The referee cautioned the unfortunate combatants, but the second round was no better than the first, and in the middle of the third round the fight was stopped. The sleek, well-fed persons occupying the chairs, and the more impatient persons occupying the auditorium, had not paid their money for stuff of that sort. There followed a fresh pair of boxers, older, more experienced, and this time things were sufficiently brisk. The battle was a hard, ding-dong struggle, and it was at least exciting. At the sight of the first dark ugly streak of blood on one of those white faces I felt a little queer, in fact my impulse was to go away; but as round after round passed, and I watched the blood from the same wound burst out afresh in each, it began to quicken a sort of unsuspected lust of cruelty in me, and I took pleasure in it, I wanted the fight to be a real one, the thud of a blow that got home thrilled me. It was as if I had undergone some transformation. The dirty theatre, the low faces, the foul language, ceased to matter. I was carried out of myself. I longed at the same time for the fight to continue, and for its climax. There would be only three more rounds, and I wanted, before the last, to see somebody knocked out. The man whose face was bleeding was the heavier of the two, but I thought he had little chance. He was out-matched, he must have known it himself, and yet he continued to come up with a kind of dogged stupidity. His seconds spat water into his face, sponged him, rubbed him and fanned him, slapped him with towels and massaged his muscles; but the artificial invigoration this produced lasted only a few moments after the beginning of each round, and, as I watched him weakening, I could feel myself delivering the blows that dazed him, my muscles tightened and slackened, I could hardly sit in my seat. “Now he’s got him,” I said aloud, as he staggered into the ring for the last time. There was a blow and a crash on the boards. The referee was counting over him, one――two――three――four――five――six――seven――eight; and then this helpless creature, out of whose swollen, hideous face all humanity had been battered, staggered up almost blindly. He did not even lift his hands to protect himself from the blow that smashed him down again, and with that dull thud on the floor the fight came to an end. He lay on after the counting had stopped, and as I watched him being supported, almost carried, out of the ring, while the victor received congratulations, a pang of misgiving assailed me. There was no doubt the whole thing was absolutely brutal, and there was equally no doubt that when it had been most brutal I had been most pleased. I should like to be able to add that I got up and left the theatre. I did not. I reflected that _the_ fight was still to come: I even waited for it eagerly, and when it took place, I was disappointed because nobody bled, and because the decision was given on points at the end of the twelfth round.