The Daughter of the Commandant

"My heart failed me," said she, "when they came to tell us that you were

going to draw swords on each other. How strange men are! For a word

forgotten the next week they are ready to cut each other's throats, and

to sacrifice not only their life, but their honour, and the happiness of

those who--But I am sure it was not you who began the quarrel; it was

Alexey Ivanytch who was the aggressor."

"What makes you think so, Marya?"

"Why, because--because he is so sneering. I do not like Alexey Ivanytch;

I even dislike him. Yet, all the same, I should not have liked him to

dislike me; it would have made me very uneasy."

"And what do you think, Marya Ivanofna, does he dislike you or no?"

Marya Ivanofna looked disturbed, and grew very red.

"I think," she said, at last, "I think he likes me."

"Why?"

"Because he proposed to me."

"Proposed to you! When?"

"Last year, two months before you came."

"And you did not consent?"

"As you see, Alexey Ivanytch is a man of wit, and of good family, to be

sure, well off, too; but only to think of being obliged to kiss him

before everybody under the marriage crown! No, no; nothing in the world

would induce me."

The words of Marya Ivanofna enlightened me, and made many things clear

to me. I understood now why Chvabrine so persistently followed her up.

He had probably observed our mutual attraction, and was trying to detach

us one from another.

The words which had provoked our quarrel seemed to me the more infamous

when, instead of a rude and coarse joke, I saw in them a premeditated

calumny.

The wish to punish the barefaced liar took more entire possession of me,

and I awaited impatiently a favourable moment. I had not to wait long.

On the morrow, just as I was busy composing an elegy, and I was biting

my pen as I searched for a rhyme, Chvabrine tapped at my window. I laid

down the pen, and I took up my sword and left the house.

"Why delay any longer?" said Chvabrine. "They are not watching us any

more. Let us go to the river-bank; there nobody will interrupt us."

We started in silence, and after having gone down a rugged path we

halted at the water's edge and crossed swords.

Chvabrine was a better swordsman than I was, but I was stronger and

bolder, and M. Beaupre, who had, among other things, been a soldier, had

given me some lessons in fencing, by which I had profited.

Chvabrine did not in the least expect to find in me such a dangerous

foeman. For a long while we could neither of us do the other any harm,

but at last, noticing that Chvabrine was getting tired, I vigorously

attacked him, and almost forced him backwards into the river.