"The morning is as hard as iron; the roads sparkle as if they were armour clad," said the Doctor.
Blanden drummed his fingers upon the table. Kuhl sat down beside him.
"I cannot, indeed, understand why you plunged yourself into this danger?"
"It is to revenge Giulia's honour upon a miscreant."
"Well, you know my opinion about duels; it is a special act of friendship that I second you. I have, it is true, several times, used a human body as a target, and marked it there when I intended to do, because I set to work conscientiously, and did not swerve an iota from my intentions. I wish you had my eye and hand to-day!"
"I prefer to leave it to chance," said Blanden, "then I shall have a clearer conscience."
"But now," continued Kuhl, "no one would easily inveigle me into such a duel. I do not hold Falstaff's views about honour, but I think that all which does but exist in the opinion of mankind, enjoys a very shadowy existence, and that it is not worth while, for the sake of such dissolving views, for such opinions which fade into mist, and from day to day assume a different form, to let a bullet be driven into one's body."
"But we are dependent upon the opinions of mankind, especially of those human beings with whom we must live."
"Those are the so-called class prejudices; for a citizen of the world like you they should not exist. You know best that in Honolulu upon such matters people think quite differently from what they do in the Fiji Islands, or even in Japan, where they simply rip up their own persons. It would be too cheap a mode of regaining one's lost honour if it were only necessary to burn powder in the pan."
"We often long to punish an enemy," said Blanden, "and there is no other suitable method than that of standing before him with sword or pistol in one's hand. Hatred and enmity cannot be eradicated, and such silently nourished ill-will, such Platonic hatred, as people might term it, gnaws at one's vitals, just as does Platonic love. Every passion must obtain satisfaction, therefore the world has produced swords and pistols."