"Be so good as to take your places, gentlemen; all is ready,"—said Koloberdyáeff at last, handing us the pistols.
The Prince retreated a few paces, halted, and turning his head back over his shoulder, asked me: "And do you still refuse to withdraw your words?"... I tried to answer him; but my voice failed me, and I contented myself with a disdainful motion of the hand. The Prince laughed again, and took his place. We began to approach each other. I raised my pistol, and was on the point of taking aim at the breast of my enemy,—at that moment he really was my enemy,—but suddenly elevated the barrel, as though some one had jogged my elbow, and fired. The Prince staggered, raised his left hand to his left temple—a thin stream of blood trickled down his cheek from beneath his white wash-leather glove. Bizmyónkoff flew to him.
"It is nothing,"—he said, taking off his cap, which had been perforated;—"if it did not enter my head, that means it is only a scratch."
He calmly pulled a batiste handkerchief from his pocket, and laid it on his curls, which were wet with blood. I looked at him as though petrified, and did not stir from the spot.
"Please go to the barrier!"—remarked Koloberdyáeff to me with severity.
I obeyed.
"Shall the duel go on?"—he added, addressing Bizmyónkoff.
Bizmyónkoff made him no reply; but the Prince, without removing the handkerchief from the wound, nor even giving himself the satisfaction of teasing me at the barrier, replied with a smile: "The duel is ended," and fired into the air. I nearly wept with vexation and rage. That man, by his magnanimity, had definitively trampled me in the mud, had cut my throat. I wanted to protest, I wanted to demand that he should fire at me; but he stepped up to me, and offering me his hand, "Everything is forgotten between us, is it not?"—he said, in a cordial voice.
I cast a glance at his pale face, at that blood-stained handkerchief, and utterly losing my head, blushing with shame, and annihilated, I pressed his hand...
"Gentlemen!"—he added, addressing the seconds:—"I hope that all this will remain a secret?"