The Duel

He smiled from a distance at his wife and Romashov with his bluish, pursed lips.

“Are you dancing, Romashov? Well, how are you, my dear Georgi? Where have you been all this time? My wife and I were so used to your company that we have been quite dull without you.”

“Been awfully busy,” mumbled Romashov.

“Ah, yes, we all know about those military duties,” replied Captain Peterson, with a little insinuating whistle that was directly changed into an amicable smile. His black eyes with their yellow pupils wandered, however, from Raisa to Romashov inquisitively.

“I have an idea that you two have been quarrelling. Why do you both look so cross? What has happened?”

Romashov stood silent whilst he gazed, worried and embarrassed, at Raisa’s skinny, dark, sinewy neck. Raisa answered promptly, with the easy insolence she invariably displayed when lying:

“Yuri Alexievich is playing the philosopher. He declares that dancing is both stupid and ridiculous, and that he has seen his best days.”

“And yet he dances?” replied the Captain, with a quick, snake-like glance at Romashov. “Dance away, my children, and don’t let me disturb you.”

He had scarcely got out of earshot before Raisa Alexandrovna, in a hypocritical, pathetic tone, burst out with, “And I have deceived this saint, this noblest of husbands. And for whom? – Oh, if he knew all, if he only knew!”

“Mazurka générale,” shrieked Bobetinski. “Gentlemen, resume your partners.”

The violently perspiring bodies of the dancers and the dust arising from the parquet floor made the air of the ballroom close, and the lights in the lamps and candelabra took a dull yellow tint. The dancing was now in full swing, but as the space was insufficient, each couple, who every moment squeezed and pushed against one another, was obliged to tramp on the very same spot. This figure – the last in the quadrille – consisted in a gentleman, who was without a partner, pursuing a couple who were dancing. If he managed to come face to face with a lady he clapped her on the hand, which meant that the lady was now his booty. The lady’s usual partner tried, of course, to prevent this, but by this arose a disorder and uproar which often resulted in some very brutal incidents.

“Actress,” whispered Romashov hoarsely, as he bent nearer to Raisa. “You’re as pitiable as you are ridiculous.”

“And you are drunk,” the worthy lady almost shrieked, giving Romashov at the same time a glance resembling that with which the heroine on the stage measures the villain of the piece from head to foot.

“It only remains for me to find out,” pursued Romashov mercilessly, “the exact reason why I was chosen by you. But this, however, is a question which I can answer myself. You gave yourself to me in order to get a hold on me. Oh, if this had been done out of love or from sentiment merely! But you were actuated by a base vanity. Are you not frightened at the mere thought of the depths into which we have both sunk, without even a spark of love that might redeem the crime? You must understand that this is even more wretched than when a woman sells herself for money. Then dire necessity is frequently the tempter. But in this case – the memory of this senseless, unpardonable crime will always be to me a source of shame and loathing.”

With cold perspiration on his forehead and distraction in his weary eyes, he gazed on the couples dancing. Past him – hardly lifting her feet and without looking at her partner – sailed the majestic Madame Taliman, with motionless shoulders and an ironical, menacing countenance, as if she meant to protect herself against the slightest liberty or insult. Epifanov skipped round her like a little frisky goat. Then glided little Miss Lykatschev, flushed of face, with gleaming eyes, and bare, white, virginal bosom. Then came Olisár with his slender, elegant legs, straight and stiff as a sparrow’s. Romashov felt a burning headache and a strong, almost uncontrollable desire to weep; but beside him still stood Raisa, pale with suppressed rage. With an exaggerated theatrical gesture she fired at him the following sarcasm —

“Did any one ever hear such a thing before? A Russian Infantry lieutenant playing the part of the chaste Joseph? Ha, ha, ha!”

“Yes, quite so, my lady. Precisely that part,” replied Romashov, glaring with wrath. “I know too well that it is humiliating and ridiculous. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed to express my sorrow that I should have so degraded myself. With our eyes open we have both flung ourselves into a cesspool, and I know that I shall never again deserve a pure and noble woman’s love. Who is to blame for this? Well, you. Bear this well in mind – you, you, you – for you were the older and more experienced of us two, especially in affairs of that sort.”

