Sheshkovsky exchanged glances with the officers and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Gentlemen!’ he said out loud, without addressing anyone in particular, ‘Gentlemen! We suggest you settle your differences!’
‘Let’s get the formalities over with,’ von Koren said. ‘We’ve already discussed a reconciliation. What’s next on the agenda? Now, let’s get a move on, gentlemen, there’s no time to waste.’
‘All the same, we insist you make it up,’ Sheshkovsky said, in the guilty tone of someone forced to get involved in other people’s business. Blushing and placing his hand over his heart he continued, ‘Gentlemen, we cannot find any causal connection between the insult and the duel. Insults which we sometimes inflict on each other out of human frailty have nothing to do with duels. You are educated, university men and naturally you see duels as an outmoded, empty formality, and all that. We see it like that too, otherwise we wouldn’t have come, since we cannot allow people to shoot at each other in our presence, and all that.’ Sheshkovsky wiped the sweat from his brow and went on, ‘Please settle your differences, gentlemen, shake hands and let’s all go home and have a drink on it. Honestly, gentlemen!’
Von Koren said nothing. When Layevsky saw them looking at him he said, ‘I’ve nothing against Nikolay Vasilyevich. If he thinks I’m the guilty party, then I’m prepared to apologize.’
Von Koren took offence at this. ‘Obviously, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you would like to see Mr Layevsky return home as the chivalrous knight, but I cannot afford either him or you that pleasure. And there was no need to get up at the crack of dawn and ride six miles out of town just for a friendly drink and bite to eat, and to be told duels are outmoded formalities. Duels are duels and we should not make them out to be even more stupid and artificial than they actually are. I wish to fight!’
Silence followed. Officer Boyko took two pistols from a box, one was handed to von Koren and the other to Layevsky. Then followed a state of confusion which amused the zoologist and the seconds for a while. It turned out that not one of the whole assembled company had ever attended a duel before and no one knew precisely how they should stand, or what the seconds should say or do. But then Boyko remembered and he smiled as he began to explain.
‘Gentlemen, who remembers Lermontov’s description?’ von Koren asked, laughing. ‘And in Turgenev, Bazarov had a duel with someone or other…’21
‘Why bring all that up now?’ Ustimovich asked impatiently as he halted. ‘Just measure out your distances, that’s all.’
He took three steps as if to show how measuring should be done. Boyko counted out the paces, while his fellow officer bared his sword and scratched the ground at the extreme ends to mark the barrier.
Amid general silence the two opponents took up their positions.
‘Moles!’ the deacon recalled as he sat in the bushes.
Sheshkovsky said something, Boyko explained something further, but Layevsky did not hear; rather, he probably heard but did not understand. When the moment arrived he cocked the cold heavy pistol and pointed it upwards. He had forgotten to unbutton his coat and felt terribly cramped around the shoulders and armpits, and he raised his arm so awkwardly the sleeve seemed to be made of metal. He remembered the hatred he had felt yesterday for that swarthy forehead and curly hair and reflected that even then, when his hatred and anger were at boiling-point, he could never have fired at a man. Afraid the bullet might accidentally hit von Koren, he raised his pistol higher and higher, feeling that this terribly ostentatious show of magnanimity was tactless and not at all magnanimous; but he was incapable of acting in any other way. As he watched the pale, mocking face of von Koren, who was evidently convinced from the start that his opponent would fire into the air, Layevsky thought that it would be all over any moment, thank God, and that he only had to squeeze the trigger a little harder…
The pistol recoiled violently against his shoulder, a shot rang out and back came the echo from the mountains.
Von Koren cocked his pistol and looked towards Ustimovich, who was still striding back and forwards, hands behind his back, oblivious of everything.
‘Doctor,’ the zoologist said, ‘please be so good as to stop going up and down like a pendulum. You’re giving me spots before the eyes!’
The doctor stopped. Von Koren began taking aim at Layevsky.
‘It’s all over now!’ Layevsky thought.
