Sanine

Sarudine recollected how a regimental committee had forced two brother-

officers, married men, to resign because they had refused to fight a

duel.

"I shall be asked to resign in the same way. Quite civilly, without

shaking hands ... the very fellows that.... Nobody will feel flattered

now to be seen walking arm-in-arm with me in the boulevard, or envy me,

or imitate my manner. But, after all, that's nothing. It's the shame,

the dishonour of it. Why? Because I was struck in the face? It has

happened to me before when I was a cadet. That big fellow, Schwartz,

gave me a hiding, and knocked out one of my teeth. Nobody thought

anything about it, but we shook hands afterwards, and became the best

of friends. Nobody despised me then. Why should it be different now?

Surely it is just the same thing! On that occasion, too, blood was

spilt, and I fell down. So that ..."

To these despairing questions Sarudine could find no answer.

"If he had accepted my challenge and had shot me in the face, that

would have been worse, and much more painful. Yet no one would have

despised me in that case; on the contrary, I should have had sympathy

and admiration. Thus there is a difference between a bullet and the

fist. What difference is there, and why should there be any?"

His thoughts came swiftly, incoherently, yet his suffering, and

irreparable misfortune would seem to have roused something new and

latent within him of which in his careless years of selfish enjoyment

he had never been conscious.

"Von Deitz, for instance, was always saying, 'If one smite thee on the

right cheek, turn to him the left.' But how did he come back that day

from Sanine's? Shouting angrily, and waving his arms because the fellow

wouldn't accept my challenge! The others are really to blame for my

wanting to hit him with the riding-whip. My mistake was that I didn't

do it in time. The whole thing's absurdly unjust. However, there it is;

the disgrace remains; and I shall have to leave the regiment."

With both hands pressed to his aching brow, Sarudine tossed from side

to side, for the pain in his eye was excruciating. Then, in a fit of

fury, he muttered: "Get a revolver, rush at him, and put a couple of bullets through his

head ... and then, as he lies there, stamp on his face, on his eyes, on

his teeth!..."

The compress fell to the floor with a dull thud. Sarudine, startled,

opened his eyes and, in the dimly-lighted room, saw a basin with water,

a towel, and the dark window, that like an awful eye, stared at him

mysteriously.