"Come, that"s better," observed Avdey. "At last you"re beginning to speak plainly."
"As you think best," repeated Kister.
"I understand your position, Fyodor Fedoritch," Avdey went on with an affectation of sympathy; "it"s disagreeable, certainly. A man has been acting, acting a part, and no one has recognised him as a humbug; and all of a sudden..."
"If I could believe," Kister interrupted, setting his teeth, "that it was wounded love that makes you talk like this, I should feel sorry for you; I could excuse you.... But in your abuse, in your false charges, I hear nothing but the shriek of mortified pride... and I feel no sympathy for you.... You have deserved what you"ve got."
"Ugh, mercy on us, how the fellow talks!" Avdey murmured. "Pride," he went on; "may be; yes, yes, my pride, as you say, has been mortified intensely and insufferably. But who isn"t proud? Aren"t you? Yes, I"m proud, and for instance, I permit no one to feel sorry for me...."
"You don"t permit it!" Kister retorted haughtily. "What an expression, sir! Don"t forget, the tie between us you yourself have broken. I must beg you to behave with me as with a complete outsider."
"Broken! Broken the tie between us!" repeated Avdey. "Understand me; I have sent you no message, and have not been to see you because I was sorry for you; you must allow me to be sorry for you, since you "re sorry for me!... I didn"t want to put you in a false position, to make your conscience p.r.i.c.k.... You talk of a tie between us... as though you could remain my friend as before your marriage! Rubbish! Why, you were only friendly with me before to gloat over your fancied superiority..."
Avdey"s duplicity overwhelmed, confounded Kister.
"Let us end this unpleasant conversation!" he cried at last. "I must own I don"t see why you"ve been pleased to come to me."
"You don"t see what I"ve come to you for?" Avdey asked inquiringly.
"I certainly don"t see why."
"N--o?"
"No, I tell you..."
"Astonishing!... This is astonishing! Who"d have thought it of a fellow of your intelligence!"
"Come, speak plainly..."
"I have come, Mr. Kister," said Avdey, slowly rising to his feet, "I have come to challenge you to a duel. Do you understand now? I want to fight you. Ah! you thought you could get rid of me like that! Why, didn"t you know the sort of man you have to do with? As if I"d allow..."
"Very good," Kister cut in coldly and abruptly. "I accept your challenge. Kindly send me your second."
"Yes, yes," pursued Avdey, who, like a cat, could not bear to let his victim go so soon: "it"ll give me great pleasure I"ll own to put a bullet into your fair and idealistic countenance to-morrow."
"You are abusive after a challenge, it seems," Kister rejoined contemptuously. "Be so good as to go. I"m ashamed of you."
"Oh, to be sure, _delicatesse_!... Ah, Marya Sergievna, I don"t know French!" growled Avdey, as he put on his cap. "Till we meet again, Fyodor Fedoritch!"
He bowed and walked out.
Kister paced several times up and down the room. His face burned, his breast heaved violently. He felt neither fear nor anger; but it sickened him to think what this man really was that he had once looked upon as a friend. The idea of the duel with Lutchkov was almost pleasant to him.... Once get free from the past, leap over this rock in his path, and then to float on an untroubled tide... "Good," he thought, "I shall be fighting to win my happiness." Masha"s image seemed to smile to him, to promise him success. "I"m not going to be killed! not I!" he repeated with a serene smile. On the table lay the letter to his mother.... He felt a momentary pang at his heart. He resolved any way to defer sending it off. There was in Kister that quickening of the vital energies of which a man is aware in face of danger. He calmly thought over all the possible results of the duel, mentally placed Masha and himself in all the agonies of misery and parting, and looked forward to the future with hope. He swore to himself not to kill Lutchkov... He felt irresistibly drawn to Masha. He paused a second, hurriedly arranged things, and directly after dinner set off to the Perekatovs. All the evening Kister was in good spirits, perhaps in too good spirits.
Masha played a great deal on the piano, felt no foreboding of evil, and flirted charmingly with him. At first her unconsciousness wounded him, then he took Masha"s very unconsciousness as a happy omen, and was rejoiced and rea.s.sured by it. She had grown fonder and fonder of him every day; happiness was for her a much more urgent need than pa.s.sion.
Besides, Avdey had turned her from all exaggerated desires, and she renounced them joyfully and for ever. Nenila Makarievna loved Kister like a son. Sergei Sergeitch as usual followed his wife"s lead.
