The prince, as he went away, bowed to me once more. But Bizmyonkov did
not even glance at me. Shattered--morally shattered--went homewards
with Koloberdyaev.

'Why, what's the matter with you?' the cavalry captain asked me. 'Set
your mind at rest; the wound's not serious. He'll be able to dance by
to-morrow, if you like. Or are you sorry you didn't kill him? You're
wrong, if you are; he's a first-rate fellow.'

'What business had he to spare me!' I muttered at last.

'Oh, so that's it!' the cavalry captain rejoined tranquilly... 'Ugh,
you writing fellows are too much for me!'

I don't know what put it into his head to consider me an author.

I absolutely decline to describe my torments during the evening
following upon that luckless duel. My vanity suffered indescribably. It
was not my conscience that tortured me; the consciousness of my
imbecility crushed me. 'I have given myself the last decisive blow by
my own act!' I kept repeating, as I strode up and down my room. 'The
prince, wounded by me, and forgiving me... Yes, Liza is now his. Now
nothing can save her, nothing can hold her back on the edge of the
abyss.' I knew very well that our duel could not be kept secret, in
spite of the prince's words; in any case, it could not remain a secret
for Liza.

'The prince is not such a fool,' I murmured in a frenzy of rage, 'as
not to profit by it.'... But, meanwhile, I was mistaken. The whole town
knew of the duel and of its real cause next day, of course. But the