Raisa Alexandrovna got up hurriedly from her chair. “That will do,” she replied in a dramatic tone. “You have got what you wanted. I hate you. I hope henceforward you will cease to visit a home where you were received as a friend and relation, where you were entertained and fed, and where, too, you were found out to be the scoundrel you are. Oh, that I had the courage to reveal everything to my husband – that incomparable creature, that saint whom I venerate. Were he only convinced of what has happened he would, I think, know how to avenge the wounded honour of a helpless, insulted woman. He would kill you.”

Romashov looked through his eyeglass at her big, faded mouth, her features distorted by hate and rage. The infernal music from the open windows of the gallery continued with unimpaired strength; the intolerable bassoon howled worse than ever, and, thought Romashov, the bass drum had now come into immediate contact with his brain.

Raisa shut her fan with a snap that echoed through the ballroom. “Oh, you – lowest of all blackguards on earth,” whispered she, with a theatrical gesture, and then disappeared into the ladies’ retiring-room.

All was now over and done with, but Romashov did not experience the relief he expected. This long-nourished hope to feel his soul freed from a heavy, unclean burthen was not fulfilled. His strict, avenging conscience told him that he had acted in a cowardly, low, and boorish way when he cast all the blame on a weak, narrow, wretched woman who, most certainly at that moment, in the ladies’-room, was, through him, shedding bitter, hysterical tears of sorrow, shame, and impotent rage.

“I am sinking more and more deeply,” thought he, in disgust at himself. What had his life been? what had it consisted of? An odious and wanton liaison, gambling, drinking, soul-killing, monotonous regimental routine, with never a single inspiriting word, never a ray of light in this black, hopeless darkness. Salutary, useful work, music, art, science, where were they?

He returned to the dining-room. There he met Osadchi and his friend Viätkin, who with much trouble was making his way in the direction of the street door. Liech, now quite drunk, was helplessly wobbling in different directions, whilst in a fuddled voice he kept asserting that he was – an archbishop. Osadchi intoned in reply with the most serious countenance and a low, rolling bass, whilst carefully following the ecclesiastical ritual —

“Your high, refulgent Excellency, the hour of burial has struck. Give us your blessing, etc.”

As the soirée approached its end, the gathering in the dining-room grew more noisy and lively. The room was already so full of tobacco smoke that those sitting at opposite sides of the table could not recognize each other. Cards were being played in one corner; by the window a small but select set had assembled to edify one another by racy stories – the spice most appreciated at officers’ dinners and suppers.

“No, no, no, gentlemen,” shrieked Artschakovski, “allow me to put in a word. You see it was this way: a soldier was quartered at the house of a khokhol14 who had a pretty wife. Ho, ho, thought the soldier, that is something for me.”

Then, however, he was interrupted by Vasili Vasilievich, who had been waiting long and impatiently —

“Shut up with your old stories, Artschakovski. You shall hear this. Once upon a time in Odessa there – ”

But even he was not allowed to speak very long. The generality of the stories were rather poor and devoid of wit, but, to make up for that, they were interspersed with coarse and repulsive cynicisms. Viätkin, who had now returned from the street, where he had been paying his respects to Liech’s “interment” and holy “departure,” invited Romashov to sit down at the table.

“Sit you here, my dear Georginka.15 We will watch them. To-day I am as rich as a Jew. I won yesterday, and to-day I shall take the bank again.”

Romashov only longed to lighten his heart, for a friend to whom he might tell his sorrow and his disgust at life. After draining his glass he looked at Viätkin with beseeching eyes, and began to talk in a voice quivering with deep, inward emotion.

“Pavel Pavlich, we all seem to have completely forgotten the existence of another life. Where it is I cannot say; I only know that it exists. Even in that men must struggle, suffer, and love, but that life is rich – rich in great thoughts and noble deeds. For here, my friend, what do you suppose our life is, and how will such a miserable existence as ours end some day?”

“Well, yes, old fellow – but it’s life,” replied Viätkin in a sleepy way. “Life after all is – only natural philosophy and energy. And what is energy?”

“Oh, what a wretched existence,” Romashov went on to say with increasing emotion, and without listening to Viätkin. “To-day we booze at mess till we are drunk; to-morrow we meet at drill – ’one, two, left, right’ – in the evening we again assemble round the bottle. Just the same, year in, year out. That’s what makes up our life. How disgusting!”

Viätkin peered at him with sleepy eyes, hiccoughed, and then suddenly started singing in a weak falsetto: —

“In the dark, stilly forestThere once dwelt a maiden,She sat at her distaffBy day and by night.

