The Duel and Other Stories

The Duel and Other Stories

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Duel and Other Stories, by Anton
Chekhov, Translated by Constance Garnett
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Title: The Duel and Other Stories
Author: Anton Chekhov
Release Date: September 24, 2004 [eBook #13505]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUEL
AND OTHER STORIES***
E-text prepared by James Rusk

THE DUEL AND OTHER STORIES
by
ANTON TCHEKHOV
Translated by Constance Garnett

CONTENTS
THE DUEL EXCELLENT PEOPLE MIRE NEIGHBOURS AT
HOME EXPENSIVE LESSONS THE PRINCESS THE CHEMIST'S
WIFE

THE DUEL
I
It was eight o'clock in the morning--the time when the officers, the

local officials, and the visitors usually took their morning dip in the sea
after the hot, stifling 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 Ministry of Finance and
with slippers on his feet, coming down to bathe, found a number of
acquaintances on the beach, and among them his friend Samoylenko,
the army doctor.
With his big cropped head, short neck, his red face, his big nose, his
shaggy black eyebrows and grey whiskers, his stout puffy figure and
his hoarse military bass, this Samoylenko made on every newcomer the
unpleasant impression of a gruff bully; but two or three days after
making his acquaintance, one began to think his face extraordinarily
good-natured, kind, and even handsome. In spite of his clumsiness 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 interest some
one on their behalf, and was always delighted about something. The
general opinion about him was that he was without faults of character.
He had only two weaknesses: he was ashamed of his own good nature,
and tried to disguise it by a surly expression and an assumed gruffness;
and he liked his assistants and his soldiers to call him "Your
Excellency," although he was only a civil councillor.
"Answer one question for me, Alexandr Daviditch," Laevsky began,
when both he and Samoylenko were in the water up to their shoulders.
"Suppose you had loved a woman and had been living with her for two
or three years, and then left off caring for her, as one does, and began to
feel that you had nothing in common with her. How would you behave
in that case?"
"It's very simple. 'You go where you please, madam'--and that would
be the end of it."
"It's easy to say that! But if she has nowhere to go? A woman with no
friends or relations, without a farthing, who can't work . . ."
"Well? Five hundred roubles down or an allowance of twenty-five
roubles a month--and nothing more. It's very simple."

"Even supposing you have five hundred roubles and can pay
twenty-five roubles a month, the woman I am speaking of is an
educated woman and proud. Could you really bring yourself to offer
her money? And how would you do it?"
Samoylenko was going to answer, but at that moment a big wave
covered them both, then broke on the beach and rolled back noisily
over the shingle. The friends got out and began dressing.
"Of course, it is difficult to live with a woman if you don't love her,"
said Samoylenko, shaking the sand out of his boots. "But one must look
at the thing humanely, Vanya. If it were my case, I should never show a
sign that I did not love her, and I should go on living with her till I
died."
He was at once ashamed of his own words; he pulled himself up and
said:
"But for aught I care, there might be no females at all. Let them all go
to the devil!"
The friends dressed and went into the pavilion. There Samoylenko was
quite at home, and even had a special cup and saucer. Every morning
they brought him on a tray 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 this must have