The Duel and Other Stories

sort of table d'h?te. At this time there were only two men who habitually dined with him: a young zoologist called Von Koren, who had come for the summer to the Black Sea to study th

heir dinner and supper, and Samoylenko made th

he album, Von Koren took a pistol from the whatnot, and screwing up his left eye, took deliberate aim at the portrait of Prince Vorontsov, or stood still at the looking-glass and gazed a long time at his swarthy face, his big forehead, and his black hair, which curled like a negro's, and his shirt of dull-coloured cotton with big flowers on it like a Persian rug, and the broad leather belt he wore instead of a waistcoat. The contemp

aistcoat, with his neck bare, excited and bathed in perspiration, was bustling about the tables, mixing the salad, or making some sauce, or preparing meat,

the vinegar-it's the salad oil!" he shouted,

llency," answered the fluster

ome fennel in the jar with the cucumbers! Fennel! Cover th

d come in; he was a lanky young man of twenty-two, with long hair, with no beard and a hardly perceptible mousta

oologist said coldly.

ing sea-gudgeon

dently, deacon, you will

to the woods," said the deacon, smiling and thrusting hi

o whip you!" sigh

nner, and they could still hear the orderly running into the kitchen an

e! Where are your w

they were met by Samoylenko, crimson in the face, wrathful, perspiring from the heat of the kitchen; he looked at them furiously, and with an expression of horror, took the lid off the soup tureen and helped each of them to a plateful; and only when

of the younge

us of a load at his heart, although he was in the best of humours; he felt sorry for Laevsky an

w! The material side of life is not encouraging for him, and the worst

If that charming individual were drowning, I would push him un

ue. You woul

t shrugged his shoulders. "I'm just a

ood action?" asked the

sky?

ith the soup . . ." said Samoylenko

gerous to society as the cholera microbe," Von

edit to talk like that

at do you h

cing a straightforward attitude to people, washing one's hands of responsibility, in fact! I consider your Laevsky a blackguard; I do not conceal it, and I am perfectly conscientious in treating him as such. Well, you look upon him

moylenko, frowning with distaste-"that is

inhabitants of the town to play vint: two years ago that game was unknown here; now they all play it from morning till late at night, even the women and the boys. Secondly, he has taught the residents to drink beer, which was not known here either; the inhabitants are indebted to him for the knowledge of various sorts of spirits, so that now they can distinguish Kospelov

up his soup and gave h

superfluous man'; or: 'What do you expect, my dear fellow, from us, the debris of the serf-owning class?' or: 'We are degenerate. . . .' Or he would begin a long rigmarole about Onyegin, Petchorin, Byron's Cain, and Bazarov, of whom he would say: 'They are our fathers in flesh and in spirit.' So we are to understand that it was not his fault that Government envelopes lay unopened in his office for weeks together, and that he drank and taught others to drink, but Onyegin, Petchorin, and Turgenev, who had invented the failure and the superfluous man, were responsible for it. The cause of his extreme dissoluteness and unseemliness lies, do you see, not in himself, but somewhere outside in space. And so-an ingenious idea!-it is not only he who is dissolute, false, and disgusting, but we . . . 'we men of the eighties,' 'we the spiritless, nerv

up. "I will not allow a splendid fello

ne, cards, slippers, and women. Woman plays a fatal, overwhelming part in his life. He tells us himself that at thirteen he was in love; that when he was a student in his first year he was living with a lady who had a good influence over him, and to whom he was indebted for his musical education. In his second year he bought a prostitute from a brothel and raised her to his level-that is, took her as his kept mistress, and she lived with him for six months and then ran away back to the brothel-keeper, and her flight caused him much spiritual suffering. Alas! his sufferings were so great that he had to le

ko, looking angrily at the zoologis

oylenko helped each of his companions to a whole mullet and poure

n the life of every man," said t

know how to abandon ourselves obviously to the passion and ecstasy of love. These voluptuaries must have in their brains a special growth of the nature of sarcoma, which stifles the brain and directs their whole psychology. Watch Laevsky when he is sitting anywhere in company. You notice: when one raises any general question in his presence, for instance, about the cell or instinct, he sits apart, and neither speaks nor listens; he looks languid and disillusioned; nothing has any interest for him, everything is vulgar and trivial. But as soon as you speak of male and female-for instance, of the fa

frowned and wrinkled up his face angrily so as not t

said, wiping his tears. "Y