The Duel by Aleksandr Kuprin (notion reading list .TXT) 📕
Description
At the young age of twenty-two Sublieutenant Romashov has become an officer, but he’s already disillusioned with army life in the middle of nowhere, and the brutish and blood-thirsty natures of his commanders and peers. The only thing keeping him from outright depression is his growing infatuation with the wife of a fellow officer; an infatuation which, half-returned, leads inevitably towards the titular subject.
The Duel is regarded as the highlight of Kuprin’s bibliography and was praised by famous Russian authors of the period including Chekhov, Gorky, Bunin and Tolstoy. It was published in 1905 in the middle of the failure of the Russian army in the Russo-Japanese war and widespread social unrest. Kuprin himself had military experience as a lieutenant, which shines through in the novel’s vivid depictions of the minutiae of officer life. The Duel was later adapted for both film and television in Russia. This edition is based on the 1916 translation.
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- Author: Aleksandr Kuprin
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Nasanski again went up to the little cupboard, poured out and swallowed a “nip,” after which he shut the cupboard door with much ceremony and an expression on his face as if he had fulfilled a religious duty. Romashov walked listlessly up from the window to the cupboard, the life-giving contents of which he sampled with a gloomy and blasé air. This done, he returned to his seat on the window-bench.
“What were you thinking about just before I came, Vasili Nilich?” asked Romashov, as he made himself as comfortable as possible.
Nasanski, however, did not hear his question. “How sweet it is to dream of women!” he exclaimed with a grand and eloquent gesture. “But away with all unclean thoughts! And why? Ah! because no one has any right, even in imagination, to make a human being a culprit in what is low, sinful, and impure. How often I think of chaste, tender, loving women, of their bright tears and gracious smiles; of young, devoted, self-sacrificing mothers, of all those who have faced death for love; of proud, bewitching maidens with souls as pure as snow, knowing all, yet afraid of nothing. But such women do not exist—yet I am wrong, Romashov; such women do exist although neither you nor I have seen them. This may possibly be vouchsafed you; but to me—never!”
He was now standing right in front of Romashov and staring him straight in the face, but by the far-off expression in his eyes, by the enigmatical smile that played on his lips, anyone could observe that he did not even see to whom he was talking. Never had Nasanski’s countenance—even in his better and sober moments—seemed to Romashov so attractive and interesting as at this instant. His golden hair fell in luxuriant curls around his pure and lofty brow; his blond, closely clipped beard was curled in light waves, and his strong, handsome head on his bare, classically shaped neck reminded one of the sages and heroes of Greece, whose busts Romashov had seen in engravings and at museums. Nasanski’s bright, clever blue eyes glistened with moisture, and his well-formed features were rendered still more engaging by the fresh colour of his complexion, although a keen eye could not, I daresay, avoid noticing a certain flabbiness—the infallible mark of every person addicted to drink.
“Love—what an abyss of mystery is contained in the word, and what bliss lies hidden in its tortures!” Nasanski went on to say in an enraptured voice. In his violent excitement he caught hold of his hair with both hands, and took two hasty strides towards the other end of the room, but suddenly stopped, and turned round sharply to Romashov with a merry laugh. The latter observed him with great interest, but likewise not without a certain uneasiness.
“Just this moment I remember an amusing story” (Nasanski now dropped into his usual good-tempered tone), “but, ugh! how my wits go woolgathering—now here, now there. Once upon a time I sat waiting for the train at Ryasan, and wait I did—I suppose half a day, for it was right in the middle of the spring floods, and the train had met with real obstacles. Well, you must know, I built myself a little nest in the waiting-room. Behind the counter stood a girl of eighteen—not pretty, being pockmarked, but brisk and pleasant. She had black eyes and a charming smile. In fact, she was a very nice girl. We were three, all told, at the station: she, I, and a little telegraphist with white eyebrows and eyelashes. Ah! excuse me, there was another person there—the girl’s father, a fat, red-faced, grey-haired brute, who put me in mind of a rough old mastiff. But this attractive figure kept itself, as a rule, behind the scenes. Only rarely and for a few minutes did he put in an appearance behind the counter, to yawn, scratch himself under his waistcoat, and immediately afterwards disappear for a longish time. He spent his life in bed, and his eyes were glued together by eternally sleeping. The little telegraphist paid frequent and regular visits to the waiting-room, laid his elbows on the counter, but was, for the most part, as mute as the grave. She, too, was silent and looked dreamily out of the window at the floods. All of a sudden our youngster began humming—
“ ‘Love—love.
What is love?
Something celestial
That drives us wild.’
“After this, again silence. A pause of five minutes, she begins, in her turn—
“ ‘Love—love.
What is love?’ etc.
“Both the sentimental words as well as the melody were taken from some musty old operetta that had perhaps been performed in the town, and had become a pleasant recollection to both the young people. Then again the same wistful song and significant silence. At last she steals softly a couple of paces to the window, all the while keeping one hand on the counter. Our Celadon quietly lays hold of the delicate fingers, one by one, and with visible trepidation gazes at them in profound devotion. And again the motif of that hackneyed operetta is heard from his lips. It was spring with all its yearning. Then all this cloying ‘love’ only awoke in me nausea and disgust, but, since then, I have often thought with deep emotion of the vast amount of happiness this innocent lovemaking could bestow, and how it was most certainly the only ray of light in the dreary lives of these two human beings—lives, very likely, even more empty and barren than
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