The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer)

Lubimoff, understanding this suggestion, took off his hat, throwing it some distance away. His adversary could not fight with his kepis on his head. Its yellowish color and the emblem of the Legion embroidered on the brim of the cap made him conspicuous in an unfair manner. His uniform also worried Toledo, who tried to do away with all the visible details on it.

Assisted by one of the captains, he proceeded to strip Martinez of his decorations of honor, after placing him beside the other sword. It was like a ceremony of degradation. They took off his kepis, then his medals, the red ribbon that hung from his shoulder, and the dark tan strips across his breast and the belt of the same color around his waist. The Lieutenant seemed reduced in stature and dignity in his loose uniform, without his decorations. The Parisian, always in a merry mood, compared him to a plucked bird.

The Colonel felt that it was necessary to repeat aloud the conditions of the duel. The Prince knew them and was accustomed to such encounters. It was Martinez who needed his suggestions. After he, as the director of the combat, should give the word "Fire!" he would slowly count, "one, two, three." They might aim and fire in that space of time. "Be very careful, Lieutenant!" Don Marcos spoke with tragic solemnity.

"If you fire before the one or after the three, you will be declared a felon."

The matter of being declared a felon frightened the young man. He didn't know exactly what it was, but the Colonel's look as he said this terrible word, made a deep impression on him. He no longer thought so vehemently of killing his adversary. This desire retreated into the background. Nor did he think of the fact that he himself might be killed. His one preoccupation was to calculate the time properly and obey instructions without bothering about aiming; to fire before the terrible three; so that he should not be given that horrible mysterious name that made his hair stand on end.

Don Marcos entered the castle, and appeared again with the two loaded pistols. He gave one to the Prince. The latter did not need any lessons. He put the other in the Lieutenant's right hand, and told him how he should stand, with his arm bent, holding the weapon high, presenting only the narrow side of his body to his adversary. Once more he dwelt on his warning. He should be careful not to make a mistake! Now he knew! One … two … three…

He himself stood midway between the adversaries withdrawing only a few paces from the line of fire. At that moment he was willing to die, so they both might remain unharmed!

He took off his hat solemnly, and with a gesture of profound sadness.

"Gentlemen …"

During the entire morning, as he walked from one place to another, making his preparations, he had not ceased to think of what he would say at that moment, working up a superb piece of oratory, brief and stirring. He had frequently spoken at duels, meriting the approval of the other seconds, retired Generals, and such experts, accustomed to formalities of the kind. But the short harangue of to-day was going to be his masterpiece.

"Gentlemen …" he repeated. He hesitated, not knowing what to add, as it had all been blotted from his memory. With a stammering voice, he went on saying whatever occurred to him, with no attempt at order, and without remembering a single word of the phrases which he had so carefully polished some hours before.

"There was still time … a little good will on their part; they were both men of courage who had proved their valor … an explanation at the last moment was no dishonor!"

His words were lost in a tense silence. But this silence was not absolute. There was somebody behind the Colonel, kicking the ground. It was Lewis who was consulting his watch, with a scowl. It was after three o'clock; the good series in the Casino had already begun.

The Colonel decided to end his speech. Besides, he was frightened at the motionless and rigid figure of his Prince, with his pistol raised. He had never seen him so ugly. His face was an earthen color, there was a squint in his eyes, and his cheek bones protruded. His features had been changed in a moment, as though the savagery of his remote ancestors, awakened within, had risen to his face.

"Since there is no possible agreement …"

At that moment the Colonel thought he had recalled the last part of his forgotten speech. But the tread of brilliant words escaped him again, and he was obliged to improvise, so he ended in a solemn fashion:

"Come, gentlemen! Honor … is honor; and the laws of chivalry … are the laws of chivalry."

He heard at his back the murmur of approval. It was the voice of the former ticket-seller. "Bravo! Wonderful!" But he did not care to hear what he said. You could never tell when that fellow was in earnest.

"Ready?"

The silence of the two adversaries gave the Colonel to understand that he might give the words of command.

"Fire!.. One …"

A shot rang out. Martinez, who was only thinking of the terrible three, had fired.

He saw the Prince standing in front of him. He looked much taller; he could see the black hole of his weapon, and above that hole an eye, with a look of cold ferocity, which was choosing a point on his antagonist's body to send the obedient bullet. And with unconscious arrogance, he turned on his heel, so as to present not his profile, but the whole breadth of his body.

