began anew, "My dear father, my dear mother, I am
to fight a duel at daybreak, and as it might happen that--" He did not
dare write the rest, and sprang up with a jump. He was now crushed by
one besetting idea. He was going to fight a duel. He could no longer
avoid it. What was the matter with him, then? He meant to fight, his
mind was firmly made up to do so, and yet it seemed to him that, despite
every effort of will, he could not retain strength enough to go to the
place appointed for the meeting. From time to time his teeth absolutely
chattered, and he asked himself: "Has my adversary been out before? Is
he a frequenter of the shooting galleries? Is he known and classed as a
shot?" He had never heard his name mentioned. And yet, if this man was
not a remarkably good pistol shot, he would scarcely have accepted that
dangerous weapon without discussion or hesitation.

Then Duroy pictured to himself their meeting, his own attitude, and the
bearing of his opponent. He wearied himself in imagining the slightest
details of the duel, and all at once saw in front of him the little
round black hole in the barrel from which the ball was about to issue.
He was suddenly seized with a fit of terrible despair. His whole body
quivered, shaken by short, sharp shudderings. He clenched his teeth to
avoid crying out, and was assailed by a wild desire to roll on the
ground, to tear something to pieces, to bite. But he caught sight of a
glass on the mantelpiece, and remembered that there was in the cupboard
a bottle of brandy almost full, for he had kept up a military habit of a
morning dram. He seized the bottle and greedily drank from its mouth in
long gulps. He only put it down when his breath failed him. It was a
third empty. A warmth like that of flame soon kindled within his body,
and spreading through his limbs, buoyed up his mind by deadening his
thoughts. He said to himself: "I have hit upon the right plan." And as
his skin now seemed burning he reopened the window.

Day was breaking, calm and icy cold. On high the stars seemed dying away
in the brightening sky, and in the deep cutting of the railway, the red,
green, and white signal lamps were paling. The first locomotives were
leaving the engine shed, and went off whistling, to be coupled to the
first trains. Others, in the distance, gave vent to shrill and repeated
screeches, their awakening cries, like cocks of the country. Duroy
thought: "Perhaps I shall never see all th