Pushkin himself was not more dexterous; and, like him, our hero in the course of his career signalised himself by several rencontres which proved fatal to his antagonists, into the details of but one of which I shall enter. He heard that nothing gives a young man greater _éclat_ at starting into society than a duel. Among those who frequented the _salle_ was an old officer who had served in the campaigns of Napoleon, one of the _reliquiæ Danaum_, the few survivors of Moscow; for those who did not perish on the road, mostly fell victims to the congelations and fatigues of that memorable retreat. Mascalbruni, now a match for the _maître d'armes_, frequently exercised with this old _grognard_, who had the character of being a _crane_, if not a _bourreau des cranes_;[12] and one day, before a numerous _gallerie_, having struck the foil out of his hand, the fencer so far forgot himself, in the shame and vexation of defeat by a youngster, as to pick up the weapon and strike the Italian a blow on the shoulders with the flat part of the foil, if it be not an Irishism so to call it. Those who saw Mascalbruni at that moment would not have forgotten the traits of his countenance. His eyes flashed with a sombre fire; his Moorish complexion assumed a darker hue, as the blood rushed from his heart to his brain in an almost suffocating tide; his breath came forth in long and audible expirations; his features were convulsed with the rage of a demoniac. I only describe what Horace Verney, who was present, faithfully sketched from memory after the scene. Mascalbruni, tearing off the button of his foil, vociferated, putting himself in position, "_A la mort, à la mort!_" The lookers-on were panic-stricken; but the silence was interrupted by the clinking of the steel. The aggressor soon lay stretched in the agonies of death. Though he had now taken his first degree, Mascalbruni's education was not yet complete. He had made himself master of French, so as to speak it almost without any of the accent of a foreigner; and having a magnificent voice, he added to it all the science that one of his own countrymen could supply, and became in the end a finished musician and vocalist. Such was the course of his studies; and now, with all the _préstige_ of his singular _affaire_ to give him _éclat_, the Marchese Mascalbruni made his _début_. By way of recreation, he had frequently gone into the gambling-houses of the Palais Royal, and had been much struck with these words, almost obliterated, on the walls of one of them, "_Tutus veni, tutus abi._" Mascalbruni was determined to profit by the advice, and to confirm its truth by one solitary exception--to come and depart in safety, or rather a winner.