“Take care of your health, my angel, and to the deuce with the rest.

“Romashevich! Romaskovski! let’s go to the board of green cloth. I’ll lend you a – ”

“No one understands me, and I have not a single friend here,” sighed Romashov mournfully. The next moment he remembered Shurochka – the splendid, high-minded Shurochka, and he felt in his heart a delicious and melancholy sensation, coupled with hopelessness and quiet resignation.

He stayed in the mess-room till daybreak, watched them playing schtoss, and now and then took a hand at the game, yet without feeling the slightest pleasure or interest in it. Once he noticed how Artschakovski, who was playing at a little private table with two ensigns, made rather a stupid, but none the less successful, attempt to cheat. Romashov thought for a moment of taking up the matter and exposing the fraud, but checked himself suddenly, saying to himself: “Oh, what’s the use! I should not improve matters by interfering.”

Viätkin, who had lost, in less than five minutes, his boasted “millions,” sat sleeping on a chair, with his eyes wide open and his face as white as a sheet. Beside Romashov sat the eternal Lieschtschenko with his mournful eyes fixed on the game. Day began to dawn. The guttering candle-ends’ half-extinguished, yellowish flames flickered dully in their sticks, and illumined by their weak and uncertain light the pale, emaciated features of the gamblers. But Romashov kept staring at the cards, the heaps of silver and notes, and the green cloth scrawled all over with chalk; and in his heavy, weary head the same cruel, torturing thoughts of a worthless, unprofitable life ran incessantly.

X

IT was a splendid, though somewhat chilly, spring morning. The hedges were in bloom. Romashov, who was still, as a rule, a slave to his youthful, heavy sleep, had, as usual, overslept himself, and was late for the morning drill. With an unpleasant feeling of shyness and nervousness, he approached the parade-ground, and his spirits were not cheered by the thought of Captain Sliva’s notorious habit of making a humiliating and painful situation still worse by his abuse and rudeness.

This officer was a survival of the barbaric times when an iron discipline, idiotic pedantry – parade march in three time – and inhuman martial laws were virtually epidemic. Even in the 4th Regiment, which, from being quartered in a God-forsaken hole, seldom came into contact with civilization, and, moreover, did not bear the reputation for much culture, Captain Sliva was looked upon as a rough and boorish person, and the most incredible anecdotes were current about him. Everything outside the company, service, and drill-book, and which he was accustomed to call “rot” or “rubbish,” had no existence so far as he was concerned. After having borne for nearly all his life the heavy burden of military service, he had arrived at such a state of savagery that he never opened a book, and, as far as newspapers were concerned, he only looked at the official and military notices in the Invalid. He despised with all his innate cynicism the meetings and amusements of society, and there were no oaths, no insulting terms too gross and crude for him to incorporate in his “Soldier’s Lexicon.” One story about him was that one lovely summer evening, when sitting at his open window, occupied, as usual, with his registers and accounts, a nightingale began to warble. Captain Sliva got up instantly, and shouted in a towering rage to his servant Sachartschuk, “Get a stone and drive away that damned bird; it’s disturbing me.”

This apparently sleepy and easy-going man was unmercifully severe to the soldiers, whom he not only abandoned to the ferocity of the “non-coms.,” but whom he himself personally whipped till they fell bleeding to the ground; but in all that concerned their food, clothing, and pay, he displayed the greatest consideration and honesty, and in this he was only surpassed by the commander of the 5th Company.

To the junior officers Captain Sliva was always harsh and stiff, and a certain native, crabbed humour imparted an additional sharpness to his biting sarcasms. If, for instance, a subaltern officer happened, during the march, to step out with the wrong foot, he instantly bellowed —

“Damnation! What the devil are you doing? All the company except Lieutenant N. is marching with the wrong foot!”

He was particularly rude and merciless on occasions when some young officer overslept himself or, for some other cause, came too late to drill, which not unfrequently was the case with Romashov.