The barrel which was directed right at his face, the hatred and scorn in von Koren’s whole bearing and posture, the murder that was about to be committed by a decent man in broad daylight in the presence of other decent men, the silence, that strange power that compelled Layevsky to stand firm and not run away – how mysterious, incomprehensible and terrifying all this was!
The time von Koren took to aim seemed longer to Layevsky than the whole night. He looked imploringly at the seconds; their faces were pale and they did not move.
‘Hurry up and fire!’ Layevsky thought, sensing that his pale, trembling, pathetic face must arouse even deeper loathing in von Koren.
‘I’ll kill him right now,’ von Koren thought, aiming at the forehead and already feeling the trigger. ‘Yes, of course I will…’
‘He’s going to kill him!’ a desperate cry came from somewhere quite close.
At once the shot rang out. When they saw Layevsky still standing in the same place everyone looked where the cry had come from – and they saw the deacon.
Pale-faced, soaked, covered in mud, his wet hair clinging to his forehead and cheeks, the deacon was standing in the maize on the far bank, smiling peculiarly and waving his wet hat. Sheshkovsky laughed for joy, burst into tears and walked to one side.
XX
Shortly afterwards von Koren and the deacon met near the bridge. The deacon was disturbed, breathing heavily and avoiding people’s eyes. He was ashamed of being so scared, and of his wet, muddy clothes.
‘I thought you wanted to kill him,’ he muttered. ‘How alien to human nature! How extremely unnatural!’
‘But where on earth did you come from?’ the zoologist asked.
‘Don’t ask!’ the deacon said, waving his arm. ‘The devil’s to blame, he tempted me here. So off I went and I nearly died of fright in the maize. But now, thank God, thank God… I’m very pleased with you,’ the deacon muttered. ‘And Grandpa Tarantula will be pleased too… What a laugh, eh, what a laugh! But I beg of you, most earnestly, not to breathe a word to a soul that I was here or I’ll get it in the neck from the authorities. They’ll say a deacon acted as second.’
‘Gentlemen!’ said von Koren. ‘The deacon requests you not to tell anyone you saw him here. It could have unpleasant consequences for him.’
‘How alien to human nature!’ the deacon sighed. ‘Please be generous and forgive me – but from the way you looked I thought you were definitely going to kill him.’
‘I was strongly tempted to have finished with that scoundrel,’ von Koren said, ‘but your shout put me off, and I missed. I’m just not used to all this repulsive procedure, it’s worn me out, deacon. I feel terribly weak. Let’s drive back now.’
‘No, please permit me to walk. I must dry myself out, I’m soaked and frozen stiff.’
‘Well, please yourself,’ the exhausted zoologist said wearily as he climbed into the carriage and closed his eyes. ‘As you like.’
While they were walking round the carriages and taking their seats, Kerbalay stood by the roadside, clasped his stomach with both hands, made a low bow and showed his teeth. He thought that the gentlemen had come to enjoy the beauties of nature and to drink tea, and he could not fathom why they were getting back into their carriages. The procession moved off in complete silence; only the deacon stayed behind at the inn.
‘Me come to inn, me drink tea,’ he said to Kerbalay. ‘Me want eat.’
Kerbalay knew Russian well, but the deacon thought that the Tatar would understand broken Russian better.
‘You make fried egg, you serve cheese…’
‘Co
me on, come on, Father,’ Kerbalay said, bowing. ‘I’ll give you everything… There’s cheese and wine… Eat what you like.’
‘What’s Tatar for “God”?’ the deacon asked as he entered the inn.
‘Your God, my God – just the same,’ Kerbalay said, not understanding. ‘God same for everyone, only people different. Some are Russians, some Turks, some English, there’s all kinds of different people, but God is one.’
‘All right then. If all nations worship the same God, then why do you Muslims treat Christians as your eternal enemies?’
‘Why you angry?’ Kerbalay asked, clutching his belly with both hands. ‘You’re priest, me Muslim, you say “I want to eat” and I give you food… Only the rich man make difference which your God, which my God. But it’s all the same for the poor man. Please eat.’
