A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail IUr'evich Lermontov [75]
“We are ready,” the captain answered.
“Take your positions, gentlemen! . . . Doctor, measure six paces, if you please.”
“Take your positions!” repeated Ivan Ignatievitch in a squeaky voice.
“Allow me!” I said, “. . . one more condition. Since we are fighting to the death, then we are obliged to do everything possible to make sure that this remains secret and that our seconds aren’t held responsible. Do you all agree?”
“Absolutely agreed.”
“So, this is what I have devised. Do you see, at the top of that sheer rock-face on the right, there is a narrow platform? From there to the bottom would be about thirty sazhens, if not more. Below, there are sharp rocks. Each of us will stand at the edge of the platform—this way, even a light wound will be fatal. This should complement your wishes, since you yourselves set six paces. Whoever is wounded will fly to the bottom without fail and will smash into smithereens. The doctor will extract the bullet, and then this sudden death can be easily explained by an unfortunate leap. We will cast lots to decide who shoots first. I inform you of my inference that I won’t otherwise fight.”
“As you please!” said the dragoon captain, having looked over at Grushnitsky expressively, who himself nodded his head as a sign of agreement. His face was changing by the minute. I had put him in a difficult situation. Shooting under the usual conditions, he could have aimed at my leg and lightly wounded me, and satisfied his revenge in this way without burdening his conscience too much. But now, he had to shoot at the air, or commit murder, or, finally, abandon his vile scheme and be subjected to an equal danger to mine. At that moment, I wouldn’t have wished to be in his place. He led the captain aside and started to talk to him about something with great heat. I saw how his lips were turning blue and trembling. But the captain turned away from him with a contemptuous smile. “You are a fool!” he said to Grushnitsky rather loudly. “You don’t understand anything! Let us be off gentlemen!”
The narrow path led between bushes on the slope; the loose steps of this natural staircase were made up of debris from the rock face; hanging on to the shrubs, we started to clamber up. Grushnitsky walked at the front, his seconds behind him, and then the doctor and me.
“You surprise me,” said the doctor, taking me firmly by the hand. “Let me take your pulse! . . . Oho! A fever! . . . But nothing is evident from the face . . . only your eyes are shining more brightly than usual.”
Suddenly, small rocks started noisily rolling down toward our feet. What was this? The branch that Grushnitsky had been holding onto had snapped; he slipped, and he would have slid down to the bottom on his back, had his seconds not held him up.
“Be careful!” I cried to him. “Don’t fall before it’s time—it’s a bad omen. Remember Julius Caesar!”
We had just climbed to the top of the bluff. The little platform was covered with a fine sand, as though designed for the purposes of a duel. The mountain summits clustered like an innumerable flock all around us, disappearing in the golden clouds of the morning; the white bulk of Elbrus rose up in the south, a lock in the chain of icy pinnacles; stringy clouds, racing in from the east, wandered among the peaks. I went up to the edge of the little platform, looked down, and my head was almost spinning—it looked cold and dark down there, like a grave. The mossy jagged edges of rock, scattered by thunderstorm and time, were awaiting their spoils.
The little platform on which we were meant to fight made a nearly perfect triangle. They measured six paces from the protruding corner and decided that the first of us to whom it would come to face unfriendly fire would stand in that corner, with his back to the edge. If he wasn’t killed then the opponents would switch places.
I had decided to give Grushnitsky every advantage. I wanted to test him. Perhaps a spark of magnanimity would be awakened in his