Chapter 21 "Duel" Twenty

twenty After a while, von Koren and the deacon met by the little bridge.The deacon looked agitated, breathed hard, and refused to look people in the eye.He felt embarrassed because he was frightened just now, and his clothes were dirty and wet. "I think you're trying to kill him..." he muttered. "How contrary to human nature! How abnormal!" "But how did you come here?" asked the zoologist. "Don't ask!" said the deacon, shaking his hand. "The devil got hold of my mind and said: Go, go.  … So here I am, and nearly died of fright in the cornfield. But now, thank God, thank God, it's all right.  … I'm very pleased with you ’” muttered the deacon. "Our old poisonous spider will be satisfied too. . . . It's ridiculous, ridiculous! But I beg you, don't tell people that I've been here, or my superiors will probably clean me up. They'll say: deacon Witness to a duel."

"Gentlemen!" said Von Koren. "The deacon asks you not to tell outsiders that you saw him here. It would make trouble." "How contrary to human nature!" sighed the deacon. "I beg your pardon, but I must say that, judging from your face at the time, I think you intended to kill him." "I really wanted to kill that scoundrel," said von Koren, "but your yelling prevented me from hitting it. But the whole process, being unaccustomed to me, disgusted me and tired me out." Unbearable, deacon. I'm very tired. Let's go in the car. . . . " "No, please allow me to walk. I'll have to let my clothes dry, or I'll be wet and cold."

"Well, that's up to you," said the tired zoologist in a weary voice, getting into the carriage and closing his eyes. "It's up to you. . . . " They walked beside the carriage, and when they got into the carriage, Kerbalay stood by the road, cupping his belly in both hands, bowing deeply, showing his teeth. laugh.He thought those gentlemen came to enjoy the scenery and drink tea, and he didn't understand why they got into the carriage.In the silence of everyone, the carriages drove away, and only the deacon was left near the small restaurant. "I'm going, in the restaurant, for tea," he said to Kyle Barley. "I want, eat, something."

Kerbalay spoke very good Russian, but the deacon thought it would be easier for the Tatar to understand him if he spoke a half-spoken Russian. "Fry eggs, get cheese.  …" "Come in, come in, Priest," Kyle Barley said, bowing. "Everything will be prepared for you. . . . Cheese, and wine. . . . Order what you like." "What is 'God' called in Tatar?" asked the deacon, entering the tavern. "Your God is as good as mine," Kyle Balay said, not understanding what he meant. "There is only one God for all, but there are all kinds of people. Some are Russians, some are Turks, some are English. There are many such and such, but there is only one God."

"Good. Why do you Muslims regard Christians as your eternal enemies, since all nations believe in one God?" "Why are you angry?" Kyle Bale said, cupping his stomach in both hands. "You are a priest and I am a Muslim. If you want something to eat, I will bring it to you. . . . Only rich people divide your God from mine, and God is the same to poor people. Well, please eat." While this theological conversation was going on in the tavern, Laevsky was already returning home in a carriage.He remembered how anxious he had been driving at dawn just now.The roads, rocks, and mountains were damp and dark, and the unknowable future was as frightening as a bottomless abyss.Now, the drops that hang on the grass and stones shine like diamonds in the sun, and Nature smiles joyously, and the dreadful future is left behind.He looked at Sheshkovsky's gloomy, tear-stained face, and at the two carriages in front of him, in which were sitting von Koren, his witnesses, and the doctor, and it seemed to him that they had all just returned from the cemetery. It was as if someone had just been buried in the cemetery who was difficult, who nobody could stand, who got in the way of everyone's lives.

"It's over," he said, thinking of his past, caressing his neck with a finger. On the right side of his neck, near the collar, a small blister was swollen, as long and thick as a little finger.He felt a sharp pain, as if it had been scalded with an iron.It was a bullet wound. Later, when he came home, a long, weird, wonderful, hazy, coma-like day began for him.As if he had just been released from a prison or a hospital, he gazed attentively at objects he was already familiar with, secretly astonished, because the table, the window, the chair, the light, the sea, aroused in him a kind of liveliness. And childish joy, this is something he hasn't experienced for a long, long time.Nadezhda Fyodorovna, who was very pale and extremely emaciated, did not understand his soft voice and strange gait.She hurriedly told him what she had done. ...She felt that he probably didn't listen to her very much, and didn't understand it well. If he understood everything, he would curse her and beat her to death.But he did listen to her, and at the same time he stroked her face and her hair, looked her in the eyes, and said, "I have no one but you. . . . " They sat for a long time in the little garden in front of the house, Cuddling each other without speaking, or uttering their fantasies about a happy future life in short, incoherent sentences.He felt as if he had never spoken so long and beautifully before.