The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov Part 15

THE accursed day when Anton Petrovich made the acquaintance of Berg existed only in theory, for his memory had not affixed to it a date label at the time, and now it was impossible to identify that day. Broadly speaking, it happened last winter around Christmas, 1926. Berg arose out of nonbeing, bowed in greeting, and settled down again-into an armchair instead of his previous nonbeing. It was at the Kurdyumovs', who lived on St. Mark Stra.s.se, way off in the sticks, in the Moabit section of Berlin, I believe. The Kurdyumovs remained the paupers they had become after the Revolution, while Anton Petrovich and Berg, although also expatriates, had since grown somewhat richer. Now, when a dozen similar ties of a smoky, luminous shade-say that of a sunset cloud-appeared in a haberdasher's window, together with a dozen handkerchiefs in exactly the same tints, Anton Petrovich would buy both the fashionable tie and fashionable handkerchief, and every morning, on his way to the bank, would have the pleasure of encountering the same tie and the same handkerchief, worn by two or three gentlemen who were also hurrying to their offices. At one time he had business relations with Berg; Berg was indispensable, would call up five times a day, began frequenting their house, and would crack endless jokes-G.o.d, how he loved to crack jokes. The first time he came, Tanya, Anton Petrovich's wife, found that he resembled an Englishman and was very amusing. "h.e.l.lo, Anton!" Berg would roar, swooping down on Anton's hand with outspread fingers (the way Russians do), and then shaking it vigorously. Berg was broad-shouldered, well-built, clean-shaven, and liked to compare himself to an athletic angel. He once showed Anton Petrovich a little old black notebook. The pages were all covered with crosses, exactly five hundred twenty-three in number. "Civil war in the Crimea-a souvenir," said Berg with a slight smile, and coolly added, "Of course, I counted only those Reds I killed outright." The fact that Berg was an ex-cavalry man and had fought under General Denikin aroused Anton Petrovich's envy, and he hated when Berg would tell, in front of Tanya, of reconnaissance forays and midnight attacks. Anton Petrovich himself was short-legged, rather plump, and wore a monocle, which, in its free time, when not screwed into his eye socket, dangled on a narrow black ribbon and, when Anton Petrovich sprawled in an easy chair, would gleam like a foolish eye on his belly. A boil excised two years before had left a scar on his left cheek. This scar, as well as his coa.r.s.e, cropped mustache and fat Russian nose, would twitch tensely when Anton Petrovich screwed the monocle home. "Stop making faces," Berg would say, "you won't find an uglier one."

In their gla.s.ses a light vapor floated over the tea; a half-squashed chocolate eclair on a plate released its creamy inside; Tanya, her bare elbows resting on the table and her chin leaning on her interlaced fingers, gazed upward at the drifting smoke of her cigarette, and Berg was trying to convince her that she must wear her hair short, that all women, from time immemorial, had done so, that the Venus de Milo had short hair, while Anton Petrovich heatedly and circ.u.mstantially objected, and Tanya only shrugged her shoulder, knocking the ash off her cigarette with a tap of her nail.

And then it all came to an end. One Wednesday at the end of July Anton Petrovich left for Ka.s.sel on business, and from there sent his wife a telegram that he would return on Friday. On Friday he found that he had to remain at least another week, and sent another telegram. On the following day, however, the deal fell through, and without bothering to wire a third time Anton Petrovich headed back to Berlin. He arrived about ten, tired and dissatisfied with his trip. From the street he saw that the bedroom windows of his flat were aglow, conveying the soothing news that his wife was at home. He went up to the fifth floor, with three twirls of the key unlocked the thrice-locked door, and entered. As he pa.s.sed through the front hall, he heard the steady noise of running water from the bathroom. Pink and moist, Anton Petrovich thought with fond antic.i.p.ation, and carried his bag on into the bedroom. In the bedroom, Berg was standing before the wardrobe mirror, putting on his tie.

Anton Petrovich mechanically lowered his little suitcase to the floor, without taking his eyes off Berg, who tilted up his impa.s.sive face, flipped back a bright length of tie, and pa.s.sed it through the knot. "Above all, don't get excited," said Berg, carefully tightening the knot. "Please don't get excited. Stay perfectly calm."

Must do something, Anton Petrovich thought, but what? He felt a tremor in his legs, an absence of legs-only that cold, aching tremor. Do something quick.... He started pulling a glove off one hand. The glove was new and fit snugly. Anton Petrovich kept jerking his head and muttering mechanically, "Go away immediately. This is dreadful. Go away...."

"I'm going, I'm going, Anton," said Berg, squaring his broad shoulders as he leisurely got into his jacket.

If I hit him, he'll hit me too, Anton Petrovich thought in a flash. He pulled off the glove with a final yank and threw it awkwardly at Berg. The glove slapped against the wall and dropped into the wash-stand pitcher.

"Good shot," said Berg.

