ill. For people with bad character or no character at all he had a

profound contempt.

Young Adler had met this formidable judge several times, but had never talked to him, as there had been no opportunity. Zapora neither sought nor avoided him; his friends knew, however, that when he spoke of "that fool," he meant Ferdinand, and the more experienced felt sure that the two men would meet sooner or later in the narrow sphere of provincial life, and that Adler would then hear a few bitter home-truths. Ferdinand instinctively felt Zapora's dislike for him; more than that, he suspected him of being the author of the newspaper articles. He was in no hurry to make his acquaintance, but he had made up his mind to pay him out at the first opportunity that offered.

In the beginning of September the usual fair took place in the little town, and the noblemen from the surrounding districts were in the habit of meeting on this occasion. Zapora, who had an office in the town, settled some pressing affairs, purchased what he needed, and went to have dinner at the hotel at two o'clock in the afternoon.

He found a crowd of acquaintances in the dining-room; the tables were set in one long row and lavishly provided with bottles of wine, mostly champagne, and the preparations seemed to promise a drinking bout.

"What is this?" asked Zapora. "Is someone giving a dinner?"

Among the acquaintances who greeted him was a friend of young Adler's.

"Just fancy," he said. "Adler is paying for all the dinners to-day, and anyone who comes is invited. I hope you will not refuse us the pleasure of your company?"

Zapora looked at him from the corner of his eye.

"I do refuse," he replied.

The young man, who was not remarkable for excessive tact, asked:

"Why?"

"Because only old Adler would have the right to ask me to a dinner paid for with his money, and even if he did ask me I should refuse."

Another of Ferdinand's friends joined in the conversation.

"What do you have to throw in the Adlers' teeth?"

"Not much; only that the father is a sweater and the son a loafer, and that between the two they do more harm than good."

Public opinion seemed to be summed up in these words from a man of personal courage. Adler's friends were silent, the other guests embarrassed, and the more sensitive took their hats to leave the room. At that moment the door was flung wide open and Ferdinand hurried in, accompanied by one of his friends. He noticed the judge at once, and not knowing what had happened, asked his companion to introduce him.

"Right you are!" said the friend, advancing towards the judge.

"What a lucky chance!" he exclaimed. "Adler is just going to give a dinner here, and as you have fallen into the trap, we will not let you go. But you don't know one another?"

There was a general silence in the room during the introduction.

"Pan Adler--Pan Zapora."

Ferdinand held out his hand.

"I have long wished to make your acquaintance."

"Delighted," said Zapora, without moving.

Some of the guests smiled maliciously. Ferdinand grew pale; for a moment he was confused. But he pulled himself together at once and changed his tactics.

"I have wished to make your acquaintance," he continued, "in order to thank you for the correspondence about my father in the newspapers."

Zapora fixed him with a severe look.

"About your father?" he asked. "I have written only one letter about your father, and that was to the village mayor about the summons."

Adler was boiling with rage.

"It was myself, then, you wrote about in the comic papers?"

Zapora did not lose his calmness for an instant. He only gripped his stick tighter, and said:

"You are quite mistaken. I leave correspondence in the comic papers to young men of no occupation who wish to become notorious by any means at their disposal."

Adler lost his self-control.

"You are insulting me!" he shouted.

"On the contrary, I will not even retract my last statement in order not to offend you."

The excited young man was on the point of throwing himself upon Zapora.

"You shall give me satisfaction!" he panted.

"With pleasure."

"At once!"

"Well, I must have my dinner first; I am hungry," said Zapora coolly. "It does not take me more than an hour; after that I shall be at your disposal in my house."

And nodding to his acquaintances, he slowly left the room.

Ferdinand's banquet was not a success. Many of the guests left before dinner; others shammed gaiety. But Ferdinand himself was in excellent spirits. His first glass of wine soothed him; the second gave his excitement a pleasant flavour. He was delighted at the prospect of a duel, especially of a duel with Zapora, and he had not the slightest doubt of his success.

"I shall give him a lesson in shooting," he whispered to one of his seconds, "and that will be the end of it."

And he thought: "That will do more to put my position right than any amount of dinners."

The more experienced adventurers, of whom there was no lack in the room, had to admit, when they looked at him, that he had grit and pluck of a certain kind.

"Thank Heaven!" said one of them, "our newspapers will at last have something sensational to talk about."

"I am only sorry...." said another.

"For what?"

"Those bottles that we may see no more."

"Oh, I hope we shall give them decent burial."

"I hope we shan't have to do the same with one of the principals."

"I doubt it. What are the conditions?"

"Pistols, and to fight till blood flows."

"Damn it! Whose idea was that?"

"Adler's."

"Is he so sure of himself?"

"He is an excellent shot."

Towards the end of the dinner it became known that Zapora had accepted the conditions, and that the duel was to take place the next morning.

"Gentlemen," said Adler, "I invite you all. We will drink all night."

"Is that wise?"

"I always do it before a contre-dance. This is my fourth," said Ferdinand.

In another and more respectable restaurant, Zapora's friends were also discussing what had happened.

"It is a shame," said one of them, "that a respectable man like Zapora should have to fight with such a senseless fool."

"Zapora had no business to fall into the trap."

"He fell into it by accident, but after that there was no way out of it."

"It is a strange thing," said an old nobleman, "that such a good-for-nothing young fellow as Adler should not only be admitted into society, but also be at liberty to force a quarrel of this kind upon a man like Zapora. Formerly that sort of thing would have been impossible. It is because public opinion is getting slack that respectable men have to stake their lives. Nevertheless I am sorry for Zapora."

"Isn't he a good shot?"

"Quite fair, but the other is more--he is a real virtuoso."

