The Duel - Aleksandr Kuprin (best summer reads of all time TXT) 📗

of youth, they fell into each other’s arms in the open street.

“Ought we not to celebrate this remarkable event by just a peep into the mess-room?” proposed Viätkin. “ ‘Come and take a nip in the deepest loneliness,’ as our noble friend Artschakovski is fond of saying.”

“Impossible, Pavel Pavlich, I am in a hurry. But what’s up with you? You seem today as if you meant kicking over the traces?”

“Yes, rather, that’s quite on the cards,” Viätkin stuck his chin out significantly. “Today I have brought off a ‘combination’ so ingenious that it would make our Finance Minister green with envy.”

“Really?”

Viätkin’s “combination” appeared simple enough, but testified, however, to a certain ingenuity. The chief role in the affair was played by Khaim, the regimental tailor, who took from Pavel Pavlich a receipt for a uniform supposed to have been delivered, but, instead of that, handed over to Viätkin thirty roubles in cash.

“The best of it all is,” exclaimed Viätkin, “that both Khaim and I are equally satisfied with the deal. The Jew gave me thirty roubles and became entitled through my receipt to draw forty-five from the clothing department’s treasury. I am at last once more in a position to chuck away a few coppers at mess. A masterstroke, eh?”

“Viätkin, you’re a great man, and another time I’ll bear in mind your ‘patent.’ But goodbye for the present. I hope you will have good luck at cards.” They separated, but, after a minute, Viätkin called out to his comrade again. Romashov stopped and turned round.

“Have you been to the menagerie?” asked Viätkin, with a cunning wink, making a gesture in the direction of Rafalski’s house.

Romashov replied by a nod, and said in a tone of conviction, “Brehm is a downright good fellow⁠—the best of the lot of us.”

“You’re right,” agreed Viätkin, “bar that frightful smell.”

XII

When Romashov reached Nikoläiev’s house about five o’clock, he noticed with surprise that his happy humour of the morning and confidence that the day would be a success had given place to an inexplicable, painful nervousness. He felt assured that this nervousness had not come over him all at once, but had begun much earlier in the day, though he did not know when. It was likewise clear to him that this feeling of nervousness had gradually and imperceptibly crept over him. What did it mean? But such incidents were not new to him; even from his early childhood he had experienced them, and he knew, too, that he would not regain his mental balance until he had discovered the cause of the disturbance. He remembered, for instance, how he had worried himself for a whole day, and that it was not till evening that he called to mind that, in the forenoon, when passing a railway crossing, he had been startled and alarmed by a train rushing past, and this had disturbed his balance. Directly, however, the cause was discovered he at once became happy and lighthearted. The question now was to review in inverted order the events and experiences of the day. Svidierski’s millinery shop and its perfumes; the hire and payment of Leib, the best cabdriver in the town; the visit to the post-office to set his watch correctly; the lovely morning; Stepan? No, impossible. In Romashov’s pocket lay a rouble laid by for him. But what could it be then?

In the street, opposite to the Nikoläievs’, stood three two-horse carriages, and two soldiers held by the reins a couple of saddle-horses⁠—the one, Olisár’s, a dark-brown old gelding, newly purchased from a cavalry officer; the other Biek-Agamalov’s chestnut mare, with fierce bright eyes.

“I know! The letter!” flashed through Romashov’s brain. That strange expression “in spite of that”⁠—what could it mean? That Nikoläiev was angry or jealous? Perhaps mischief had been made. Nikoläiev’s manner had certainly been rather cold lately.

“Drive on!” he shouted to the driver.

At that moment, though he had neither seen nor heard anything, he knew that the door of the house had opened, he knew it by the sweet and stormy beating of his heart.

“Romochka! where are you going?” he heard Alexandra Petrovna’s clear, happy voice behind him.

Romashov, by a strong pull, drew the driver, who was sitting opposite him, back by the girdle, and jumped out of the fly. Shurochka stood in the open door as if she were framed in a dark room. She wore a smooth white dress with red flowers in the sash. The same sort of red flowers were twined in her hair. How wonderful! Romashov felt instantly and infallibly that this was she, but, nevertheless, did not recognize her. To him it was a new revelation, radiant and in festal array.

While Romashov was mumbling his felicitations, Shurochka forced him, without letting go his hands, softly and with gentle violence, to enter the gloomy hall with her. At the same time she uttered half-aloud, in a hurried and nervous tone⁠—

“Thanks, Romochka, for coming. Ah, how much I was afraid that you would plead some excuse! But remember now, today you are to be jolly and amiable. Don’t do anything which will attract attention. Now, how absurd you are! Directly anyone touches you, you shrivel up like a sensitive-plant.”

“Alexandra Petrovna, your letter has upset me. There is an expression you make use of.⁠ ⁠…”

“My dear boy! what nonsense!” she grasped both his hands and pressed them hard, gazing into the depths of his eyes. In that glance of hers there was something which Romashov had never seen before⁠—a caressing tenderness, an intensity, and something besides, which he could not interpret. In the mysterious depths of her dark pupils fixed so long and earnestly on him he read a strange, elusive significance, a message uttered in the mysterious language of the soul.

“Please⁠—don’t let us talk of this today! No doubt you will be pleased to hear that I have been watching for you. I know what a coward you are, you see. Don’t you dare to look at me like that, now!”

She laughed in