Soltyk looked up and stopped patting his cheek.
“How? Blinded him?” somebody asked.
“Yes, blinded him.”
The blows began to take effect, the atmosphere becoming somehow congenial to them. When Stephen Staretsky delivered his message Soltyk was losing his self-control. The opportunity of killing this obnoxious figure offered him so obstinately by Bitzenko—whom he disliked even more—began to recommend itself to him. This commis voyageur sent to press the attractions of destruction had won his point.
Soltyk had been silent. He had been twisting up the corners of a newspaper on the table before him, and appeared struck lazy, into a kind of sullen sleepiness and detachment resembling despair.
“Ask him,” he said suddenly to Staretsky, “what he wants.”
“What do you mean?”
Soltyk answered irritably, “Why, what they want: what sort of a duel he wants and when.” “Duel” was said as though it were a common object. “Settle it quickly and let’s get all this nonsense over, since you have begun negotiations.”
Stephen Staretsky stared at him.