While this theological discussion was in progress at the inn, Layevsky was driving home and he realized how terrifying it had been travelling at dawn, when the road, rocks and mountains were wet and dark, and an unknown future had held the terrors of a seemingly bottomless abyss. But now the raindrops hanging from the grass and stones sparkled like diamonds in the sun, nature smiled joyfully and that terrifying future was left behind. He looked at Sheshkovsky’s gloomy, tear-stained face, at the two barouches in front with von Koren, his seconds and the doctor in them and it seemed they were all returning from a cemetery where they had buried some dreadful bore who had been a thorn in everyone’s side.
‘It’s all over,’ he thought, reflecting on his past and gingerly running his fingers over his neck.
On the right side of his neck, near the collar, a small swelling had come up as long and wide as his little finger and it was so painful it seemed someone had passed a hot iron over it. This was the bruise from the bullet.
And then, when he arrived home, a long, strange, sweet day stretched out in front of him, as vague as oblivion. As though released from prison or hospital, he scrutinized long-familiar objects and was astonished that tables, windows, chairs, light and sea brought him a keen, childlike joy that he had not known for such a long time. Nadezhda, pale and terribly thin, did not understand his gentle voice and strange walk. She hurried to tell him all that had happened to her. He probably couldn’t hear her properly, she thought, and didn’t understand her – if he knew everything he would curse and kill her. But he listened, stroked her face and hair, looked into her eyes and said, ‘I’ve no one besides you.’
Afterwards they sat for a long time in the front garden, snuggling close to one another, saying nothing. Or they would give voice to their dreams of the happy life that lay ahead, speaking in brief, broken sentences, and he felt that never before had he spoken so long and so eloquently.
XXI
More than three months passed.
The day of von Koren’s departure arrived. From early morning there had been a cold, heavy rain, a north-easterly had blown up and a strong sea was running. In that kind of weather, people said, a steamer would have difficulty in getting into the roadstead. According to the timetable, it should have arrived at ten in the morning, but when he went down to the quay at noon and after lunch, von Koren could make out nothing through his binoculars except grey waves and rain veiling the horizon.
By the end of the day the rain had stopped and the wind dropped appreciably. Von Koren had already reconciled himself to the fact that he would not be leaving that day and sat down to a game of chess with Samoylenko. But after dark the batman reported that lights had been sighted out at sea and that a flare had been seen.
Von Koren began to hurry. He slung a knapsack over his shoulders, kissed Samoylenko and the deacon, went round all the rooms for no reason at all, said goodbye to his batman and cook, and went out into the street feeling as if he had left something behind at the doctor’s or at his flat. He walked at Samoylenko’s side, the deacon following with a chest and the batman bringing up the rear with two suitcases. Only Samoylenko and the batman could make out the tiny, dim lights at sea, the others peered into the darkness without seeing a thing. The steamer anchored far from the shore.
‘Come on now, quicker!’ von Koren said, hurrying along. ‘I don’t want to miss it!’
Passing the little three-windowed house into which Layevsky had moved soon after the duel, von Koren could not resist taking a look through one of the windows. Layevsky was sitting writing, hunched up at a table, his back to the window.
‘Well, I’m amazed!’ the zoologist said quietly. ‘Just look how he’s pulled himself together!’
‘Yes, you may well be amazed,’ Samoylenko sighed. ‘He sits like that from morn till night, just sits and works. He wants to pay off his debts. But he’s living worse than a pauper, my dear chap!’
About half a minute passed in silence. The zoologist, the doctor and the deacon stood at the window, all watching Layevsky.
‘So the poor devil didn’t manage to get away,’ Samoylenko said. ‘Do you remember how hard he tried?’
‘Yes, he’s really pulled himself together,’ von Koren repeated. ‘His marriage, this daylong sweating and slaving for a crust of bread, that new look on his face, his walk even – it’s all so extraordinary, words just fail me.’ The zoologist grabbed Samoylenko’s sleeve and went on in an emotional voice, ‘Please tell him and his wife that I left this place full of admiration and that he has my very best wishes… and please ask him, if that’s possible, not to bear any grudges. He knows me very well. He knows that had I foreseen the change in him at the time, I might have become his best friend.’
