One night, as it happened, he had taken two young lady friends together with their husbands to the theatre. After the show he suggested ices at Tortoni’s.2 They had been sitting there for ten minutes before he noticed a man at a nearby table staring hard at one of his own companions. She looked uncomfortable and embarrassed. After a while she said to her husband: ‘There’s a man there staring at me. I’ve no idea who he is, have you?’

The husband, who had noticed nothing, looked over at the man. ‘No, no idea.’

The young woman went on, half amused but half annoyed too, ‘It’s too bad. It’s spoiling my ice for me.’

The husband shrugged his shoulders: ‘Forget it. Just don’t take any notice. It happens all the time.’

The Vicomte, however, got up immediately. He could not allow this complete stranger to spoil an ice bought by himself. The insult was directed at him, he felt. Since it was he who had brought them to this café, it was his responsibility entirely.

He went up to the man and said: ‘I cannot allow you to keep staring at these ladies. Be so good as to stop it this minute.’

The other man replied: ‘Why don’t you just mind your own business.’

The Vicomte replied through clenched teeth: ‘Take great care, Monsieur, that you don’t force me to take this any further.’

The man answered with just one word. The obscenity rang from one end of the café to the other and produced an instantaneous reaction in every single customer. All those who had their backs to the man turned round. Everyone looked up. Three waiters spun on their heels like tops. The two women behind the counter started and wheeled round like a pair of twin robots.

A heavy silence fell. Then suddenly a crack was heard. The Vicomte had slapped the man’s face. Everyone rose to intervene. Cards were exchanged.

On his return home the Vicomte strode nervously up and down his room for a few minutes. He was too upset to think. The word ‘duel’ filled his head so completely that he was as yet unable to attach any emotion to it. He had done what he had to do. He had behaved as a man should. Talking to himself, as one does in times of great stress, he said aloud: ‘What a brute of a fellow!’