‘‘Very glad. Tomorrow morning early, by Kerbalai’s, with all the details to your taste. And now get out of here.’’
‘‘I hate you!’’ Laevsky said softly, breathing heavily. ‘‘I’ve hated you for a long time! A duel! Yes!’’
‘‘Take him away, Alexander Davidych, or else I’ll leave,’’ said von Koren. ‘‘He’s going to bite me.’’
Von Koren’s calm tone cooled the doctor down; he somehow suddenly came to himself, recovered his senses, put his arm around Laevsky’s waist, and, leading him away from the zoologist, mumured in a gentle voice, trembling with agitation:
‘‘My friends . . . good, kind friends . . . You got excited, but that will do...that will do . . . My friends...’’
Hearing his soft, friendly voice, Laevsky felt that something unprecedented and monstrous had just taken place in his life, as if he had nearly been run over by a train; he almost burst into tears, waved his hand, and rushed from the room.
‘‘To experience another man’s hatred of you, to show yourself in the most pathetic, despicable, helpless way before the man who hates you—my God, how painful it is!’’ he thought shortly afterwards, sitting in the pavilion and feeling something like rust on his body from the just experienced hatred of another man. ‘‘How crude it is, my God!’’
Cold water with cognac cheered him up. He clearly pictured von Koren’s calm, haughty face, his gaze yesterday, his carpetlike shirt, his voice, his white hands, and a heavy hatred, passionate and hungry, stirred in his breast and demanded satisfaction. In his mind, he threw von Koren to the ground and started trampling him with his feet. He recalled everything that had happened in the minutest detail, and wondered how he could smile ingratiatingly at a nonentity and generally value the opinion of petty little people, unknown to anyone, who lived in a worthless town which, it seemed, was not even on the map and which not a single decent person in Petersburg knew about. If this wretched little town were suddenly to fall through the earth or burn down, people in Russia would read the telegram about it with the same boredom as the announcement of a sale of secondhand furniture. To kill von Koren tomorrow or leave him alive was in any case equally useless and uninteresting. To shoot him in the leg or arm, to wound him, then laugh at him, and, as an insect with a torn-off leg gets lost in the grass, so let him with his dull suffering lose himself afterwards in a crowd of the same nonentities as himself.
Laevsky went to Sheshkovsky, told him about it all, and invited him to be his second; then they both went to the head of the post and telegraph office, invited him to be a second as well, and stayed with him for dinner. At dinner they joked and laughed a great deal; Laevsky made fun of the fact that he barely knew how to shoot, and called himself a royal marksman and a Wilhelm Tell.
‘‘This gentleman must be taught a lesson . . .’’ he kept saying.
After dinner they sat down to play cards. Laevsky played, drank wine, and thought how generally stupid and senseless dueling was, because it did not solve the problem but only complicated it, but that sometimes one could not do without it. For instance, in the present case, he could not plead about von Koren before the justice of the peace! And the impending duel was also good in that, after it, he would no longer be able to stay in town. He became slightly drunk, diverted himself with cards, and felt good.
But when the sun set and it grew dark, uneasiness came over him. It was not the fear of death, because all the while he was having dinner and playing cards, the conviction sat in him, for some reason, that the duel would end in nothing; it was a fear of something unknown, which was to take place tomorrow morning for the first time in his life, and a fear of the coming night . . . He knew that the night would be long, sleepless, and that he would have to think not only about von Koren and his hatred but about that mountain of lies he would have to pass through and which he had neither the strength nor the ability to avoid. It looked as though he had unexpectedly fallen ill; he suddenly lost all interest in cards and people, began fussing, and asked to be allowed to go home. He wanted to go to bed quickly, lie still, and prepare his thoughts for the night. Sheshkovsky and the postal official saw him off and went to von Koren to talk about the duel.
Near his apartment, Laevsky met Atchmianov. The young man was breathless and agitated.
‘‘I’ve been looking for you, Ivan Andreich!’’ he said. ‘‘I beg you, let’s go quickly ...’’
‘‘Where?’’
‘‘A gentleman you don’t know wishes to see you on very important business. He earnestly requests that you come for a moment. He needs to talk to you about something . . . For him it’s the same as life and death . . . ’’
In his excitement, Atchmianov uttered this with a strong Armenian accent, so that it came out not ‘‘life’’ but ‘‘lafe.’’
‘‘Who is he?’’ asked Laevsky.
‘‘He asked me not to give his name.’’
‘‘Tell him I’m busy. Tomorrow, if he likes . . .’’
‘‘Impossible!’’ Atchmianov became frightened. ‘‘He wishes to tell you something very important for you . . . very important! If you don’t go, there will be a disaster.’’
‘‘Strange . . .’’ murmured Laevsky, not understanding why Atchmianov was so agitated and what mysteries there could be in this boring, useless little town. ‘‘Strange,’’ he repeated, pondering. ‘‘However, let’s go. It makes no difference.’’
Atchmianov quickly went ahead, and he followed. They walked down the street, then into a lane.
‘‘How boring this is,’’ said Laevsky.
‘‘One moment, one moment . . . It’s close by.’’
Near the old ramparts they took a narrow lane between two fenced lots, then entered some big yard and made for a little house.
‘‘That’s Miuridov’s house, isn’t it?’’ asked Laevsky.
‘‘Yes.’’
‘‘But why we came through the back alleys, I don’t understand. We could have taken the street. It’s closer.’’
‘‘Never mind, never mind . . .’’
