Aspects of the Russian verbs of motion in their interaction with tense have always been in the focus of linguistic studies. The overall picture becomes even more complicated if one has to translate into a language which is typologically different from Russian. As a matter of fact, the process of translation aims at achieving translational equivalence without alter- ing the aesthetic functions of the original text. The author analyses two particular cases (five examples) where Russian verbs of motion express a two-way movement, whereas in Italian, due to its particularity, it is not always possible to convey all subtleties of the source text. Excerpts from A. Chekhov’s short story “The Duel” are analysed and compared to five different translations in Italian.