Captain Sliva had a habit then of celebrating the victim’s advent by forming the whole company into line, and, in a sharp voice, commanding “Attention!” After this he took up a position opposite the front rank, and in death-like silence waited, watch in hand and motionless, while the unpunctual officer, crushed with shame, sought his place in the line. Now and then Sliva increased the poor sinner’s torture by putting to him the sarcastic question: “Will your Honour allow the company to go on with the drill?” For Romashov he had, moreover, certain dainty phrases specially stored up, e.g. “I hope you slept well,” or “Your Honour has, I suppose, as usual, had pleasant dreams?” etc., etc. When all these preludes were finished, he began to shower abuse and reproaches on his victim.

“Oh, I don’t care,” thought Romashov to himself in deep disgust as he approached his company. “It is no worse to be here than in other places. All my life is ruined.”

Sliva, Viätkin, Lbov, and the ensign were standing in the middle of the parade-ground, and all turned at once to Romashov as he arrived. Even the soldiers turned their heads towards him, and with veritable torture Romashov pictured to himself what a sorry figure he cut at that moment.

“Well, the shame I am now feeling is possibly unnecessary or excessive,” he reasoned to himself, trying, as is habitual with timid or bashful persons, to console himself. “Possibly that which seems so shameful and guilty to me is regarded by others as the veriest trifle. Suppose, for instance, that it was Lbov, not I, who came too late, and that I am now in the line and see him coming up. Well, what more – what is there to make a fuss about? Lbov comes – that’s all it amounts to. How stupid to grieve and get uncomfortable at such a petty incident, which within a month, perhaps even in a week, will be forgotten by all here present. Besides, what is there in this life which is not forgotten?” Romashov remarked as he finished his argument with himself, and felt in some degree calm and consoled.

To every one’s astonishment this time Sliva spared Romashov from personal insults, nay, he even seemed not to have noticed him in the least. When Romashov went up to him and saluted, with his heels together and his hand at his cap, he only said, pointing his red, withered fingers, which strongly resembled five little cold sausages:

“I must beg you, Sub-lieutenant, to remember that it is your duty to be with your company five minutes before the senior subaltern officers, and ten minutes before the chief of your company.”

“I am very sorry, Captain,” replied Romashov in a composed tone.

“That’s all very well, Sub-lieutenant, but you are always asleep and you seem to have quite forgotten the old adage: ‘He who is seldom awake must go about shabby.’ And I must now ask you, gentlemen, to retire to your respective companies.”

The whole company was split up into small groups, each of which was instructed in gymnastics. The soldiers stood drawn up in open file at a distance of a pace apart, and with their uniforms unbuttoned in order to enable them to perform their gymnastic exercises. Bobyliev, the smart subaltern officer stationed in Romashov’s platoon, cast a respectful glance at his commander, who was approaching, his lower jaw stuck out and his eyes squinting, and giving orders in a resonant voice —

“Hips steady. Rise on your toes. Bend your knees.”

And directly after that, very softly and in a sing-song voice —

“Begin.”

“One,” sang out the soldiers in unison, and they simultaneously performed in slow time the order to bend the knees till the whole division found itself on its haunches.

Bobyliev, who likewise performed the same movement, scrutinized the soldiers with severe, critical, and aggressive eyes. Immediately beside him cried the little spasmodic corporal, Syeroshtán, in his sharp, squeaky voice that reminded one of a cockerel squabbling for food —

“Stretch your arms to the right – and left – salute. Begin, one, two, one, two,” and directly afterwards ten smart young fellows were heard yelling at the top of their voices the regulation —

“Haú, haú, haú.”

“Halt,” shouted Syeroshtán, red of face from rage and over-exertion. “La-apschin, you great ass, you toss about, give yourself airs, and twist your arm like some old woman from Riasan —choú, choú. Do the movements properly, or by all that’s unholy I’ll – ”

After this the subalterns led their respective divisions at quick march to the gymnastic apparatus, which had been set up in different parts of the parade-ground. Sub-lieutenant Lbov – young, strong, and agile, and also an expert gymnast – threw down his sabre and cap, and ran before the others to one of the bars. Grasping the bar with both his hands, after three violent efforts he made a somersault in the air, threw himself forward and finally landed himself on all fours two yards and a half from the bar.

“Sub-lieutenant Lbov, at your everlasting circus tricks again,” shrieked Captain Sliva in a tone meant to be severe. In his heart the old warrior cherished a sneaking affection for Lbov, who was a thoroughly efficient soldier, and, by his brave bearing, invaluable at parades. “Be good enough to observe the regulation, and keep the other thing till Carnival comes round.”

