446 447
And he began passing in review the methods of proceeding of men
who had been in the same position that he was in.
“Daryalov fought a duel....”
The duel had particularly fascinated the thoughts of Alexey
Alexandrovitch in his youth, just because he was physically a coward,
and was himself well aware of the fact. Alexey Alexandrovitch could
not without horror contemplate the idea of a pistol aimed at himself,
and never made use of any weapon in his life. This horror had in his
youth set him pondering on dueling, and picturing himself in a position
in which he would have to expose his life to danger. Having attained
success and an established position in the world, he had long ago
forgotten this feeling; but the habitual bent of feeling reasserted itself,
and dread of his own cowardice proved even now so strong that Alexey
Alexandrovitch spent a long while thinking over the question of duel-
ing in all its aspects, and hugging the idea of a duel, though he was fully
aware beforehand that he would never under any circumstances fight
one.
“There’s no doubt our society is still so barbarous (it’s not the same
in England) that very many”—and among these were those whose
opinion Alexey Alexandrovitch particularly valued—”look favorably
on the duel; but what result is attained by it? Suppose I call him out,”
Alexey Alexandrovitch went on to himself, and vividly picturing the
night he would spend after the challenge, and the pistol aimed at him,
he shuddered, and knew that he never would do it—”suppose I call
him out. Suppose I am taught,” he went on musing, “to shoot; I press
the trigger,” he said to himself, closing his eyes, “and it turns out I have
killed him,” Alexey Alexandrovitch said to himself, and he shook his
head as though to dispel such silly ideas. “What sense is there in
murdering a man in order to define one’s relation to a guilty wife and
son? I should still just as much have to decide what I ought to do with
her. But what is more probable and what would doubtless occur—I
should be killed or wounded. I, the innocent person, should be the
victim—killed or wounded. It’s even more senseless. But apart from
that, a challenge to fight would be an act hardly honest on my side.
Don’t I know perfectly well that my friends would never allow me to
fight a duel—would never allow the life of a statesman, needed by
Russia, to be exposed to danger? Knowing perfectly well beforehand
that the matter would never come to real danger, it would amount to
my simply trying to gain a certain sham reputation by such a challenge.
That would be dishonest, that would be false, that would be deceiving
myself and others. A duel is quite irrational, and no one expects it of
me. My aim is simply to safeguard my reputation, which is essential for
the uninterrupted pursuit of my public duties.” Official duties, which
had always been of great consequence in Alexey Alexandrovitch’s
eyes, seemed of special importance to his mind at this moment. Con-
sidering and rejecting the duel, Alexey Alexandrovitch turned to di-
vorce—another solution selected by several of the husbands he re-
membered. Passing in mental review all the instances he knew of
divorces (there were plenty of them in the very highest society with
which he was very familiar), Alexey Alexandrovitch could not find a
single example in which the object of divorce was that which he had in
view. In all these instances the husband had practically ceded or sold
his unfaithful wife, and the very party which, being in fault, had not the
right to contract a fresh marriage, had formed counterfeit, pseudo-
matrimonial ties with a self-styled husband. In his own case, Alexey
Alexandrovitch saw that a legal divorce, that is to say, one in which only
the guilty wife would be repudiated, was impossible of attainment. He
saw that the complex conditions of the life they led made the coarse