In the east two green beams stretched from the mountains, and beautiful they indced were. The sun was rising.
'Good day,' the zoologist continued, nodding to Layevsky's seconds. 'I trust I'm not late?'
He was followed by his own seconds, Boyko and Govorovsky—two very young officers of identical height in white tunics—and the gaunt, unsociable Dr. Ustimovich who carried a bag in one hand and had the other behind him. He held his cane behind his back as usual. Putting his bag on the ground without a word of grceting, he placed his other hand behind lis back as wcll and took to pacing the clearing.
Layevsky felt the weariness and awkwardness of one who might be just about to die, and was therefore the objcct of gencral attention. He wanted them to gct the killing ovcr quickly or take him home.
This was the first time he had ever seen the sun rise. The early morn- ing, the green rays, the damp, the men in thcir wet riding-boots—he found it all a bit too much. What good were these things to him? They only hampered him, and none of them had any bearing on his experiences of the night before—on his thoughts, his feeling of guilt— and so he would have been glad to leave without waiting for the duel.
Visibly nervous but trying to hide it, Von Korcn pretended to be absorbed in the green sunbeams. The scconds were embarr.assed, and exchanged glances as if to ask why they were there and what they were to do.
'I don't think weneed procccd furthcr, gentlcmen,' said Sheshkovsky. 'This will do.'
'Yes, of coursc,' Von Koren agreed.
Silence ensued. Ustimovich suddenly turned in his tracks.
'I don't supp^ they've had time to inform you of my he
told Layevsky in an undertone, bruthing into his face. 'Ea^ side pays me fifteen roubles. Should one of the parties die, the survivor pays the whole thirty.'
Uyevsky had met him before, but only now did he first clearly discem the man's dull eyes, bristling whiskers and gaunt, wasted neck. This was no doctor—a usurer, more like! His breath smelt unple4^tly of beef.
'It ukes all sons to nuke a world,' thought Uyevsky.
'All right then,' he replied.
The doctor nodded and strode off again.
He didn't need the money at all, that obvioU5-—he lud simply asked for it out of lutred.
Everyone felt that it was now time to surt, or to end wlnt lud already been staned, but they did.neither—they only w:a.lked about or stood and smoked. As for the young officers, it was their first duel, and by now they had little faith in a civilian encounter for which there was no necessity in their view. They carefully ^ratinized their tunics and smoothed do-vm their sleeves.
'Gentlemen,' said Sheshkovsky, going up to them and speaking softly. 'We must do our best to stop this duel. We must reconcile them.'
'Kirilin came to see me last night,' he went on, blushing. 'He complained tlut Layevsky found him with Nadezh<b Fyodorovtu last night, and all tlut.'
'Yes, we'd he4rd,' 54id Boyko.
'Now, look here—L:lyevsky's ^mds are shaking and al that. He's in no state to pick up his pistol, even. To fight him would be like fighting a drunk or someone with typhus—sheer inhumanity. If they won't be reconciled, gentlemen, we'd better postpone the duel, hadn't we? This is crazy, I feel terrible about it.'
'Then speak to Von Koren.'
'I don't know the rules of duelling, it, and I don't want to
know them. He might think Uyevsky sent me over he has
the wind up. Oh, let him think what he likes, I'll see him anyway.'
Hesitantly and limping slightly as if from leg cramp, Sheshkovsky approached Von Koren, the very picture of indolence as he walked over, clearing his throat.
'A word with you, sir,' he began, studying the flowe.n on the zoolo- gist's shirt. 'This is confidential. I don't know the rules of duelling, blast it, and I don't want to know them. I'm not talking a second and al tlut, but as a ^^ and so on.'
'Yes? Well ?'
'When seconds propose reconciliation, they're not usually listened to because it's thought a formality. Just their conceit and so on. But you look at Ivan Layevsky, I most humbly beg you. He's not normal today, he's not himself, so to speak—he's in a pathetic state. He's had a terrible experience. I can't stand scandal,'—Sheshkovsky blushed and looked round—'but in view of this duel I fmd it necessary to tell you this. Last night he found his lady friend at Myuridov's place with, er, a certam person.'
