
despotic nature. You have heard him continually talking of 'the
expedition,' and it's not mere talk. He wants the wilderness, the
moonlit night: all around in little tents, under the open sky, lie
sleeping his sick and hungry Cossacks, guides, porters, doctor,
priest, all exhausted with their weary marches, while only he is
awake, sitting like Stanley on a camp-stool, feeling himself the
monarch of the desert and the master of these men. He goes on and
on and on, his men groan and die, one after another, and he goes
on and on, and in the end perishes himself, but still is monarch
and ruler of the desert, since the cross upon his tomb can be seen
by the caravans for thirty or forty miles over the desert. I am
sorry the man is not in the army. He would have made a splendid
military genius. He would not have hesitated to drown his cavalry
in the river and make a bridge out of dead bodies. And such hardihood
is more needed in war than any kind of fortification or strategy.
Oh, I understand him perfectly! Tell me: why is he wasting his
substance here? What does he want here?"
"He is studying the marine fauna."
"No, no, brother, no!" Laevsky sighed. "A scientific man who was
on the steamer told me the Black Sea was poor in animal life, and
that in its depths, thanks to the abundance of sulphuric hydrogen,
organic life was impossible. All the serious zoologists work at the
biological station at Naples or Villefranche. But Von Koren is
independent and obstinate: he works on the Black Sea because nobody
else is working there; he is at loggerheads with the university,
does not care to know his comrades and other scientific men because
he is first of all a despot and only secondly a zoologist. And
you'll see he'll do something. He is already dreaming that when he
comes back from his expedition he will purify our universities from
intrigue and mediocrity, and will make the scientific men mind their
p's and q's. Despotism is just as strong in science as in the army.
And he is spending his second summer in this stinking little town
because he would rather be first in a village than second in a town.
Here he is a king and an eagle; he keeps all the inhabitants under
his thumb and oppresses them with his authority. He has appropriated
every one, he meddles in other people's affairs; everything is of
use to him, and every one is afraid of him. I am slipping out of
his clutches, he feels that and hates me. Hasn't he told you that
I ought to be destroyed or sent to hard labour?"
"Yes," laughed Samoylenko.
Laevsky laughed too, and drank some wine.
"His ideals are despotic too," he said, laughing, and biting a
peach. "Ordinary mortals think of their neighbour--me, you, man
in fact--if they work for the common weal. To Von Koren men are
puppets and nonentities, too trivial to be the object of his life.
He works, will go for his expedition and break his neck there, not
for the sake of love for his neighbour, but for the sake of such
abstractions as humanity, future generations, an ideal race of men.
He exerts himself for the improvement of the human race, and we are
in his eyes only slaves, food for the cannon, beasts of burden;
some he would destroy or stow away in Siberia, others he would break
by discipline, would, like Araktcheev, force them to get up and go
to bed to the sound of the drum; would appoint eunuchs to preserve
our chastity and morality, would order them to fire at any one who
steps out of the circle of our narrow conservative morality; and
all this in the name of the improvement of the human race. . . .
And what is the human race? Illusion, mirage . . . despots have
always been illusionists. I understand him very well, brother. I
appreciate him and don't deny his importance; this world rests on
men like him, and if the world were left only to such men as us,
for all our good-nature and good intentions, we should make as great
a mess of it as the flies have of that picture. Yes."
Laevsky sat down beside Samoylenko, and said with genuine feeling:
"I'm a foolish, worthless, depraved man. The air I breathe, this
wine, love, life in fact--for all that, I have given nothing in
exchange so far but lying, idleness, and cowardice. Till now I have
deceived myself and other people; I have been miserable about it,
and my misery was cheap and common. I bow my back humbly before Von
Koren's hatred because at times I hate and despise myself."
Laevsky began again pacing from one end of the room to the other
in excitement, and said:
"I'm glad I see my faults clearly and am conscious of them. That
will help me to reform and become a different man. My dear fellow,
if only you knew how passionately, with what anguish, I long for
such a change. And I swear to you I'll be a man! I will! I don't
know whether it is the wine that is speaking in me, or whether it
really is so, but it seems to me that it is long since I have spent
such pure and lucid moments as I have just now with you."
"It's time to sleep, brother," said Samoylenko.
"Yes, yes. . . . Excuse me; I'll go directly."
Laevsky moved hurriedly about the furniture and windows, looking
for his cap.
"Thank you," he muttered, sighing. "Thank you. . . . Kind and
friendly words are better than charity. You have given me new life."
He found his cap, stopped, and looked guiltily at Samoylenko.
"Alexandr Daviditch," he said in an imploring voice.
"What is it?"
"Let me stay the night with you, my dear fellow!"
"Certainly. . . . Why not?"
Laevsky lay down on the sofa, and went on talking to the doctor for
a long time.
X
Three days after the picnic, Marya Konstantinovna unexpectedly
called on Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, and without greeting her or taking
off her hat, seized her by both hands, pressed them to her breast
and said in great excitement:
"My dear, I am deeply touched and moved: our dear kind-hearted
doctor told my Nikodim Alexandritch yesterday that your husband was
dead. Tell me, my dear . . . tell me, is it true?"
"Yes, it's true; he is dead," answered Nadyezhda Fyodorovna.
"That is awful, awful, my dear! But there's no evil without some
compensation; your husband was no doubt a noble, wonderful, holy
man, and such are more needed in Heaven than on earth."
Every line and feature in Marya Konstantinovna's face began quivering
as though little needles were jumping up and down under her skin;
she gave an almond-oily smile and said, breathlessly, enthusiastically:
"And so you are free, my dear. You can hold your head high now, and
look people boldly in the face. Henceforth God and man will bless
your union with Ivan Andreitch. It's enchanting. I am trembling
with joy, I can find no words. My dear, I will give you away. . . .
Nikodim Alexandritch and I have been so fond of you, you will
allow us to give our blessing to your pure, lawful union. When,
when do you think of being married?"
"I haven't thought of it," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, freeing her
hands.
"That's impossible, my dear. You have thought of it, you have."
"Upon my word, I haven't," said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, laughing.
"What should we be married for? I see no necessity for it. We'll
go on living as we have lived."
"What are you saying!" cried Marya Konstantinovna in horror. "For
God's sake, what are you saying!"
"Our getting married won't make things any better. On the contrary,
it will make them even worse. We shall lose our freedom."
"My dear, my dear, what are you saying!" exclaimed Marya Konstantinovna,
stepping back and flinging up her hands. "You are talking wildly!
Think what you are saying. You must settle down!"
"'Settle down.' How do you mean? I have not lived yet, and you
tell me to settle down."