The Duel (Movie Tie-in Edition)

In Anton Chekhov’s The Duel the escalating
animosity between two men with opposed philosophies of life is played out
against the backdrop of a seedy resort on the Black Sea coast.
Laevsky is a dissipated romantic given to gambling and flirtation; he has run
off with another man’s wife, the beautiful but vapid Nadya, and now finds
himself tiring of her. The scientist von Koren is contemptuous of Laevsky; as a
fanatical devotee of Darwin, von Koren believes the other man to be unworthy of
survival and is further enraged by his treatment of Nadya. As the confrontation
between the two becomes increasingly heated, it leads to a duel that is as
comically inadvertent as it is inevitable. Masterfully translated by the
award-winnning Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Duel is
one of the most subtle examples of Chekhov’s narrative art.