"Till we meet," Masha said to Kister, following him into the hall and gazing at him with a soft smile, as he slowly and tenderly kissed her hands.
"Till we meet," Fyodor Fedoritch repeated confidently; "till we meet."
But when he had driven half a mile from the Perekatovs" house, he stood up in the carriage, and with vague uneasiness began looking for the lighted windows.... All in the house was dark as in the tomb.
XI
Next day at eleven o"clock in the morning Kister"s second, an old major of tried merit, came for him. The good old man growled to himself, bit his grey moustaches, and wished Avdey Ivanovitch everything unpleasant.... The carriage was brought to the door. Kister handed the major two letters, one for his mother, the other for Masha.
"What"s this for?"
"Well, one can never tell..."
"Nonsense! we"ll shoot him like a partridge..."
"Any way it"s better..."
The major with vexation stuffed the two letters in the side pocket of his coat.
"Let us start."
They set off. In a small copse, a mile and a half from the village of Kirilovo, Lutchkov was awaiting them with his former friend, the perfumed adjutant. It was lovely weather, the birds were twittering peacefully; not far from the copse a peasant was tilling the ground.
While the seconds were marking out the distance, fixing the barrier, examining and loading the pistols, the opponents did not even glance at one another.... Kister walked to and fro with a careless air, swinging a flower he had gathered; Avdey stood motionless, with folded arms and scowling brow. The decisive moment arrived. "Begin, gentlemen!" Kister went rapidly towards the barrier, but he had not gone five steps before Avdey fired, Kister started, made one more step forward, staggered. His head sank... His knees bent under him... He fell like a sack on the gra.s.s. The major rushed up to him.... "Is it possible?" whispered the dying man.
Avdey went up to the man he had killed. On his gloomy and sunken face was a look of savage, exasperated regret.... He looked at the adjutant and the major, bent his head like a guilty man, got on his horse without a word, and rode slowly straight to the colonel"s quarters.
Masha... is living to this day.
THREE PORTRAITS
"Neighbours" const.i.tute one of the most serious drawbacks of life in the country. I knew a country gentleman of the VoloG.o.dsky district, who used on every suitable occasion to repeat the following words, "Thank G.o.d, I have no neighbours," and I confess I could not help envying that happy mortal. My own little place is situated in one of the most thickly peopled provinces of Russia. I am surrounded by a vast number of dear neighbours, from highly respectable and highly respected country gentlemen, attired in ample frockcoats and still more ample waistcoats, down to regular loafers, wearing jackets with long sleeves and a so-called shooting-bag on their back. In this crowd of gentlefolks I chanced, however, to discover one very pleasant fellow. He had served in the army, had retired and settled for good and all in the country.
According to his story, he had served for two years in the B------ regiment. But I am totally unable to comprehend how that man could have performed any sort of duty, not merely for two years, but even for two days. He was born "for a life of peace and country calm," that is to say, for lazy, careless vegetation, which, I note parenthetically, is not without great and inexhaustible charms. He possessed a very fair property, and without giving too much thought to its management, spent about ten thousand roubles a year, had obtained an excellent cook--my friend was fond of good fare--and ordered too from Moscow all the newest French books and magazines. In Russian he read nothing but the reports of his bailiff, and that with great difficulty. He used, when he did not go out shooting, to wear a dressing-gown from morning till dinner-time and at dinner. He would look through plans of some sort, or go round to the stables or to the threshing barn, and joke with the peasant women, who, to be sure, in his presence wielded their flails in leisurely fashion. After dinner my friend would dress very carefully before the looking-gla.s.s, and drive off to see some neighbour possessed of two or three pretty daughters. He would flirt serenely and unconcernedly with one of them, play blind-man"s-buff with them, return home rather late and promptly fall into a heroic sleep. He could never be bored, for he never gave himself up to complete inactivity; and in the choice of occupations he was not difficult to please, and was amused like a child with the smallest trifle. On the other hand, he cherished no particular attachment to life, and at times, when he chanced to get a glimpse of the track of a wolf or a fox, he would let his horse go at full gallop over such ravines that to this day I cannot understand how it was he did not break his neck a hundred times over. He belonged to that cla.s.s of persons who inspire in one the idea that they do not know their own value, that under their appearance of indifference strong and violent pa.s.sions lie concealed. But he would have laughed in one"s face if he could have guessed that one cherished such an opinion of him. And indeed I must own I believe myself that even supposing my friend had had in youth some strong impulse, however vague, towards what is so sweetly called "higher things," that impulse had long, long ago died out. He was rather stout and enjoyed superb health. In our day one cannot help liking people who think little about themselves, because they are exceedingly rare... and my friend had almost forgotten his own personality. I fancy, though, that I have said too much about him already, and my prolixity is the more uncalled for as he is not the hero of my story. His name was Piotr Fedorovitch Lutchinov.