At about six o'clock Ferdinand retired to his room in the hotel. He wanted a little rest between his dinner-party and his night orgy; but he could not sleep, and began pacing up and down. Then he noticed that the windows opposite were those of Zapora's office.

The street was narrow; the office was on the ground floor, and his own room on the first floor; Ferdinand could therefore closely observe what was going on. The judge was talking to his clerk and to a barrister, and showing them some papers. After some time the barrister took his leave and the clerk went out of the room. The judge was left alone.

He placed the lamp on the writing-table, lighted a cigar, and began to write on a large sheet of paper: first a long heading, then he continued quickly and evenly. Adler felt sure that the judge was writing his will.

Ferdinand had already fought several duels, considering them a kind of dangerous amusement. But now he became conscious that a duel could also be a very serious affair, for which one ought to be properly prepared. But how?

There was this man writing a will!

He lay down on his sofa. While he was distinctly conscious of all the noises going on in the corridor, the remembrance of an incident in his early boyhood, when the mill had not long been started, came back vividly to him. He had noticed a small door fastened with a nail in the engine-room. This door used to interest and alarm him. One day he took courage, pressed the bent nail aside, and opened the door. He looked into a small recess; there were a few copper pipes, a coil of rope and a broom.

The memory of this little adventure came back to him whenever he was going to fight a duel, usually at the moment when the seconds had measured the distance and he saw the barrel of his adversary's pistol pointed at him and felt the trigger under his own finger. The mysterious door of Destiny, which is sometimes opened by a bullet, had so far not revealed anything remarkable to him--merely a wounded adversary or else a score of champagne bottles emptied with jolly companions. But what had these duels amounted to? One shot on either side, for the sake of a prima-donna, or a bet at the races, or a jostle in the streets.

To-morrow's affair was of a different kind. Here was he, the son of an unpopular father, coming forward to fight a man respected by everybody, and as it were the representative of an offended community. On the side of his adversary were all those who had the courage to stand up against Adler, all the workpeople and most of the officials at the factory. And who was on his side?

Not his father, for he would not have allowed him to fight; not the companions of his dissipations, for they felt uncomfortable, and were only waiting for an opportunity to desert him. Should he wound Zapora, he would give his enemies fresh cause for indignation; should he be wounded himself, people would say it was a just punishment on him and his father.

What was the meaning of it all? He only wanted to enjoy life along with everybody else. He had been used to being treated with exquisite manners by his companions; people had been indulgent, timid with him. This man, who flung impertinences in his face--where did he spring from so suddenly? Why had there been no one to warn him? Why should the follies of his youth come to such a tragic end?

The mysterious door assumed a sinister aspect. He had a presentiment that this time it would not conceal pipes, ropes and a broom, but a notice on a coffin, which he had once seen in an undertaker's shop in Warsaw: "Lodgings for a single person."

"The undertaker must have been a wag," Ferdinand thought.

The hotel sofa was not remarkable for its softness; when Ferdinand leant his head against its arm, he was reminded of his midnight drives home in his carriage. For a man in a sitting posture that was extremely comfortable, but when you lay down it was as uncomfortable as this sofa. He had the sensation of driving home in it--of the gentle jostling, the clatter of the horses' hoofs: it is midnight; the moon, standing high in the sky, lights up the road. The carriage quivers and then stops.

"What is the matter?" asks Ferdinand in his dream.

"Goslawski's arm has been torn off," answers a low voice.

"Is that the man with the pretty wife?"

"How sharp he is!" says the same low voice.

"Sharp? Who is sharp?" says Ferdinand to himself, turning round on the sofa, away from the scene. But the phantoms do not vanish; he again sees the crowd of men round the stretcher, and the wounded man, his arm in blood-soaked wrappings laid on his chest. He can even see the foreshortening of the shadows on the road.

"How the man suffers!" whispers Ferdinand. "And he must die--must die!" He has the sensation of being the man on the stretcher, tortured with pain, his arm shattered, and of seeing his own face in the cold, cruel moonlight.

Whatever had happened? Champagne had never had this effect on him before. Something entirely new was overpowering, oppressing him--tearing his heart--boring into his brain; he felt as if he must shout, run away, hide somewhere.

Ferdinand jumped up. Dusk was filling the room.

"What the devil! I seem to be afraid ... afraid!... I?..."

With difficulty he found the matches, scattered them on the floor, picked one up, struck it--it went out--struck another, and lighted the candle.

He looked at himself in the glass; his face was ashen, and there were dark circles round his eyes; his pupils were much enlarged.

"Am I afraid?" he repeated.

The candle was trembling in his hand.

"If the pistol is going to jump like that to-morrow, I shall be in a nice mess!" he thought.

He looked out of the window. There was Zapora, still sitting at his desk on the ground floor across the street, writing quietly and evenly. The sight made Ferdinand shake off his nervousness. His vivacious temperament got the better of the phantoms.

"Go on writing, my dear, and I will put the full-stop to it!"

Steps approached in the corridor, and there was a knock at the door.

"Get up, Ferdinand, we are ready for the bout!" called a familiar voice.

Ferdinand was himself again. If he had had to jump into a precipice bristling with bayonets, he would not have flinched. When he opened the door to his friend he greeted him with a hearty laugh. He laughed at his momentary nervousness, at the phantoms, at the question: "Am I afraid?"

No, he was not afraid. He felt again the strength of a lion and the reckless courage of youth, which fears no danger and has no limits.

The carouse went on till break of day. The windows of the hotel shook with the laughter and noise, and the cellars ran empty, so that wine had to be fetched from elsewhere....

At six o'clock four carriages left the town.