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In The Duel Anton Chekhov creates a picturesque gallery of hollow personages� The characters of the story are grotesque caricatures of vanity�
Samoylenko, the army doctor is earthy and amiable, a simple heart, a crock of butter oil�

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.

His friend, Laevsky is a vacuous dreamer, a worthless milksop and a rotten nut�

“My God!� sighed Laevsky; “how distorted we all are by civilisation! I fell in love with a married woman and she with me� To begin with, we had kisses, and calm evenings, and vows, and Spencer, and ideals, and interests in common� What a deception! We really ran away from her husband, but we lied to ourselves and made out that we ran away from the emptiness of the life of the educated class.�

And Laevsky’s paramour is just a soap bubble carried by the wind�

She felt perfectly well, and was in a gay holiday humour. In a new loose-fitting dress of coarse thick tussore silk, and a big wide-brimmed straw hat which was bent down over her ears, so that her face looked out as though from a basket, she fancied she looked very charming. She thought that in the whole town there was only one young, pretty, intellectual woman, and that was herself, and that she was the only one who knew how to dress herself cheaply, elegantly, and with taste.

And the lovers lie and lie� And when they get entangled in their lies like in the spider web everything turns into the farce� And this farce culminates in the preposterous duel�
An ordeal may change a man but stupidity remains invincible.