“Right, Captain!” yelled Lbov in reply; “but I shan’t obey,” he whispered to Romashov with a wink.

The 4th platoon exercised on the inclined ladder. The soldiers walked in turn to the ladder, gripped hold of the steps, and climbed up them with arms bent. Shapovalenko stood below and made remarks —

“Keep your feet still. Up with your soles.”

The turn now came to a little soldier in the left wing, whose name was Khliabnikov, who served as a butt to the entire company. Whenever Romashov caught sight of him, he wondered how this emaciated, sorry figure, in height almost a dwarf, whose dirty little beardless face was but a little larger than a man’s fist, could have been admitted into the army. And when he met Khliabnikov’s soulless eyes, which looked as if they had expressed nothing but a dull submissive fear ever since he was born, he felt in his heart a heavy, oppressive feeling of disgust and prick of conscience.

Khliabnikov hung motionless on the ladder like a dead, shapeless mass.

“Take a grip and raise yourself on your arms, you miserable dog!” shrieked the sergeant. “Up with you, I say.”

Khliabnikov made a violent effort to show his obedience, but in vain. He remained in the same position, and his legs swung from side to side. For the space of a second he turned downwards and sideways his ashen grey face, in which the dirty little turned-up nose obstinately turned upwards. Suddenly he let go of the ladder and fell like a sack to the ground.

“Ho, ho, you refuse to obey orders, to make the movement you were ordered to do,” roared the sergeant; “but a scoundrel like you shall not destroy discipline. Now you shall – ”

“Shapovalenko, don’t touch him!” shouted Romashov, beside himself with anger and shame. “I forbid you to strike him now and always.” Romashov rushed up and pulled the sergeant’s arm.

Shapovalenko instantaneously became stiff and erect, and raised his hand to his cap. In his eyes, which at once resumed their ordinary lifeless expression, and on his lips there gleamed a faint mocking smile.

“I will obey, your Honour, but permit me to report that that fellow is utterly impossible.”

Khliabnikov took his place once more in the ranks. He looked lazily out of the corner of his eyes at the young officer, and stroked his nose with the back of his hand. Romashov turned his back on him and went off, meditating painfully over this fruitless pity, to inspect the 3rd platoon.

After the gymnastics the soldiers had ten minutes’ rest. The officers forgathered at the bars, almost in the middle of the exercise-ground. Their conversation turned on the great May parade, which was approaching.

“Well, it now remains for us to guess where the shoe pinches,” began Sliva, as he swung his arms, and opened wide his watery blue eyes, “for I’ll tell you one thing, every General has his special little hobby. I remember we once had a Lieutenant-General Lvovich for the commander of our corps. He came to us direct from the Engineers. The natural consequence was we never did anything except dig and root up earth. Drill, marching, and keeping time – all such were thrown on the dust-heap. From morning to night we built cottages and quarters – in summer, of earth; in winter, of snow. The whole regiment looked like a collection of clodhoppers, dirty beyond recognition. Captain Aleinikov, the commander of the 10th Company – God rest his soul! – became a Knight of St. Anne, because he had somehow constructed a little redoubt in two hours.”

“That was clever of him,” observed Lbov.

“Wait, I have more to remind you of. You remember, Pavel Pavlich, General Aragonski and his everlasting gunnery instructions?”

“And the story of Pontius Pilate,” laughed Viätkin.

“What was that?” asked Romashov.

Captain Sliva made a contemptuous gesture with his hand.

“At that time we did nothing but read Aragonski’s ‘Instructions in Shooting.’ One day it so happened that one of the men had to pass an examination in the Creed. When the soldier got to the clause ‘suffered under Pontius Pilatus,’ there was a full stop. But the fellow did not lose his head, but went boldly on with a lot of appropriate excerpts from Aragonski’s ‘Instructions in Shooting,’ and came out with flying colours. Ah, you may well believe, those were grand times for idiocy. Things went so far that the first finger was not allowed to retain its good old name, but was called the ‘trigger finger,’ etc., etc.”

“Do you remember, Athanasi Kirillich, what cramming and theorizing – ‘range,’ elevation, etc. – went on from morning to night? If you gave the soldier a rifle and said to him: ‘Look down the barrel. What do you see there?’ you got for an answer: ‘I see a tense line which is the gun’s axis,’ etc. And what practice in shooting there was in those days, you remember, Athanasi Kirillich!”