The Duel and Other Stories

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - It was eight o'clock in the morning - the time when the officers the local officials and the visitors usually took their morning dip in the sea after the hot stifling night and then went into the pavilion to drink tea or coffee. Ivan Andreitch Laevsky a thin fair young man of twenty-eight wearing the cap of a clerk in the Ministry of Finance and with slippers on his feet coming down to bathe found a number of acquain-tances on the beach and among them his friend Samoylenko the army doctor. With his big cropped head short neck his red face his big nose his shaggy black eyebrows and grey whiskers his stout puffy figure and his hoarse military bass this Samoylenko made on every newcomer the unpleasant impression of a gruff bully; but two or three days after making his acquaintance one began to think his face extraordinarily good-natured kind and even handsome. In spite of his clumsiness and rough manner he was a peaceable man of infinite kindliness and goodness of heart always ready to be of use. He was on familiar terms with every one in the town lent every one money doctored every one made matches patched up quarrels arranged picnics at which he cooked shashlik and an awfully good soup of grey mullets. He was always looking after other people's affairs and trying to interest some one on their behalf and was always delighted about something. The general opinion about him was that he was without faults of character.