The first shot was Sanin's, and he missed. His bullet went ping against a tree. Baron von Dönhof shot directly after him—intentionally, to one side, into the air.

A constrained silence followed.... No one moved. Pantaleone uttered a faint moan.

'Is it your wish to go on?' said Dönhof.

'Why did you shoot in the air?' inquired Sanin.

'That's nothing to do with you.'

'Will you shoot in the air the second time?' Sanin asked again.

'Possibly: I don't know.'

'Excuse me, excuse me, gentlemen ...' began von Richter; 'duellists have not the right to talk together. That's out of order.'

'I decline my shot,' said Sanin, and he threw his pistol on the ground.

'And I too do not intend to go on with the duel,' cried Dönhof, and he too threw his pistol on the ground. 'And more than that, I am prepared to own that I was in the wrong—the day before yesterday.'

He moved uneasily, and hesitatingly held out his hand. Sanin went rapidly up to him and shook it. Both the young men looked at each other with a smile, and both their faces flushed crimson.

'Bravi! bravi!' Pantaleone roared suddenly as if he had gone mad, and clapping his hands, he rushed like a whirlwind from behind the bush; while the doctor, who had been sitting on one side on a felled tree, promptly rose, poured the water out of the jug and walked off with a lazy, rolling step out of the wood.

'Honour is satisfied, and the duel is over!' von Richter announced.

'Fuori!' Pantaleone boomed once more, through old associations.

*

When he had exchanged bows with the officers, and taken his seat in the carriage, Sanin certainly felt all over him, if not a sense of pleasure, at least a certain lightness of heart, as after an operation is over; but there was another feeling astir within him too, a feeling akin to shame.... The duel, in which he had just played his part, struck him as something false, a got-up formality, a common officers' and students' farce. He recalled the phlegmatic doctor, he recalled how he had grinned, that is, wrinkled up his nose when he saw him coming out of the wood almost arm-in-arm with Baron Dönhof. And afterwards when Pantaleone had paid him the four crowns due to him ... Ah! there was something nasty about it!

Yes, Sanin was a little conscience-smitten and ashamed ... though, on the other hand, what was there for him to have done? Could he have left the young officer's insolence unrebuked? could he have behaved like Herr Klüber? He had stood up for Gemma, he had championed her ... that was so; and yet, there was an uneasy pang in his heart, and he was conscience—smitten, and even ashamed.

Not so Pantaleone—he was simply in his glory! He was suddenly possessed by a feeling of pride. A victorious general, returning from the field of battle he has won, could not have looked about him with greater self-satisfaction. Sanin's demeanour during the duel filled him with enthusiasm. He called him a hero, and would not listen to his exhortations and even his entreaties. He compared him to a monument of marble or of bronze, with the statue of the commander in Don Juan! For himself he admitted he had been conscious of some perturbation of mind, 'but, of course, I am an artist,' he observed; 'I have a highly-strung nature, while you are the son of the snows and the granite rocks.'