‘Go in and say goodbye.’
‘No, that would be embarrassing.’
‘But why? God knows, you might never see him again.’
The zoologist pondered for a moment and said, ‘That’s true.’
Samoylenko softly tapped on the window. Layevsky shuddered and turned round.
‘Ivan, Nikolay Vasilyevich wants to say goodbye,’ Samoylenko said. ‘He’s just leaving.’
Layevsky got up from the table and went into the hall to open the door. Samoylenko, von Koren and the deacon went in.
‘I’ve just dropped in for a moment,’ the zoologist began as he took off his galoshes in the hall, already regretting that he had bowed to sentiment and called uninvited. ‘I feel I’m intruding,’ he thought; ‘it’s silly.’
‘Forgive me for disturbing you,’ he said, following Layevsky into his room, ‘but I’m on my way now and I felt I had to come and see you. God knows if we’ll ever meet again.’
‘Delighted… Please come in…’ Layevsky said, clumsily putting chairs in front of his guests as though wanting to bar their way. He stopped in the middle of the room, rubbing his hands.
‘I should have left the others in the street,’ von Koren thought.
‘Don’t think too badly of me, Layevsky,’ he said firmly. ‘Of course, one can’t forget the past, it’s too sad and I haven’t come to apologize or to try and assure you I wasn’t to blame. I acted in all sincerity and have since stuck to my convictions. It’s true, and I’m delighted to see it, that I was mistaken about you, the best of us can take a tumble – that’s only human destiny. If you don’t trip on the main things, you’ll stumble over the small. No one knows the real truth of the matter.’
‘Yes, no one knows the truth…’ Layevsky said.
‘Well, goodbye… Good luck and God be with you.’
Von Koren offered Layevsky his hand; he shook it and bowed.
‘Don’t think too badly of me,’ von Koren said. ‘Remember me to the wife and tell her I was very sorry I didn’t manage to say goodbye.’
‘She’s here.’
Layevsky went to the door and spoke into the next room.
‘Nadezhda, Nikolay Vasilyevich wishes to say goodbye.’
Nadezhda came in. She stopped by the door and timidly surveyed the visitors. Her face was frightened and guilty and she held her hands to her sides, like a schoolgirl being told off.
‘I’m leaving now, Nadezhda,’ vo
n Koren said, ‘and I’ve come to say goodbye.’
Hesitantly she held her hand out to him, while Layevsky bowed.
‘What a pathetic pair!’ von Koren thought. ‘They don’t have an easy life.’
‘I’ll be in Moscow and St Petersburg,’ he said. ‘Is there anything I can send you?’
‘But what?’ Nadezhda said and exchanged anxious glances with her husband. ‘I can’t think of anything…’
‘No, there’s nothing,’ Layevsky said, rubbing his hands. ‘Give them our regards.’
Von Koren did not know what else he could or should say, but when he first came in he had contemplated saying a great deal of uplifting, kindly, significant things. Silently he shook Layevsky’s and his wife’s hands and went away feeling heavy at heart.
‘What people!’ the deacon whispered as he followed the others. ‘Heavens, what people! “Verily the Lord’s right hand hath sown this vine… Oh Lord, one hath conquered thousands, the other tens of thousands”.’ Solemnly he continued, ‘Von Koren, you should know that today you overcame mankind’s most powerful enemy – pride!’
‘That’s enough, deacon! What sort of conquerors do you think Layevsky and I are? Conquerors look down like eagles from their heights, but he’s pathetic, timid, downtrodden and he bows like a Chinese dummy… I feel very sad.’
They heard footsteps behind them. Layevsky wanted to see von Koren off and was trying to catch them up. The batman stood on the quayside with the two suitcases and a little way off were four oarsmen.
‘It’s really blowing hard… brrrrr!’ Samoylenko said. ‘There must be a real gale out there. Oh dear! You’ve picked a fine time to leave, Nikolay!’
‘I’m not scared of seasickness.’
‘I don’t mean that. I only hope those idiots don’t have you in the water. You should have taken the agent’s boat. Where is the agent’s boat?’ he shouted to the oarsmen.