Владимир Короткевич - King Stach's Wild Hunt

Without uttering a word, Dubatoŭk slapped him in the face.

“Now you will first fight me with a sabre, for he only took hold of you by the chest,” he hissed so loudly that many started. “I shall do what has to be done for my guest to leave here safe and sound.”

“You're mistaken,” Varona retorted calmly. “He who first offended is first in line. And then I'll fight with you, kill me if you will.”

“Aleś,” Dubatoŭk almost begged him, “Don't bring shame on my house.”

“He shall fight with me,” Varona said firmly.

“Oh well, then,” our host unexpectedly agreed. “It does not matter, Mr, Biełarecki. Be courageous. This pig is so drunk that he can't hold a pistol. I think I'll stand beside you, and that will be the safest place.”

“Don't worry,” I said, placing my hand on his shoulder. “It's unnecessary. I'm not afraid. You be brave, too.”

Varona stared at me with his deadly black eyes.

“I haven't yet finished. We shan't shoot in the garden, for otherwise this dandy will escape. And not tomorrow, for otherwise he will leave. We shall shoot here and now, in the empty room near the shed. And three bullets each. In the dark.”

Dubatoŭk made a protesting gesture, but a reckless cold fury had already crept into my heart. It was all the same to me now, I hated this man, forgot Janoŭskaja, my work, even myself.

“I submit to your will,” I answered caustically. “But won't you make use of the darkness to run away from me? However, as you like.”

“You lion cub!” I heard Dubatoŭk's broken voice.

I glanced at him and was shocked. It was pitiful to look at the old man. His face was distorted with fear, his eyes expressed an inhuman fear and shame, such shame that death would be better. He was almost in tears. He did not even look at me, he just turned about and waved his hand.

The shed was attached to the house. It was an enormous room with grey moss in the grooves of walls. Spiders' webs resembling an entangled delivery of linen, hung down from the straw roof and shook at our steps. Two young gentlemen carried candles and accompanied us into a room near the shed, a room entirely empty, with grey, wet plastering and without any windows. It smelled of mice and of abominable desolation.

To be quite honest, I was afraid, very much afraid. My state could be compared with that of a bull in the slaughter-house or of a man in the dentist's chair. It was nasty and vile, but impossible to run away.

“Well, what'll happen if he shoots me in the stomach? Oh! That'll be awful! If I could only hide somewhere!”

I don't know why, but I was terribly afraid of being wounded in the stomach. And after I had eaten so well!

I was so depressed and disgusted that I could hardly keep from bellowing, but I took myself in hand in time and glanced at Varona. He was standing with his seconds against the opposite wall, holding his left hand in the pocket of his black dress-coat, and in his right hand, held downward, was the gun for the duel. Two other guns were put in his pockets. His dry yellow face expressed disgust, but was calm. I don't know whether I could have said the same of myself.

My two seconds (one of them was Dubatoŭk) gave me, too, a pistol, and pushed two others into my pockets — I noticed nothing. I was looking only at the face of the man I had to kill, for otherwise he would kill me. I looked at him with an inexplicable avidity, as if wishing to comprehend why he wanted to kill me, why he hated me.

“And why should I kill him?” I thought, as if only I were holding a pistol. “No, I must not kill him. But that is not the point. The point is that human neck, such a thin and very weak neck, which it is so easy to wring.” I also had no wish to die and therefore decided that Varona should shoot three times and that should be the end of the duel.

The seconds left, leaving us alone in the room and closed the door. We found ourselves in pitch darkness. Soon the voice of one of Va-rona's seconds was heard:

“Begin!”

With my left foot I made two “steps” to the side, and then carefully put my foot back into its former place. To my surprise, all my excitement had passed, I acted as if automatically,

but so wisely and quickly as I could never have done had my brain been controlling my actions. Not with my hearing, but rather with my skin, did I feel Varona's presence in the room, there at the other wall.

We kept silent. Now all depended on our self-control.

A flash lit up the room. Varona's nerves had failed him. The bullet whizzed past somewhere to the left of me and rattled against the wall. I could have fired at this very moment, for during the flash I saw where Varona was. But I did not shoot. I only felt the place where the bullet had struck. I don't know why I did that. And I remained standing in the very same place.

Varona, evidently, could not even have supposed that I'd twice act in the same way. I could hear his excited hoarse breathing.

Varona's second shot resounded. And again I did not shoot. However, I no longer had the will-power to stand motionless, all the more so because I heard Varona beginning to steal along the wall in my direction.

My nerves gave way, I also began to move carefully. The darkness looked at me with the barrels of a thousand pistols. There might be a barrel at any step, I could stumble on it with my belly, all the more so that I had lost the whereabouts of my enemy and couldn't say where the door was and where the wall.

I stood still and listened. At this moment something forced me to throw myself down sidewards on the floor.

A shot rang right over my head, it even seemed that the hair on my head had been moved by it.

But I still had three bullets. For a moment a wild feeling of gladness took hold of me, but I remembered the fragile human neck and lowered my pistol.

“What's going on there with you?” a voice sounded behind the door. “Only one of you fired. Has anyone been killed, or not? Fire quickly, stop messing about.”

And then I raised my hand with the pistol, moved it away from the place where Varona had been at the time of the third shot and pressed the trigger. I had to fire at least once, I had to use up at least one bullet. In answer, entirely unexpectedly, a faint groan was heard and the sound of a body falling.

“Quick, over here!” I shouted. “Quick! To my aid! It seems I've killed him!”

A blinding yellow stream of light fell on the floor. When people came into the room, I saw Varona lying stretched out motionless on the floor, his face turned upward. I ran up to him, raised his head. My hands touched something warm and sticky. Varona's face became even yellower.

“Varona! Varona! Wake up! Wake up!”

Dubatoŭk, gloomy and severe, came floating from somewhere, as if from out of a fog. He began fussing over the body lying there, then looked into my eyes and burst out laughing. It seemed to me I had gone mad. I got up and, almost unconscious, took out the second gun from my pocket. The thought crossed my mind that it was very simple to put it at my temple and...

“No more! I can't take any more!”

“Well, but why? What's wrong, young man?” I heard Dubatoŭk's voice. “It wasn't you who insulted him. He wanted to bring disgrace on both you and me. You have two more shots yet. Just look how upset you are! It's all because you're not used to it, because your hands are clean, because you have a conscientious heart. Well, well... but you haven't killed him, not at all. He's been deafened, that's all, like a bull at the slaughter. Look how cleverly you've done him. Shot off a piece of his ear and also ripped off a piece of the skin on his head. No matter, a week or so in bed and he'll be better.”

“I don't need your two shots! I don't want them!” I screamed like a baby, and almost stamped my feet. “I give them to him as a gift!”