The Duel

The Duel is one of Anton Chekhov’s finest longer stories, published in 1891 and set in a sleepy town on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus. Its central figure, Laevsky, is an idle and self-pitying government clerk who has grown tired of the woman he ran away with and dreams only of escape, while the coldly rational zoologist Von Koren despises him and believes such weak men should be swept away. Their mutual contempt hardens until it drives the two men toward a duel. With deep sympathy and no easy judgements, Chekhov shows both of them forced by that moment to see themselves clearly. This free PDF and EPUB presents Constance Garnett’s translation of the complete story.