The Duel and Other Stories

night, and then went into the pavilion to drink tea or coffee. Ivan Andreitch Laevsky, a thin, fair young man of twenty-eight, wearing the cap of a clerk in the Minis

iness and rough manner, he was a peaceable man, of infinite kindliness and goodness of heart, always ready to be of use. He was on familiar terms with every one in the town, lent every one money, doctored every one, made matches, patched up quarrels, arranged picnics at which he cooked shashlik and an awfully good soup of grey mullets. He was always looking after other people's affairs and trying to in

eir shoulders. "Suppose you had loved a woman and had been living with her for two or three years, and then left off ca

here you please, madam'-and

re to go? A woman with no friends or relatio

allowance of twenty-five roubles a mo

les a month, the woman I am speaking of is an educated woman and proud. Co

covered them both, then broke on the beach and rolled back noi

the sand out of his boots. "But one must look at the thing humanely, Vanya. If it were my case, I

of his own words; he pu

might be no females at all. L

ay a cup of coffee, a tall cut glass of iced water, and a tiny glass of brandy. He would first drink the brandy, then the hot coffee, then the iced water, and th

lly magnifi

rom sleeping, and seemed to intensify the darkness and sultriness of the night, La

speak to you openly as to a friend. Things are in a bad way with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna and me .

was going to speak about, dropped his eye

" Laevsky went on; "or, rather, I realised that I never had fel

tively at the pink palms of his hands, to bite hi

to look for an explanation and justification of my absurd existence in somebody else's theories, in literary types-in the idea that we, upper-class Russians, are degenerating, for instance, and so on.

d was intending to do so every day of his

e from imagination, but he w

e sweat of our brow, would have a vineyard and a field, and so on. If you were in my place, or that zoologist of yours, Von Koren, you might live with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna for thirty years, perhaps, and might leave your heirs a rich vineyard and three thousand acres of maize; but I felt like a bankrupt from the first day. In the town you have insufferable heat, boredom, and no society; if you go out into the country, you fancy poisonous spiders, scorpions, or snakes lurking under every stone and behind every bush, and beyond the fields-mountains and the desert. Alien people, an alien country, a wretched form of civilisation-all that is not so easy, broth

oman, highly educated, and you are a man of the highest intellect. Of course, you are not married," Samoylenko went on, glancing round at the adjacent tables, "but that's not your fault; and besides . . . one ought to

out l

that the great thing in married life was patience. Do you hear, Vanya? Not love, but patience. Love cannot last long. You have lived two years in love, and

ue of patience, and, as he did so, look upon a person he did not love as an object indispensable for his moral exercises; but I have not

ne with ice. When they had drunk a

t is the meaning of s

's a disease in which the brain become

t cur

s not neglected. Cold

g intern

y miserable, that if I were told, for instance, that I should have to live another month with her, I should blow out my brains. At the same time, parting with her is out of the question. She has no fr

enko, not knowing what to a

an. It would be as difficult for her to do without me as to do without her powder

o was emb

day, Vanya," he said. "You

out of sorts, brother. My head feels empty; there's a s

whe

scow or Tula; to feel chilly, you know, and then to stroll for three hours even with the feeblest student, and to talk and talk endlessly. . . . And the scent

s eyes, and to cover them, without getting up, he

moylenko. "I've forgotten what it is like. To my mind,

ry deep well. Your magnificent Caucasus strikes me as just like that well. If I were offered the choice

ng face and sunken temples, at his bitten nails, at the slipper which had dropped off his heel, displaying a badly

mother

terms. She could not for

s; he played cards, despised his work, lived beyond his means, frequently made use of unseemly expressions in conversation, walked about the streets in his slippers, and quarrelled with Nadyezhda Fyodorovna before other people-and Samoylenko did not like this. But the fact that Laevsky had

aling it from Nadyezhda Fyodorovna for the time. . . . Don't let it out before her. . . . I got a

!" sighed Samoylenko. "Why ar

e should first have to make our relations clear. When she understands that we can't g

sion came into his face, as though he were going to ask him about somethin

hy

splendid woman! Her

self shows yo

ssible. To marry without love is as base and unworthy

s your d

uty?" Laevsky a

from her husband and made y

u in plain Russian

show her proper respect, c

erior! . . . You are a poor psychologist and physiologist if you think that living with a woman one

d Samoylenko, overc

rs, and practical, and we shall never understand one another. We had better dro

hing Laevsky's arm. "It is for me to pay. I orde

g the sea-front. When they reached the boulev

ured woman, and you refuse the gift, while if God were to give me a crooked old woman, how pleased

aught himsel

e samovar ready for m

ted with the Vladimir cross on a ribbon, he was very much pleased with himself, and it seemed as though the whole world were looking at him with pleasure. Without turning his head, he looked to each side and thought that the boule

does not like the Caucasus,

the right side of the boulevard the wife of a local offici

d to her with a pleasant smile. "Have you been to bathe

g an assistant of the military hospital coming towa

ny one in t

Your Ex

E

Your Ex

l, run al

bosomed old Jewess, who gave herself out to be a Georgian, and said to

to give me so