He took his hat and cane, and headed past Anton Petrovich toward the door. "All the same, you'll have to let me out," he said. "The downstairs door is locked."

Scarcely aware of what he was doing, Anton Petrovich followed him out. As they started to go down the stairs, Berg, who was in front, suddenly began to laugh. "Sorry," he said without turning his head, "but this is awfully funny-being kicked out with such complications." At the next landing he chuckled again and accelerated his step. Anton Petrovich also quickened his pace. That dreadful rush was unseemly.... Berg was deliberately making him go down in leaps and bounds. What torture ... Third floor ... second ... When will these stairs end? Berg flew down the remaining steps and stood waiting for Anton Petrovich, lightly tapping the floor with his cane. Anton Petrovich was breathing heavily, and had trouble getting the dancing key into the trembling lock. At last it opened.

"Try not to hate me," said Berg from the sidewalk. "Put yourself in my place...."

Anton Petrovich slammed the door. From the very beginning he had had a ripening urge to slam some door or other. The noise made his ears ring. Only now, as he climbed the stairs, did he realize that his face was wet with tears. As he pa.s.sed through the front hall, he heard again the noise of running water. Hopefully waiting for the tepid to grow hot. But now above that noise he could also hear Tanya's voice. She was singing loudly in the bathroom.

With an odd sense of relief, Anton Petrovich returned to the bedroom. He now saw what he had not noticed before-that both beds were tumbled and that a pink nightgown lay on his wife's. Her new evening dress and a pair of silk stockings were laid out on the sofa: evidently, she was getting ready to go dancing with Berg. Anton Petrovich took his expensive fountain pen out of his breast pocket. "I cannot bear to see you. I cannot trust myself if I see you." He wrote standing up, bending awkwardly over the dressing table. His monocle was blurred by a large tear ... the letters swam.... "Please go away. I am leaving you some cash. I'll talk it over with Natasha tomorrow. Sleep at her house or at a hotel tonight-only please do not stay here." He finished writing and placed the paper against the mirror, in a spot where she would be sure to see it. Beside it he put a hundred-mark note. And, pa.s.sing through the front hall, he again heard his wife singing in the bathroom. She had a Gypsy kind of voice, a bewitching voice ... happiness, a summer night, a guitar ... she sang that night seated on a cushion in the middle of the floor, and slitted her smiling eyes as she sang.... He had just proposed to her ... yes, happiness, a summer night, a moth b.u.mping against the ceiling, "My soul I surrender to you, I love you with infinite pa.s.sion...." "How dreadful! How dreadful!" he kept repeating as he walked down the street. The night was very mild, with a swarm of stars. It did not matter which way he went. By now she had probably come out of the bathroom and found the note. Anton Petrovich winced as he remembered the glove. A brand-new glove afloat in a br.i.m.m.i.n.g pitcher. The vision of this brown wretched thing caused him to utter a cry that made a pa.s.serby start. He saw the dark shapes of huge poplars around a square and thought, Mityushin lives here someplace. Anton Petrovich called him up from a bar, which arose before him as in a dream and then receded into the distance like the taillight of a train. Mityushin let him in but he was drunk, and at first paid no attention to Anton Petrovich's livid face. A person unknown to Anton Petrovich sat in the small dim room, and a black-haired lady in a red dress lay on the couch with her back to the table, apparently asleep. Bottles gleamed on the table. Anton Petrovich had arrived in the middle of a birthday celebration, but he never understood whether it was being held for Mityushin, the fair sleeper, or the unknown man (who turned out to be a Russified German with the strange name of Gnushke). Mityushin, his rosy face beaming, introduced him to Gnushke and, indicating with a nod the generous back of the sleeping lady, remarked casually, "Adelaida Albertovna, I want you to meet a great friend of mine." The lady did not stir; Mityushin, however, did not show the least surprise, as if he had never expected her to wake up. All of this was a little bizarre and nightmarish-that empty vodka bottle with a rose stuck into its neck, that chessboard on which a higgledy-piggledy game was in progress, the sleeping lady, the drunken but quite peaceful Gnushke....

"Have a drink," said Mityushin, and then suddenly raised his eyebrows. "What's the matter with you, Anton Petrovich? You look very ill."

"Yes, by all means, have a drink," with idiotic earnestness said Gnushke, a very long-faced man in a very tall collar, who resembled a dachshund.

Anton Petrovich gulped down half a cup of vodka and sat down.

"Now tell us what's happened," said Mityushin. "Don't be embarra.s.sed in front of Henry-he is the most honest man on earth. My move, Henry, and I warn you, if after this you grab my bishop, I'll mate you in three moves. Well, out with it, Anton Petrovich."

"We'll see about that in a minute," said Gnushke, revealing a big starched cuff as he stretched out his arm. "You forgot about the p.a.w.n at h-five."

"H-five yourself," said Mityushin. "Anton Petrovich is going to tell us his story."

