‘‘What a one you are!’’ laughed the deacon. ‘‘You don’t believe in Christ, so why do you mention Him so often?’’
‘‘No, I do believe. Only in my own way, of course, not in yours. Ah, Deacon, Deacon!’’ the zoologist laughed; he put his arm around the deacon’s waist and said gaily: ‘‘Well, what then? Shall we go to the duel tomorrow?’’
‘‘My dignity doesn’t permit it, otherwise I would.’’
‘‘And what does that mean—‘dignity’?’’
‘‘I’ve been ordained. Grace is upon me.’’
‘‘Ah, Deacon, Deacon,’’ von Koren repeated, laughing. ‘‘I love talking with you.’’
‘‘You say you have faith,’’ said the deacon. ‘‘What kind of faith is it? I have an uncle, a priest, who is such a believer that, if there’s a drought and he goes to the fields to ask for rain, he takes an umbrella and a leather coat so that he won’t get wet on the way back. That’s faith! When he talks about Christ, he gives off a glow, and all the peasants burst into sobs. He could stop this storm cloud and put all your powers to flight. Yes...faith moves mountains.’’
The deacon laughed and patted the zoologist on the shoulder.
‘‘So there . . .’’ he went on. ‘‘You keep teaching, you fathom the depths of the sea, you sort out the weak and the strong, you write books and challenge to duels—and everything stays where it was; but watch out, let some feeble little elder babble one little word by the Holy Spirit, or a new Mohammed with a scimitar come riding out of Arabia on a stallion, and everything of yours will go flying topsy-turvy, and in Europe there will be no stone left upon stone.’’
‘‘Well, Deacon, that’s written in the sky with a pitchfork!’’
‘‘Faith without works is dead, but works without faith are worse still,29 merely a waste of time and nothing more.’’
The doctor appeared on the embankment. He saw the deacon and the zoologist and went up to them.
‘‘Everything seems to be ready,’’ he said, out of breath. ‘‘Govorovsky and Boiko will be the seconds. They’ll call at five o’clock in the morning. It’s really piling up!’’ he said, looking at the sky. ‘‘Can’t see a thing! It’ll rain soon.’’
‘‘You’ll come with us, I hope?’’ asked von Koren.
‘‘No, God forbid, I’m worn out as it is. Ustimovich will come in my place. I’ve already talked with him.’’
Far across the sea, lightning flashed, and there was a muffled roll of thunder.
‘‘How stifling it is before a storm!’’ said von Koren. ‘‘I’ll bet you’ve already been to Laevsky’s and wept on his bosom.’’
‘‘Why should I go to him?’’ the doctor said, embarrassed. ‘‘What an idea!’’
Before sunset he had walked several times up and down the boulevard and the street, hoping to meet Laevsky. He was ashamed of his outburst and of the sudden kindly impulse that had followed the outburst. He wanted to apologize to Laevsky in jocular tones, to chide him, to placate him, and tell him that dueling was a leftover of medieval barbarism, but that providence itself had pointed them to a duel as a means of reconciliation: tomorrow the two of them, most excellent people, of the greatest intelligence, would exchange shots, appreciate each other’s nobility, and become friends. But he never once met Laevsky.
‘‘Why should I go to him?’’ Samoilenko repeated. ‘‘I didn’t offend him, he offended me. Tell me, for mercy’s sake, why did he fall upon me? Did I do anything bad to him? I come into the drawing room and suddenly, for no reason: spy! Take that! Tell me, how did it start between you? What did you tell him?’’
‘‘I told him that his situation was hopeless. And I was right. Only honest people and crooks can find a way out of any situation, but somebody who wants to be an honest man and a crook at the same time has no way out. However, it’s already eleven o’clock, gentlemen, and we have to get up early tomorrow.’’
There was a sudden gust of wind; it raised the dust on the embankment, whirled it around, roared, and drowned out the sound of the sea.
‘‘A squall!’’ said the deacon. ‘‘We must go, we’re getting dust in our eyes.’’
As they left, Samoilenko sighed and said, holding on to his cap:
‘‘Most likely I won’t sleep tonight.’’
‘‘Don’t worry,’’ the zoologist laughed. ‘‘You can rest easy, the duel will end in nothing. Laevsky will magnanimously fire into the air, he can’t do anything else, and most likely I won’t fire at all. Ending up in court on account of Laevsky, losing time—the game’s not worth the candle. By the way, what’s the legal responsibility for dueling?’’
‘‘Arrest, and in case of the adversary’s death, imprisonment in the fortress for up to three years.’’
‘‘The Peter-and-Paul fortress?’’30
‘‘No, a military one, I think.’’
‘‘I ought to teach that fellow a lesson, though!’’
Behind them, lightning flashed over the sea and momentarily lit up the rooftops and mountains. Near the boulevard, the friends went different ways. As the doctor disappeared into the darkness and his footsteps were already dying away, von Koren shouted to him:
‘‘The weather may hinder us tomorrow!’’
‘‘It may well! And God grant it!’’
‘‘Good night!’’
‘‘What—night? What did you say?’’
