The Duel by ANTON CHEKHOV Page A

dispersed in every which direction, and the only ones to remain were Kirilin, Achmianov and Nikodim Aleksandrich. Kerbalay had brought over chairs, spread a rug out on the ground and put out several bottles of wine. The police captain, Kirilin, a tall, stately man, who wore his greatcoat over his service jacket regardless of the weather, with a proud gait and a deep albeit hoarse voice, resembleda typical young provincial chief of police. His countenance was sad and sleepy, as though he had just been awoken against his wishes.
    “What did you bring us, you dolt?” he asked Kerbalay, slowly pronouncing each word. “I ordered you to bring Kvareli, and you, Tartar-face, what did you bring? Well? What?”
    “We have plenty of our own wine, Igor Alekseich,” Nikodim Aleksandrich noted timidly and politely.
    “What’s that? Well, I want my wine served here too. I’m participating in this picnic and I think it’s only proper that I contribute my rightful share. On-ly pro-per! Bring us ten bottles of Kvareli!”
    “Why so many?” Nikodim Aleksandrich was taken aback, knowing that Kirilin had no money.
    “Twenty bottles! Thirty!” cried Kirilin.
    “Forget it, let him,” whispered Achmianov to Nikodim Aleksandrich. “I’ll pay for it.”
    Nadezhda Fyodorovna was in a cheerful, mischievous mood. She wanted to hop around, laugh at the top of her lungs, yell, tease, play the coquette. In her cheap calico print dress with little blue eyelets, in little red shoes and in that very same straw hat, she perceived herself as being petite, simple, light and ethereal, like a butterfly. She ran across a weak little bridge and stared into the water for a minute so her head would start spinning, then uttered a little cry and ran off laughing to the opposite bank toward the shed where grain was dried. It seemed to her that all the men and even Kerbalay were admiring her. Then, in the fastapproaching darkness, the trees merged with the mountains, the horses with the carriages, and lights began to shimmer in the windows of the dukhan; she walked along the little path that wound through boulders and thorny bushes, she made her way up a mountain and sat down on a rock. Below her a campfire had already been lit. The deacon, his shirtsleeves rolled up, milled about near the fire, and his long black shadow formed a radius that circled around the fire. He was adding kindling and stirring the contents of the cauldron with a spoon tied to a long stick. Samoylenko, with a coppery-red face, plodded around near the fire, as he would in his own kitchen, and shouted ferociously:
    “Ladies and gentlemen, where is the salt? For heaven’s sake, have we forgotten it? Why has everyone settled in as though they were the lords of the manor while I alone toil?”
    Laevsky and Nikodim Aleksandrich sat next to one another on a fallen tree and stared at the fire lost in thought. Maria Konstantinovna, Katya and Kostya were removing a tea service and plates from a basket. Von Koren stood at the bank nearly at the water’s edge, his arms crossed and one leg lifted up on a rock, his thoughts on something. Red spots from the fire joined with the shadows, meandered along the earth near the darkened human forms, quivered upon the mountains, upon the trees, upon the bridge, upon the drying shed. On the opposite shore the precipitous, pitted little bank was fully illuminated, it glimmered and was reflected in the river, and the speeding turbulent river tore its reflection to shreds.
    The deacon went to get the fish that Kerbalay had beencleaning and washing on the shore, but halfway there he stopped and looked all around him.
    My lord, how good it is here!
he thought.
The people, the rocks, the fire, the twilight, that disfigured tree—that’s all there is, but how good it is!
    Strangers appeared on the opposite bank near the drying shed. Because of the fading light and the smoke of the campfire wafting to the opposite shore, it was not possible to make out all the