Anton Petrovich had some more vodka and the room went into a spin. The gliding chessboard seemed on the point of colliding with the bottles; the bottles, together with the table, set off toward the couch; the couch with mysterious Adelaida Albertovna headed for the window; and the window also started to move. This accursed motion was somehow connected with Berg, and had to be stopped-stopped at once, trampled upon, torn, destroyed....

"I want you to be my second," began Anton Petrovich, and was dimly aware that the phrase sounded oddly truncated but could not correct that flaw.

"Second what?" said Mityushin absently, glancing askance at the chessboard, over which Gnushke's hand hung, its fingers wriggling.

"No, you listen to me," Anton Petrovich exclaimed with anguish in his voice. "You just listen! Let us not drink any more. This is serious, very serious."

Mityushin fixed him with his shiny blue eyes. "The game is canceled, Henry," he said, without looking at Gnushke. "This sounds serious."

"I intend to fight a duel," whispered Anton Petrovich, trying by mere optical force to hold back the table that kept floating away. "I wish to kill a certain person. His name is Berg-you may have met him at my place. I prefer not to explain my reasons...."

"You can explain everything to your second," said Mityushin smugly.

"Excuse me for interfering," said Gnushke suddenly, and raised his index finger. "Remember, it has been said: 'Thou shalt not kill!' "

"The man's name is Berg," said Anton Petrovich. "I think you know him. And I need two seconds." The ambiguity could not be ignored.

"A duel," said Gnushke.

Mityushin nudged him with his elbow. "Don't interrupt, Henry."

"And that is all," Anton Petrovich concluded in a whisper and, lowering his eyes, feebly fingered the ribbon of his totally useless monocle.

Silence. The lady on the couch snored comfortably. A car pa.s.sed in the street, its horn blaring.

"I'm drunk, and Henry's drunk," muttered Mityushin, "but apparently something very serious has happened." He chewed on his knuckles and looked at Gnushke. "What do you think, Henry?" Gnushke sighed.

"Tomorrow you two will call on him," said Anton Petrovich. "Select the spot, and so on. He did not leave me his card. According to the rules he should have given me his card. I threw my glove at him."

"You are acting like a n.o.ble and courageous man," said Gnushke with growing animation. "By a strange coincidence, I am not unfamiliar with these matters. A cousin of mine was also killed in a duel."

Why "also"? Anton Petrovich wondered in anguish. Can this be a portent?

Mityushin took a swallow from his cup and said jauntily: "As a friend, I cannot refuse. We'll go see Mr. Berg in the morning."

"As far as the German laws are concerned," said Gnushke, "if you kill him, they'll put you in jail for several years; if, on the other hand, you are killed, they won't bother you."

"I have taken all that into consideration," Anton Petrovich said solemnly.

Then there appeared again that beautiful expensive implement, that shiny black pen with its delicate gold nib, which in normal times would glide like a wand of velvet across the paper; now, however, Anton Petrovich's hand shook, and the table heaved like the deck of a storm-tossed ship.... On a sheet of foolscap that Mityushin produced, Anton Petrovich wrote a cartel of defiance to Berg, three times calling him a scoundrel and concluding with the lame sentence: "One of us must perish."

Having done, he burst into tears, and Gnushke, clucking his tongue, wiped the poor fellow's face with a large red-checked handkerchief, while Mityushin kept pointing at the chessboard, repeating ponderously, "You finish him off like that king there-mate in three moves and no questions asked." Anton Petrovich sobbed, and tried to brush away Gnushke's friendly hands, repeating with childish intonations, "I loved her so much, so much!"

And a new sad day was dawning.

"So at nine you will be at his house," said Anton Petrovich, lurching out of his chair.

"At nine we'll be at his house," Gnushke replied like an echo.

"We'll get in five hours of sleep," said Mityushin.

Anton Petrovich smoothed his hat into shape (he had been sitting on it all the while), caught Mityushin's hand, held it for a moment, lifted it, and pressed it to his cheek.

"Come, come, you shouldn't," mumbled Mityushin and, as before, addressed the sleeping lady, "Our friend is leaving, Adelaida Albertovna."

This time she stirred, awakened with a start, and turned over heavily. Her face was full and creased by sleep, with slanting, excessively made-up eyes. "You fellows better stop drinking," she said calmly, and turned back toward the wall.

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.

Mityushin 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 Mityushin'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. Mityushin 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 washing and changing, and then sat in the cafe across the street, glancing every so often to see if Mityushin 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, Mityushin 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," Mityushin 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 Mityushin, 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 Mityushin, 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 Mityushin 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 Mityushin. "Even hotter than yesterday."

"Considerably hotter," said Gnushke.

With exaggerated thoroughness Mityushin began crushing 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....

Mityushin and Gnushke exchanged glances and got up.

"We shall call for you tomorrow at six-thirty a.m.," said Mityushin. "There is no point in leaving sooner. There isn't a d.a.m.n soul out there anyway."