Part 15 (2/2)
At the corner of the street Anton Petrovich found a sleepy taxi, which whisked him with ghostly speed through the wastes of the blue-gray city and fell asleep again in front of his house. In the front hall he met Elspeth the maid, who opened her mouth and looked at him with unkind eyes, as if about to say something; but she thought better of it, and shuffled off down the corridor in her carpet slippers.
”Wait,” said Anton Petrovich. ”Is my wife gone?”
”It's shameful,” the maid said with great emphasis. ”This is a madhouse. Lug trunks in the middle of the night, turn everything upside down....”
”I asked if my wife was gone,” Anton Petrovich shouted in a high-pitched voice.
”She is,” glumly answered Elspeth.
Anton Petrovich went on into the parlor. He decided to sleep there. The bedroom, of course, was out of the question. He turned on the light, lay down on the sofa, and covered himself with his overcoat. For some reason his left wrist felt uncomfortable. Oh, of course-my watch. He took it off and wound it, thinking at the same time, Extraordinary, how this man retains his composure-does not even forget to wind his watch. And, since he was still drunk, enormous, rhythmic waves immediately began rocking him, up and down, up and down, and he began to feel very sick. He sat up ... the big copper ashtray ... quick.... His insides gave such a heave that a pain shot through his groin ... and it all missed the ashtray. He fell asleep right away. One foot in its black shoe and gray spat dangled from the couch, and the light (which he had quite forgotten to turn off) lent a pale gloss to his sweaty forehead.
2.
Mityus.h.i.+n was a brawler and a drunkard. He could go and do all kinds of things at the least provocation. A real daredevil. One also recalls having heard about a certain friend of his who, to spite the post office, used to throw lighted matches into mailboxes. He was nicknamed the Gnut. Quite possibly it was Gnushke. Actually, all Anton Petrovich had intended to do was to spend the night at Mityus.h.i.+n's place. Then, suddenly, for no reason at all that talk about duels had started.... Oh, of course Berg must be killed; only the matter ought to have been carefully thought out first, and, if it had come to choosing seconds, they should in any case have been gentlemen. As it was, the whole thing had taken on an absurd, improper turn. Everything had been absurd and improper-beginning with the glove and ending with the ashtray. But now, of course, there was nothing to be done about it-he would have to drain this cup....
He felt under the couch, where his watch had landed. Eleven. Mityus.h.i.+n and Gnushke have already been at Berg's. Suddenly a pleasant thought darted among the others, pushed them apart, and disappeared. What was it? Oh, of course! They had been drunk yesterday, and he had been drunk too. They must have overslept, then come to their senses and thought that he had been babbling nonsense; but the pleasant thought flashed past and vanished. It made no difference-the thing had been started and he would have to repeat to them what he had said yesterday. Still, it was odd that they had not shown up yet. A duel. What an impressive word, ”duel”! I am having a duel. Hostile meeting. Single combat. Duel. ”Duel” sounds best. He got up, and noticed that his trousers were terribly wrinkled. The ashtray had been removed. Elspeth must have come in while he was sleeping. How embarra.s.sing. Must go see how things look in the bedroom. Forget his wife. She did not exist any more. Never had existed. All of that was gone. Anton Petrovich took a deep breath and opened the bedroom door. He found the maid there stuffing a crumpled newspaper into the wastebasket.
”Bring me some coffee, please,” he said, and went to the dressing table. There was an envelope on it. His name; Tanya's hand. Beside it, in disorder, lay his hairbrush, his comb, his shaving brush, and an ugly, stiff glove. Anton Petrovich opened the envelope. The hundred marks and nothing else. He turned it this way and that, not knowing what to do with it.
”Elspeth....”
The maid approached, glancing at him suspiciously.
”Here, take it. You were put to so much inconvenience last night, and then those other unpleasant things.... Go on, take it.”
”One hundred marks?” the maid asked in a whisper, and then suddenly blushed crimson. Heaven only knows what rushed through her head, but she banged the wastebasket down on the floor and shouted, ”No! You can't bribe me, I'm an honest woman. Just you wait, I'll tell everybody you wanted to bribe me. No! This is a madhouse....” And she went out, slamming the door.
”What's wrong with her? Good Lord, what's wrong with her?” muttered Anton Petrovich in confusion, and, stepping rapidly to the door, shrieked after the maid, ”Get out this minute, get out of this house!”
”That's the third person I've thrown out,” he thought, his whole body trembling. ”And now there is no one to bring me my coffee.”
He spent a long time was.h.i.+ng and changing, and then sat in the cafe across the street, glancing every so often to see if Mityus.h.i.+n and Gnushke were not coming. He had lots of business to attend to in town, but he could not be bothered with business. Duel. A glamorous word.
In the afternoon Natasha, Tanya's sister, appeared. She was so upset that she could barely speak. Anton Petrovich paced back and forth, giving little pats to the furniture. Tanya had arrived at her sister's flat in the middle of the night, in a terrible state, a state you simply could not imagine. Anton Petrovich suddenly found it strange to be saying ”ty” (thou) to Natasha. After all, he was no longer married to her sister.
