Page 614 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘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

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