'Ugh, sickening!' muttered the zoologist. He blenched, fro^ed and spat noisily.
His lower lip quivered. He moved away from Sheshkovsky, not wishing to hear more, and again spat noisily as if he had accidentally tasted something bitter. With loathing he now looked at Layevsky for the first time that morning. His nervousness and awkwardness had passed, and he tossed his head.
'But what arc we waiting for, gentlemen, that's the question?' he said in a loud voice. 'Why don't we get on with it?'
Sheshkovsky exchanged glances with the officers, and shrugged his shoulders.
'Gentlemen,' he shouted, not addressing anyone in particular. 'Gentlemen, we call on you to compose your differences.'
'Let's hurry up and get the formalities over,' said Von Koren. 'Reconciliation has already been discussed. Now, what's the next procedure? Quickly, gentlemen, we've no time to waste.'
'Nevertheless, we still insist you make it up,' said Sheshkovsky in the guilty tone of one obliged to meddle in others' business.
'Gentlemen,' he continued, blushing and putting his hand against his heart, 'we fail to see any causal connection between insult and duel. Affronts, such as we sometimes offer one another through human frailty—they have nothing to do with duelling. You've been to univer- sity, you're educated men, and you yourselves naturally see nothing in a duel but outmoded empty ritual, and all that. Such must be our view, or we shouldn't have come here, for we can't permit people to shoot each other in our presence, and so on.'
Sheshkovsky mopped the swcat off his face. 'So compose your differences, sirs,' he went on. 'Shake hands, and le{s go home for a friendly drink—honestly, gcntlemen.'
Von Koren said nothing. Seeing people looking at him, Layevsky spoke.
'I have nothing against Nicholas Von Koren,' he said. 'If he finds me to blame, I'm ready to apologize.'
Von Koren was offended.
'Obviously, gentlemen,' said he, 'it suits you to have Mr. Layevsky ride home as a paragon ofknightly chivalry, but I can't give you and him that satisfaction. Nor was there any need to get up early and drive six miles out of town just to drink and be friends, have a bite to eat and explain to me about duels being outmoded ritual. Duels are duels. And there's no need to make them more of a silly farce than they already are. I wish to fight.'
Silence followed. Boyko took the two pistols out of the case. One was given to Von Koren and the other to Layevsky, but then a hitch occurred, affording zoologist and seconds some passing amusement. It transpired that none of those present had ever attended a duel in his life, and no one knew exactly how they should stand, or what the seconds should say and do. Then Boyko remembered, and began to explain with a smile.
'Any of you remember Lermontov's description?' Von Koren asked with a laugh. 'Turgenev's Bazarov also exchanged shots with someone or other '
'Why go into all that?' Ustimovich asked impatiently, halting in his tracks. 'Measure off your distance, that's all.'
And he took three steps, as if to show how measuring is done. Boyko counted out the paces, while his comrade unsheathed his sabre and scratched the ground at each end to mark the barrier.
The adversaries took their places amid general silence.
'Those moles!' remembered the deacon where he sat in the bushcs.
Sheshkovsky made some remark, and Boyko gave some further explanation, but Layevsky did not hear. More probably he heard, but did not understand. When the time came, he cocked the cold, heavy pistol and raised it barrel upwards. He had forgotten to unbutton his overcoat, and felt tightly constricted about shoulder and armpit, while he raised his arm as awkwardly as ifhis sleeve was made of metal. He remembered how he had hated that swarthy forehead and curly hair on the previous day, and realized that even then, at the climax of his hatred and rage, he could never have shot a man. Afraid ofhis bullet somehow hitting Von Koren by accident, he kept raising the pistol higher and higher, feeling that this display of exccssive magnanimity was tactless—and anything but magnanimous—yet physically and morally incapable of acting othe^rise. Looking at the pale, sneering,