Anton Chekhov (II) – The Duel
Anton Chekhov (1860 – 1904) is a Russian playwright and author born in the port city of Taganrog, on the Sea of Azov, during the period of the Russian Imperial Empire. He is revered as one of the greatest short story writers of all time, and began his professional life as a doctor. A livelihood that served as a source of inspiration for much of his writing, he once wrote “medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress.” Chekhov’s is a style of literature that meditates upon the often subtle, yet paradoxical tensions of everyday life – upon questions of action and inaction, connection and estrangement, dreams, hopes, and disappointment, as just a few examples. The Black Sea and littoral space play a prominent role as setting, metaphor, and motif across his work. For many, Chekhov’s is a name deeply intertwined with ideas of a Black Sea literature. Among his many works, "The Duel" is a fictional novella that enjoyed great success as was re-issued nine times during the 1890's. The character Von Koren's philosophy was built around Chekhov's conversations with zoologist and writer Vladimir Wagner on "the right of the strong one."
Excerpt:
Through the open doors looking out to the sea they could see some one swimming a hundred paces from their bathing-place.
“Mother, it’s our Kostya,” said Katya.
“Ach, ach!” Marya Konstantinovna cackled in her dismay. “Ach, Kostya!” she shouted, “Come back! Kostya, come back!”
Kostya, a boy of fourteen, to show off his prowess before his mother and sister, dived and swam farther, but began to be exhausted and hurried back, and from his strained and serious face it could be seen that he could not trust his own strength.
“The trouble one has with these boys, my dear!” said Marya Konstantinovna, growing calmer. “Before you can turn round, he will break his neck. Ah, my dear, how sweet it is, and yet at the same time how difficult, to be a mother! One’s afraid of everything.”
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna put on her straw hat and dashed out into the open sea. She swam some thirty feet and then turned on her back. She could see the sea to the horizon, the steamers, the people on the sea-front, the town; and all this, together with the sultry heat and the soft, transparent waves, excited her and whispered that she must live, live. . . . A sailing-boat darted by her rapidly and vigorously, cleaving the waves and the air; the man sitting at the helm looked at her, and she liked being looked at. . . .
After bathing, the ladies dressed and went away together.
“I have fever every alternate day, and yet I don’t get thin,” said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, licking her lips, which were salt from the bathe, and responding with a smile to the bows of her acquaintances. “I’ve always been plump, and now I believe I’m plumper than ever.”
“That, my dear, is constitutional. If, like me, one has no constitutional tendency to stoutness, no diet is of any use. . . . But you’ve wetted your hat, my dear.”
“It doesn’t matter; it will dry.”
Nadyezhda Fyodorovna saw again the men in white who were walking on the sea-front and talking French; and again she felt a sudden thrill of joy, and had a vague memory of some big hall in which she had once danced, or of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. And something at the bottom of her soul dimly and obscurely whispered to her that she was a pretty, common, miserable, worthless woman. . . .
Explanation:
Russian prose writer and playwright Anton Chekhov’s novella, The Duel (1891), in this second excerpt, presents the sea as a location of relative solitude, freedom, and introspection. By abandoning those around her and swimming out into the water's depths, she appears confronted by the essence of being itself: "she swam some thirty feet and then turned on her back. She could see the sea to the horizon, the steamers, the people on the sea-front, the town; and all this, together with the sultry heat and the soft, transparent waves, excited her and whispered that she must live, live…” At the littoral shore, Nadezhda Fyodorovna finds herself also reminded of a life left behind – confronted both by memories of a distant youth, but also feelings of self-hatred and remorse.
Citation: Chekhov, Anton. 1891, The Duel. Trans. by Constance Garnett