Chapter 19 "Duel" Eighteen

eighteen The deacon got up, got dressed, picked up a thick cane covered with scars, and quietly walked out of the house.It was pitch black outside, and the deacon walked the streets, at first unable to see even his white cane.There was not a single star in the sky, and it looked like it was going to rain again.The air was filled with the smell of wet sand and sea water. "Probably no Chechens will come to block the road," thought the deacon, listening to the sound of his walking stick beating the road, loud and lonely in the silence of the night. As he went outside the city, he began to see the road, and also his staff.Here and there there were dim spots in the black sky, and presently a star appeared, timidly blinking its one eye.The deacon walked on the high rocky shore, out of sight of the sea.The sea fell asleep below, and the invisible waves lapped the shore lazily and heavily, as if sighing: Alas!And, how slow!When a wave came, the deacon counted eight steps before another wave came, and after counting six steps, the third wave came.Here too, nothing can be seen, only the lazy and sleepy sound of the sea can be heard in the darkness, which makes people seem to hear the infinitely distant and unimaginable age, that is, when God walked in the chaos of the whole world. Times that come and go.

The deacon felt horrified.He thought to himself that he would only pray God not to punish him now that he was associating with the unbelievers, and even went to watch their duels.The duel was nothing special, bloodless, and ridiculous, but in any case it was a spectacle of the sort, and it is always quite unseemly for a religious person to appear on the scene of a duel.He stopped and thought to himself: Do you want to go back?Yet strong, restless curiosity overcame his wandering, and he walked on. "Although they are not religious, they are good people and will be saved," he comforted himself. "They will be saved!" he said aloud, lighting a cigarette.

By what measure are men's characters to be judged fairly?The deacon thought of his enemy, the superintendent of the religious school. He believed in God and did not fight with others. .If human life becomes inexplicable, and everyone in the school respects this cruel and dishonest superintendent who steals the country's flour, and prays to God for his health and salvation, then it is only because of von Koren and Laev Would it be fair for Ski to avoid them if he was not religious?The deacon was thinking about this question, but at this moment, he couldn't help remembering how ridiculous Samoylenko's appearance was yesterday, which interrupted his train of thought.What a funny joke they'll play tomorrow!The deacon imagined that after a while he was sitting peeking from behind a bush, and then, at lunch next day, von Koren would boast about the duel, and he, the deacon, would laugh and tell the whole story. The course of the duel was told to him in detail.

"How do you know all this?" the zoologist would ask. "That's right. I'm sitting at home, but I know it all." It would be nice if the duel could be described in a comical way.His father-in-law would laugh at such a description.His father-in-law would rather skip a meal if you told him a ridiculous thing, or wrote him a letter. The canyon through which the Yellow River flows unfolded in front of him.After it rained, the small river became wide and swift, and the river did not flow like before, but flowed with a rush.Day began to break.The gloomy morning, the clouds swimming westward, following the rain clouds, the mountains surrounded by mist, the damp trees,--all this looked ugly and terrible to the deacon.He washed his face in the water of the river, said his morning prayers, and was eager to drink some of the tea that was always served on the table at his father-in-law's house every morning, and eat some of their hot fritters with sour cream.He couldn't help but think of his wife and her "Time Gone and Never Returning" that she often played on the piano.

What kind of woman is she?From the acquaintance of the deacon to the proposal and marriage, there was only one week.He hadn't lived with her a month before he was sent here, so he still hasn't figured out what she is like.But she was not here, and he couldn't help feeling bored. "Should write her a good letter," he thought to himself. A flag above the small restaurant was drenched in the rain and pulled down.The tavern itself and the dank roof looked darker and lower than before.A large cart was parked in front of the small restaurant.Kerbale, two other Abkhazians, a young Tatar woman in knickerbockers (who must have been Kerbale's wife or daughter), carried a sack from the tavern and placed it in the cart. Corn stalks on top.Near the cart stood a pair of donkeys, their heads held together.After the two Abkhaz and Tatar women put away the sacks, they covered them with corn stalks, while Kerbalay hastily harnessed the donkeys to the cart.

"Probably smuggling," the deacon thought to himself. Lo and behold, this is a fallen tree with its dry needles.Look, here's the black spot left by the campfire.He couldn't help thinking of the picnic and its circumstances, of the fire, of the Abkhaz singing, of the wonderful vision of the bishop, of the religious procession. ... The Heihe River has added rain, and it has become darker and wider.The deacon walked carefully across a thin bridge, which was already touched by the muddy waves of the river.He climbed up the little ladder and went into a corn shed. "Brilliant mind!" He lay down on the corn stalks, thinking of von Koren.

"A fine mind, God bless him. But he's cruel. . . . " Why did he hate Laevsky, and Laevsky hated him?Why are they dueling?If they have been brought up with the poverty of deacons, if they have been ignorant, hard-hearted, bent on getting rich and complaining that their families eat for nothing, rough and brutal, spitting and hiccupping at meals and prayers How friendly they would be, how ready to forgive each other's faults, and how much they would have valued each other's virtues, if they had not been spoiled from childhood by the comforts of life and the gentlemen around them.You know, there are very few decent people in this world!It is true that Laevsky is frivolous, dissolute, and eccentric; but after all he does not embezzle, spit on the floor, complain about his wife, saying that she "eats and does not work," beats the children with the reins, and does not feed the servants. Smelly corned beef, isn't that enough to make one treat him kindly?Again, know that he is the first to suffer from his defects, as the sick suffer from wounds.Instead of looking for degeneration, extinction, heredity, and other incomprehensible things in each other out of boredom, out of some misunderstanding, they might as well go down below and use their hatred and anger on other people. To a place where so many streets are filled with groans because of brutality, ignorance, greed, complaints, filth, swearing, women's screams? ... The rumble of a carriage came from a distance, interrupting Deacon Ding's train of thought.Looking out of the door he saw a carriage with three persons in it: Laevsky, Sheshkovsky, and the postmaster.

"Stop!" said Sheshkovsky. All three got out of the carriage, you looked at me, I looked at you. "They haven't come yet," said Sheshkovsky, shaking the dust off him. "How about it? Let's find a suitable location before the play starts. I can't turn around here. " They walked up the river bank, and soon disappeared.The driver, a Tatar, was asleep in the carriage, with his head on his shoulders.After waiting for about ten minutes, the deacon came out of the hut. Afraid of being discovered, he took off his black hat, bent down, looked around, and began to crawl around in the bushes and cornfields along the river bank.Great drops of water fell on him from the trees and bushes, and the grass and corn were wet.

"Shame!" he muttered, lifting his wet, muddy bottom skirt. "If I had known this, I wouldn't have come." Presently he heard voices and saw people.With his hands in his sleeves and his waist bent, Laevsky was walking quickly up and down on a small forest meadow.His witnesses stood rolling cigarettes by the river bank. "Strange..." thought the deacon, not recognizing Laevsky's gait. "He looks like an old man." "They're being very rude!" said the postal officer, looking at his pocket watch. "Maybe being late is a good thing from a scholar's point of view, but from my point of view it's nonsense."

Sheshkovsky was a fat man with a black beard.He listened carefully and said, "They are coming!" "Notes" ①A minority living in the North Caucasus.