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.