The four seconds did not see this. Their eyes had focused on Lubimoff, the personification of death.

Time contracts and expands us, according to our emotions. Its measure and rhythm depend on the state of the human mind. Sometimes it gallops along at a dizzy rate, over the faces of clocks that seem to have gone mad; at other times, it collapses and refuses to proceed, and a thousandth of a second embraces more emotions than months and years of ordinary life. The four witnesses felt as though the hours had been paralyzed, and the sun were remaining motionless forever. Time did not exist.

"Two!" sighed Don Marcos, and it seemed to him that his lips would never cease uttering this word, as though it were composed of an infinite number of syllables.

Lewis had forgotten the existence of the Casino; he was conscious only of the present. The Captain from Bordeaux, bending forward, was leaning on his wounded foot, without feeling any pain; the other officer was swearing between his teeth, and shaking his rattan cane until it hummed. The doctor, with professional instinct, was stooping over the surgical case that lay at his feet.

Lubimoff was going to kill him! All four were sure that he was going to kill him. An implacable expression of security, and of ferocious coolness, radiated from that man, with arm upraised, so motionless, and pitiless. The expression on his Kalmuck face was of such deep fatality, his one eye tightly shut and the other open, that they could all see an imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the pistol to the breast of the man opposite, the road that the tiny sphere of lead was going to follow with inexorable accuracy.

Proud of his superiority, the Prince postponed the moment of dealing death, with a sort of savage playfulness. He had his enemy in his claws, and could toy with him during those three months, that were as long as centuries.

In the dizzy coincidence of image whirling through his brain, he could see the Princess, his mother, beautiful and arrogant, as she was when she recounted to him as a little boy, the greatness of the Lubimoffs. Then he saw his father, the General, somber and kindly, saying in a rough voice: "The strong man must be kind."

As he thought of his father, his pistol swerved slightly, but immediately he corrected his aim.

In his imagination a train was slowly passing. French soldiers. He saw Castro and the insolent red-haired fellow who was offering him a seat. Another train advanced in the opposite direction, an endless train that kept coming from the depths of the ocean. Hurrahs, whistling, dark blouses, blue collars, little caps that looked as though made of paper. "Good afternoon, Prince!" The luminous smile of a pale Virgin: Lady Lewis with her two blind men, handsome and tragic…

His pistol fell. Above it he could see the entire body of his adversary, that obscure soldier, condemned to die before long no doubt, from wounds received in a land that was not his own, for a cause which was that of all men.

"Three!" said the Colonel.

But before he could finish the word, a shot rang out. The grass stirred at intervals along the soil as the invisible bullet ricocheted into the distance.

The scythe-like stroke passed close to the legs of the Director of the combat; but Don Marcos was in no mood to notice such a thing. His child-like joy made him run hither and thither. His frock coat seemed to laugh as its tails flapped up and down.

He was so happy, that he almost embraced Martinez. The latter must shake hands with the Prince, a reconciliation was necessary.

The officer refused to take this advice. He had his doubts about the way the combat had ended. The Prince had fired at the ground, and he was not going to let him spare his life like that.

"Young man!" said Don Marcos, with an air of authority, "you are new in such affairs. Let yourself be guided by those who know more and give the Prince your hand."

Immediately he went in quest of Lubimoff.

He saw him standing on the same spot. He had thrown the pistol away and was covering his face with his hands.

The only one beside him was Lewis.

"Come, Prince! What's this? Be calm! Perhaps a good glass of whiskey." Toledo heard a sob of anguish, the choking of a stifled breast.

Respectfully he drew away one of the Prince's hands leaving his face uncovered. At present it was a dull brick red, shiny with sweat and tears.

Lubimoff was weeping.

The Colonel recalled the dead Princess in her days of stormy humor, when, after an explosion of wrath, she would wring her hands, and ask forgiveness, weeping hysterically.

As he gently took his hand, he felt that the Prince was following him, meekly without any will of his own. Martinez was waiting a few steps away.

"Shake hands. It's all over. Gentlemen are always … gentlemen."

They shook hands.

And then something unexpected happened which produced a long silence of surprise and amazement.