One autumn day there were five of us, ardent sportsmen, gathered together at Piotr Fedorovitch"s. We had spent the whole morning out, had run down a couple of foxes and a number of hares, and had returned home in that supremely agreeable frame of mind which comes over every well-regulated person after a successful day"s shooting. It grew dusk.
The wind was frolicking over the dark fields and noisily swinging the bare tops of the birches and lime-trees round Lutchinov"s house. We reached the house, got off our horses.... On the steps I stood still and looked round: long storm-clouds were creeping heavily over the grey sky; a dark-brown bush was writhing in the wind, and murmuring plaintively; the yellow gra.s.s helplessly and forlornly bowed down to the earth; flocks of thrushes were fluttering in the mountain-ashes among the bright, flame-coloured cl.u.s.ters of berries. Among the light brittle twigs of the birch-trees blue-t.i.ts hopped whistling. In the village there was the hoa.r.s.e barking of dogs. I felt melancholy... but it was with a genuine sense of comfort that I walked into the dining-room. The shutters were closed; on a round table, covered with a tablecloth of dazzling whiteness, amid cut-gla.s.s decanters of red wine, there were eight lighted candles in silver candlesticks; a fire glowed cheerfully on the hearth, and an old and very stately-looking butler, with a huge bald head, wearing an English dress, stood before another table on which was pleasingly conspicuous a large soup-tureen, encircled by light savoury-smelling steam. In the hall we pa.s.sed by another venerable man, engaged in icing champagne--"according to the strictest rules of the art." The dinner was, as is usual in such cases, exceedingly pleasant.
We laughed and talked of the incidents of the day"s shooting, and recalled with enthusiasm two glorious "runs." After dining pretty heartily, we settled comfortably into ample arm-chairs round the fire; a huge silver bowl made its appearance on the table, and in a few minutes the white flame of the burning rum announced our host"s agreeable intention "to concoct a punch." Piotr Fedoritch was a man of some taste; he was aware, for instance, that nothing has so fatal an influence on the fancy as the cold, steady, pedantic light of a lamp, and so he gave orders that only two candles should be left in the room. Strange half-shadows quivered on the walls, thrown by the fanciful play of the fire in the hearth and the flame of the punch... a soft, exceedingly agreeable sense of soothing comfort replaced in our hearts the somewhat boisterous gaiety that had reigned at dinner.
Conversations have their destinies, like books, as the Latin proverb says, like everything in the world. Our conversation that evening was particularly many-sided and lively. From details it pa.s.sed to rather serious general questions, and lightly and casually came back to the daily incidents of life.... After chatting a good deal, we suddenly all sank into silence. At such times they say an angel of peace is flying over.
I cannot say why my companions were silent, but I held my tongue because my eyes had suddenly come to rest on three dusty portraits in black wooden frames. The colours were rubbed and cracked in places, but one could still make out the faces. The portrait in the centre was that of a young woman in a white gown with lace ruffles, her hair done up high, in the style of the eighties of last century. On her right, upon a perfectly black background, there stood out the full, round face of a good-natured country gentleman of five-and-twenty, with a broad, low brow, a thick nose, and a good-humoured smile. The French powdered coiffure was utterly out of keeping with the expression of his Slavonic face. The artist had portrayed him wearing a long loose coat of crimson colour with large paste b.u.t.tons; in his hand he was holding some unlikely-looking flower. The third portrait, which was the work of some other more skilful hand, represented a man of thirty, in the green uniform, with red facings, of the time of Catherine, in a white shirt, with a fine cambric cravat. One hand leaned on a gold-headed cane, the other lay on his shirt front. His dark, thinnish face was full of insolent haughtiness. The fine long eyebrows almost grew together over the pitch-black eyes, about the thin, scarcely discernible lips played an evil smile.
"Why do you keep staring at those faces?" Piotr Fedoritch asked me.
"Oh, I don"t know!" I answered, looking at him.