”I shall give her a certain sum every month under certain conditions,” he said, trying to keep a rising hysterical note out of his voice.
”Money isn't the point,” answered Natasha, sitting in front of him and swinging her glossily stockinged leg. ”The point is that this is an absolutely awful mess.”
”Thanks for coming,” said Anton Petrovich, ”we'll have another chat sometime, only right now I'm very busy.” As he saw her to the door, he remarked casually (or at least he hoped it sounded casual), ”I'm fighting a duel with him.” Natasha's lips quivered; she quickly kissed him on the cheek and went out. How strange that she did not Start imploring him not to fight. By all rights she ought to have implored him not to fight. In our time n.o.body fights duels. She is wearing the same perfume as ... As who? No, no, he had never been married.
A little later still, at about seven, Mityus.h.i.+n and Gnushke arrived. They looked grim. Gnushke bowed with reserve and handed Anton Petrovich a sealed business envelope. He opened it. It began: ”I have received your extremely stupid and extremely rude message....” Anton Petrovich's monocle fell out, he reinserted it. ”I feel very sorry for you, but since you have adopted this att.i.tude, I have no choice but to accept your challenge. Your seconds are pretty awful. Berg.”
Anton Petrovich's throat went unpleasantly dry, and there was again that ridiculous quaking in his legs.
”Sit down, sit down,” he said, and himself sat down first. Gnushke sank back into an armchair, caught himself, and sat up on its edge.
”He's a highly insolent character,” Mityus.h.i.+n said with feeling. ”Imagine-he kept laughing all the while, so that I nearly punched him in the teeth.”
Gnushke cleared his throat and said, ”There is only one thing I can advise you to do: take careful aim, because he is also going to take careful aim.”
Before Anton Petrovich's eyes flashed a notebook page covered with Xs: diagram of a cemetery.
”He is a dangerous fellow,” said Gnushke, leaning back in his armchair, sinking again, and again wriggling out.
”Who's going to make the report, Henry, you or I?” asked Mityus.h.i.+n, chewing on a cigarette as he jerked at his lighter with his thumb.
”You'd better do it,” said Gnushke.
”We've had a very busy day,” began Mityus.h.i.+n, goggling his baby-blue eyes at Anton Petrovich. ”At exactly eight-thirty Henry, who was still as tight as a drum, and I ...”
”I protest,” said Gnushke.
”... went to call on Mr. Berg. He was sipping his coffee. Right off we handed him your little note. Which he read. And what did he do, Henry? Yes, he burst out laughing. We waited for him to finish laughing, and Henry asked what his plans were.”
”No, not his plans, but how he intended to react,” Gnushke corrected.
”... to react. To this, Mr. Berg replied that he agreed to fight and that he chose pistols. We have settled all the conditions: the combatants will be placed facing each other at twenty paces. Firing will be regulated by a word of command. If n.o.body is dead after the first exchange, the duel may go on. And on. What else was there, Henry?”
”If it is impossible to procure real dueling pistols, then Browning automatics will be used,” said Gnushke.
”Browning automatics. Having established this much, we asked Mr. Berg how to get in touch with his seconds. He went out to telephone. Then he wrote the letter you have before you. Incidentally, he kept joking all the time. The next thing we did was to go to a cafe to meet his two chums. I bought Gnushke a carnation for his b.u.t.tonhole. It was by this carnation that they recognized us. They introduced themselves, and, well, to put it in a nutsh.e.l.l, everything is in order. Their names are Marx and Engels.”
”That's not quite exact,” interjected Gnushke. ”They are Markov and Colonel Arkhangelski.”
”No matter,” said Mityus.h.i.+n and went on. ”Here begins the epic part. We went out of town with these chaps to look for a suitable spot. You know Weissdorf, just beyond Wannsee. That's it. We took a walk through the woods there and found a glade, where, it turned out, these chaps had had a little picnic with their girls the other day. The glade is small, and all around there is nothing but woods. In short, the ideal spot-although, of course, you don't get the grand mountain decor as in Lermontov's fatal affair. See the state of my boots-all white with dust.”
”Mine too,” said Gnushke. ”I must say that trip was quite a strenuous one.”
There followed a pause.
”It's hot today,” said Mityus.h.i.+n. ”Even hotter than yesterday.”
”Considerably hotter,” said Gnushke.
With exaggerated thoroughness Mityus.h.i.+n began crus.h.i.+ng his cigarette in the ashtray. Silence. Anton Petrovich's heart was beating in his throat. He tried to swallow it, but it started pounding even harder. When would the duel take place? Tomorrow? Why didn't they tell him? Maybe the day after tomorrow? It would be better the day after tomorrow....
Mityus.h.i.+n and Gnushke exchanged glances and got up.
”We shall call for you tomorrow at six-thirty a.m.,” said Mityus.h.i.+n. ”There is no point in leaving sooner. There isn't a d.a.m.n soul out there anyway.”
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