“Do you wish it to be a serious duel?”
The Viscount responded: “Very serious.”
The Marquis continued: “Will you use a pistol?”
“Yes.”
“We leave you free to regulate the rest.”
The Viscount enunciated, in a dry, jerky voice:
“Twenty steps at the order, and on raising the arm instead of lowering it. Exchange of bullets until one is grievously wounded.”
The Colonel declared, in a satisfied tone:
“These are excellent conditions. You shoot well, all the chances are in your favor.”
They separated. The Viscount returned home to wait for them. His agitation, appeased, for a moment, grew now from minute to minute. He felt along his arms, his legs, and in his breast a kind of trembling, of continued vibration; he could not keep still, either sitting or standing. There was no longer an appearance of saliva in his mouth, and each instant he made a noisy movement with his tongue, as if to unglue it from the roof of his mouth.