Oh, if only that officer had been one of the sort who would consent to
fight a duel! But no, he was one of those gentlemen (alas, long extinct!)
who preferred fighting with cues or, like Gogol's Lieutenant Pirogov,
appealing to the police. They did not fight duels and would have thought
a duel with a civilian like me an utterly unseemly procedure in any
case--and they looked upon the duel altogether as something impossible,
something free-thinking and French. But they were quite ready to
bully, especially when they were over six foot.
I did not slink away through cowardice, but through an unbounded
vanity. I was afraid not of his six foot, not of getting a sound thrashing and
being thrown out of the window; I should have had physical courage
enough, I assure you; but I had not the moral courage. What I was afraid of
was that everyone present, from the insolent marker down to the lowest
little stinking, pimply clerk in a greasy collar, would jeer at me and fail to
understand when I began to protest and to address them in literary language.
For of the point of honour--not of honour, but of the point of
honour (POINT D'HONNEUR)--one cannot speak among us except in literary
language. You can't allude to the "point of honour" in ordinary language.
I was fully convinced (the sense of reality, in spite of all my romanticism!)
that they would all simply split their sides with laughter, and that the
officer would not simply beat me, that is, without insulting me, but would
certainly prod me in the back with his knee, kick me round the billiard-
table, and only then perhaps have pity and drop me out of the window.
Of course, this trivial incident could not with me end in that. I often
met that officer afterwards in the street and noticed him very carefully. I
am not quite sure whether he recognised me, I imagine not; I judge from
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