The deacon got up, dressed, took his thick, gnarled stick and slipped
quietly out of the house. It was dark, and for the first minute
when he went into the street, he could not even see his white stick.
There was not a single star in the sky, and it looked as though
there would be rain again. There was a smell of wet sand and sea.
"It's to be hoped that the mountaineers won't attack us," thought
the deacon, hearing the tap of the stick on the pavement, and
noticing how loud and lonely the taps sounded in the stillness of
the night.
When he got out of town, he began to see both the road and his
stick. Here and there in the black sky there were dark cloudy
patches, and soon a star peeped out and timidly blinked its one
eye. The deacon walked along the high rocky coast and did not see
the sea; it was slumbering below, and its unseen waves broke languidly
and heavily on the shore, as though sighing "Ouf!" and how slowly!
One wave broke--the deacon had time to count eight steps; then
another broke, and six steps; later a third. As before, nothing
could be seen, and in the darkness one could hear the languid,
drowsy drone of the sea. One could hear the infinitely faraway,
inconceivable time when God moved above chaos.
The deacon felt uncanny. He hoped God would not punish him for
keeping company with infidels, and even going to look at their
duels. The duel would be nonsensical, bloodless, absurd, but however
that might be, it was a heathen spectacle, and it was altogether
unseemly for an ecclesiastical person to be present at it. He stopped
and wondered--should he go back? But an intense, restless curiosity
triumphed over his doubts, and he went on.
"Though they are infidels they are good people, and will be saved,"
he assured himself. "They are sure to be saved," he said aloud,
lighting a cigarette.
By what standard must one measure men's qualities, to judge rightly
of them? The deacon remembered his enemy, the inspector of the
clerical school, who believed in God, lived in chastity, and did
not fight duels; but he used to feed the deacon on bread with sand
in it, and on one occasion almost pulled off the deacon's ear. If
human life was so artlessly constructed that every one respected
this cruel and dishonest inspector who stole the Government flour,
and his health and salvation were prayed for in the schools, was
it just to shun such men as Von Koren and Laevsky, simply because
they were unbelievers? The deacon was weighing this question, but
he recalled how absurd Samoylenko had looked yesterday, and that
broke the thread of his ideas. What fun they would have next day!
The deacon imagined how he would sit under a bush and look on, and
when Von Koren began boasting next day at dinner, he, the deacon,
would begin laughing and telling him all the details of the duel.
"How do you know all about it?" the zoologist would ask.
"Well, there you are! I stayed at home, but I know all about it."
It would be nice to write a comic description of the duel. His
father-in-law would read it and laugh. A good story, told or written,
was more than meat and drink to his father-in-law.
The valley of the Yellow River opened before him. The stream was
broader and fiercer for the rain, and instead of murmuring as before,
it was raging. It began to get light. The grey, dingy morning, and
the clouds racing towards the west to overtake the storm-clouds,
the mountains girt with mist, and the wet trees, all struck the
deacon as ugly and sinister. He washed at the brook, repeated his
morning prayer, and felt a longing for tea and hot rolls, with sour
cream, which were served every morning at his father-in-law's. He
remembered his wife and the "Days past Recall," which she played
on the piano. What sort of woman was she? His wife had been introduced,
betrothed, and married to him all in one week: he had lived with
her less than a month when he was ordered here, so that he had not
had time to find out what she was like. All the same, he rather
missed her.
"I must write her a nice letter . . ." he thought. The flag on the
_duhan_ hung limp, soaked by the rain, and the _duhan_ itself with
its wet roof seemed darker and lower than it had been before. Near
the door was standing a cart; Kerbalay, with two mountaineers and
a young Tatar woman in trousers--no doubt Kerbalay's wife or
daughter--were bringing sacks of something out of the _duhan_,
and putting them on maize straw in the cart.
Near the cart stood a pair of asses hanging their heads. When they
had put in all the sacks, the mountaineers and the Tatar woman began
covering them over with straw, while Kerbalay began hurriedly
harnessing the asses.
"Smuggling, perhaps," thought the deacon.
Here was the fallen tree with the dried pine-needles, here was the
blackened patch from the fire. He remembered the picnic and all its
incidents, the fire, the singing of the mountaineers, his sweet
dreams of becoming a bishop, and of the Church procession. . . .
The Black River had grown blacker and broader with the rain. The
deacon walked cautiously over the narrow bridge, which by now was
reached by the topmost crests of the dirty water, and went up through
the little copse to the drying-shed.
"A splendid head," he thought, stretching himself on the straw, and
thinking of Von Koren. "A fine head--God grant him health; only
there is cruelty in him. . . ."
Why did he hate Laevsky and Laevsky hate him? Why were they going
to fight a duel? If from their childhood they had known poverty as
the deacon had; if they had been brought up among ignorant,
hard-hearted, grasping, coarse and ill-mannered people who grudged
you a crust of bread, who spat on the floor and hiccoughed at dinner
and at prayers; if they had not been spoilt from childhood by the
pleasant surroundings and the select circle of friends they lived
in--how they would have rushed at each other, how readily they
would have overlooked each other's shortcomings and would have
prized each other's strong points! Why, how few even outwardly
decent people there were in the world! It was true that Laevsky was
flighty, dissipated, queer, but he did not steal, did not spit
loudly on the floor; he did not abuse his wife and say, "You'll eat
till you burst, but you don't want to work;" he would not beat a
child with reins, or give his servants stinking meat to eat--
surely this was reason enough to be indulgent to him? Besides, he
was the chief sufferer from his failings, like a sick man from his
sores. Instead of being led by boredom and some sort of misunderstanding
to look for degeneracy, extinction, heredity, and other such
incomprehensible things in each other, would they not do better to
stoop a little lower and turn their hatred and anger where whole
streets resounded with moanings from coarse ignorance, greed,
scolding, impurity, swearing, the shrieks of women. . . .
The sound of a carriage interrupted the deacon's thoughts. He glanced
out of the door and saw a carriage and in it three persons: Laevsky,
Sheshkovsky, and the superintendent of the post-office.
"Stop!" said Sheshkovsky.
All three got out of the carriage and looked at one another.
"They are not here yet," said Sheshkovsky, shaking the mud off.
"Well? Till the show begins, let us go and find a suitable spot;
there's not room to turn round here."
They went further up the river and soon vanished from sight. The
Tatar driver sat in the carriage with his head resting on his
shoulder and fell asleep. After waiting ten minutes the deacon came
out of the drying-shed, and taking off his black hat that he might
not be noticed, he began threading his way among the bushes and
strips of maize along the bank, crouching and looking about him.
The grass and maize were wet, and big drops fell on his head from
the trees and bushes. "Disgraceful!" he muttered, picking up his
wet and muddy skirt. "Had I realised it, I would not have come."
Soon he heard voices and caught sight of them. Laevsky was walking
rapidly to and fro in the small glade with bowed back and hands
thrust in his sleeves; his seconds were standing at the water's
edge, rolling cigarettes.
"Strange," thought the deacon, not recognising Laevsky's walk; "he
looks like an old man. . . ."
"How rude it is of them!" said the superintendent of the post-office,
looking at his watch. "It may be learned manners to be late, but
to my thinking it's hoggish."
Sheshkovsky, a stout man with a black beard, listened and said:
"They're coming!"