It was hard to hear because of the noise of the wind and the sea and the rolling thunder.
‘‘Never mind!’’ shouted the zoologist, and he hurried home.
XVII
. . . in my mind, oppressed by anguish, Crowds an excess of heavy thoughts; Remembrance speechlessly unrolls Its lengthy scroll before me; And, reading through my life with loathing, I tremble, curse, and bitterly complain, And bitter tears pour from my eyes, But the sad lines are not washed away.
—Pushkin31
Whether they killed him tomorrow morning or made a laughingstock of him, that is, left him to this life, in any case he was lost. Whether this disgraced woman killed herself in despair and shame or dragged out her pitiful existence, in any case she was lost . . .
So thought Laevsky, sitting at the table late at night and still rubbing his hands. The window suddenly opened with a bang, a strong wind burst into the room, and papers flew off the table. Laevsky closed the window and bent down to pick up the papers from the floor. He felt something new in his body, some sort of awkwardness that had not been there before, and he did not recognize his own movements; he walked warily, sticking out his elbows and jerking his shoulders, and when he sat down at the table, he again began rubbing his hands. His body had lost its suppleness.
On the eve of death, one must write to one’s family. Laevsky remembered that. He took up a pen and wrote in a shaky hand:
‘‘Dear Mother!’’
He wanted to write to his mother that, in the name of the merciful God in whom she believed, she should give shelter and the warmth of her tenderness to the unfortunate woman he had dishonored, lonely, poor, and weak; that she should forgive and forget everything, everything, everything, and with her sacrifice at least partially redeem her son’s terrible sin; but he remembered how his mother, a stout, heavy old woman in a lace cap, went out to the garden in the morning, followed by a companion with a lapdog, how his mother shouted in a commanding voice at the gardener, at the servants, and how proud and arrogant her face was—he remembered it and crossed out the words he had written.
Lightning flashed brightly in all three windows, followed by a deafening, rolling clap of thunder, first muted, then rumbling and cracking, and so strong that the glass in the windows rattled. Laevsky got up, went to the window, and leaned his forehead against the glass. Outside there was a heavy, beautiful thunderstorm. On the horizon, lightning ceaselessly hurled itself in white ribbons from the clouds into the sea and lit up the high black waves far in the distance. Lightning flashed to right and left, and probably directly over the house as wel
l.
‘‘A thunderstorm!’’ whispered Laevsky; he felt a desire to pray to someone or something, if only to the lightning or the clouds. ‘‘Dear thunderstorm!’’
He remembered how, in childhood, he had always run out to the garden bareheaded when there was a thunderstorm, and two fair-haired, blue-eyed little girls would chase after him, and the rain would drench them; they would laugh with delight, but when a strong clap of thunder rang out, the girls would press themselves trustfully to the boy, and he would cross himself and hasten to recite: ‘‘Holy, holy, holy . . .’’ Oh, where have you gone, in what sea have you drowned, you germs of a beautiful, pure life? He was no longer afraid of thunderstorms, did not love nature, had no God, all the trustful girls he had ever known had already been ruined by him or his peers, he had never planted a single tree in his own garden, nor grown a single blade of grass, and, living amidst the living, had never saved a single fly, but had only destroyed, ruined, and lied, lied . . .
‘‘What in my past is not vice?’’ he kept asking himself, trying to clutch at some bright memory, as someone falling into an abyss clutches at a bush.
School? University? But that was a sham. He had been a poor student and had forgotten what he was taught. Serving society? That was also a sham, because he did nothing at work, received a salary gratis, and his service was a vile embezzlement for which one was not taken to court.
He had no need of the truth, and he was not seeking it; his conscience, beguiled by vice and lies, slept or was silent; like a foreigner, or an alien from another planet, he took no part in the common life of people, was indifferent to their sufferings, ideas, religions, knowledge, quests, struggles; he had not a single kind word for people, had never written a single useful, nonbanal line, had never done a groat’s worth of anything for people, but only ate their bread, drank their wine, took away their wives, lived by their thoughts, and, to justify his contemptible, parasitic life before them and before himself, had always tried to make himself look higher and better than them... Lies, lies, lies...
He clearly recalled what he had seen that evening in Miuridov’s house, and it gave him an unbearably creepy feeling of loathing and anguish. Kirilin and Atchmianov were disgusting, but they were merely continuing what he had begun; they were his accomplices and disciples. From a weak young woman who trusted him more than a brother, he had taken her husband, her circle of friends, and her native land, and had brought her here to the torrid heat, to fever, and to boredom; day after day, like a mirror, she had had to reflect in herself his idleness, depravity, and lying—and that, that alone, had filled her weak, sluggish, pitiful life; then he had had enough of her, had begun to hate her, but had not had the courage to abandon her, and he had tried to entangle her in a tight mesh of lies, as in a spiderweb... These people had done the rest.
Laevsky now sat at the table, now went again to the window; now he put out the candle, now he lighted it again. He cursed himself aloud, wept, complained, asked forgiveness; several times he rushed to the desk in despair and wrote: ‘‘Dear Mother!’’
Besides his mother, he had no family or relations; but how could his mother help him? And where was she? He wanted to rush to Nadezhda Fyodorovna, fall at her feet, kiss her hands and feet, beg for forgiveness, but she was his victim, and he was afraid of her, as if she was dead.
‘‘My life is ruined!’’ he murmured, rubbing his hands. ‘‘Why am I still alive, my God! . . .’’
He dislodged his own dim star from the sky, it fell, and its traces mingled with the night’s darkness; it would never return to the sky, because life is given only once and is not repeated. If it had been possible to bring back the past days and years, he would have replaced the lies in them by truth, the idleness by work, the boredom by joy; he would have given back the purity to those from whom he had taken it, he would have found God and justice, but this was as impossible as putting a fallen star back into the sky. And the fact that it was impossible drove him to despair.
When the thunderstorm had passed, he sat by the open window and calmly thought of what was going to happen to him. Von Koren would probably kill him. The man’s clear, cold worldview allowed for the destruction of the feeble and worthless; and if it betrayed him in the decisive moment, he would be helped by the hatred and squeamishness Laevsky inspired in him. But if he missed, or, to mock his hated adversary, only wounded him, or fired into the air, what was he to do then? Where was he to go?
‘‘To Petersburg?’’ Laevsky asked himself. ‘‘But that would mean starting anew the old life I’m cursing. And he who seeks salvation in a change of place, like a migratory bird, will find nothing, because for him the earth is the same everywhere. Seek salvation in people? In whom and how? Samoilenko’s kindness and magnanimity are no more saving than the deacon’s laughter or von Koren’s hatred. One must seek salvation only in oneself, and if one doesn’t find it, then why waste time, one must kill oneself, that’s all . . .’’
The noise of a carriage was heard. Dawn was already breaking. The carriage drove past, turned, and, its wheels creaking in the wet sand, stopped near the house. Two men were sitting in the carriage.
‘‘Wait, I’ll be right there!’’ Laevsky said out the window. ‘‘I’m not asleep. Can it be time already?’’
‘‘Yes. Four o’clock. By the time we get there . . .’’
Laevsky put on his coat and a cap, took some cigarettes in his pocket, and stopped to ponder; it seemed to him that something else had to be done. Outside, the seconds talked softly and the horses snorted, and these sounds, on a damp early morning, when everyone was asleep and the sky was barely light, filled Laevsky’s soul with a despondency that was like a bad presentiment. He stood pondering for a while and then went to the bedroom.
Nadezhda Fyodorovna lay on her bed, stretched out, wrapped head and all in a plaid; she did not move and was reminiscent, especially by her head, of an Egyptian mummy. Looking at her in silence, Laevsky mentally asked her forgiveness and thought that if heaven was not empty and God was indeed in it, He would protect her, and if there was no God, let her perish, there was no need for her to live.
She suddenly jumped and sat up in her bed. Raising her pale face and looking with terror at Laevsky, she asked:
‘‘Is that you? Is the thunderstorm over?’’
‘‘It’s over.’’
She remembered, put both hands to her head, and her whole body shuddered.
‘‘It’s so hard for me!’’ she said. ‘‘If you only knew how hard it is for me! I was expecting you to kill me,’’ she went on, narrowing her eyes, ‘‘or drive me out of the house into the rain and storm, but you put it off . . . put it off . . .’’
He embraced her impulsively and tightly, covered her knees and hands with kisses, then, as she murmured something to him and shuddered from her memories, he smoothed her hair and, peering into her face, understood that this unfortunate, depraved woman was the only person who was close, dear, and irreplaceable to him.
When he left the house and was getting into the carriage, he wanted to come back home alive.
XVIII
THE DEACON GOT UP, dressed, took his thick, knobby walking stick, and quietly left the house. It was dark, and for the first moment, as he walked down the street, he did not even see his white stick; there was not a single star in the sky, and it looked as though it was going to rain again. There was a smell of wet sand and sea.
‘‘If only the Chechens don’t attack,’’ thought the deacon, listening to his stick tapping the pavement and to the resounding and solitary sound this tapping made in the stillness of the night.
Once he left town, he began to see both the road and his stick; dim spots appeared here and there in the black sky, and soon one star peeped out and timidly winked its one eye. The deacon walked along the high rocky coast and did not see the sea; it was falling asleep below, and its invisible waves broke lazily and heavily against the shore and seemed to sigh: oof! And so slowly! One wave broke, the deacon
had time to count eight steps, then another broke, and after six steps, a third. Just as before, nothing could be seen, and in the darkness, the lazy, sleepy noise of the sea could be heard, the infinitely far-off, unimaginable time could be heard when God hovered over chaos.
The deacon felt eerie. He thought God might punish him for keeping company with unbelievers and even going to watch their duel. The duel would be trifling, bloodless, ridiculous, but however it might be, it was a heathen spectacle, and for a clergyman to be present at it was altogether improper. He stopped and thought: shouldn’t he go back? But strong, restless curiosity got the upper hand over his doubts, and he went on.
The Complete Short Novels Page 24