He could clearly see himself there, in the avenue, hobbling on all fours, cowed and ridiculous, as he uttered feeble, senseless threats. Again and again he mentally rehearsed that awful incident with ever increasing torture, and, as if illuminated, all the details stood out vividly before his eyes. That which most irritated him was his recollection of Sina Karsavina’s white dress, of which he caught a glimpse at the very moment when he was vowing futile vengeance. “Who was it that lifted me up?” He tried to turn his thoughts into another channel. “Was it Tanaroff? Or that Jew boy who was with them! It must have been Tanaroff. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter in the least. What matters is that my whole life is ruined, and that I shall have to leave the regiment. And the duel? What about that? He won’t fight. I shall have to leave the regiment.” Sarudine recollected how a regimental committee had forced two brother- officers, married men, to resign because they had refused to fight a duel. “I shall be asked to resign in the same way. Quite civilly, without shaking hands … the very fellows that…. Nobody will feel flattered now to be seen walking arm-in-arm with me in the boulevard, or envy me, or imitate my manner. But, after all, that’s nothing. It’s the shame, the dishonour of it. Why? Because I was struck in the face? It has happened to me before when I was a cadet. That big fellow, Schwartz, gave me a hiding, and knocked out one of my teeth. Nobody thought anything about it, but we shook hands afterwards, and became the best of friends. Nobody despised me then. Why should it be different now? Surely it is just the same thing! On that occasion, too, blood was spilt, and I fell down. So that …” To these despairing questions Sarudine could find no answer. “If he had accepted my challenge and had shot me in the face, that would have been worse, and much more painful. Yet no one would have despised me in that case; on the contrary, I should have had sympathy and admiration. Thus there is a difference between a bullet and the fist. What difference is there, and why should there be any?” His thoughts came swiftly, incoherently, yet his suffering, and irreparable misfortune would seem to have roused something new and latent within him of which in his careless years of selfish enjoyment he had never been conscious. “Von Deitz, for instance, was always saying, ‘If one smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the left.’ But how did he come back that day from Sanine’s? Shouting angrily, and waving his arms because the fellow wouldn’t accept my challenge! The others are really to blame for my wanting to hit him with the riding-whip. My mistake was that I didn’t do it in time. The whole thing’s absurdly unjust. However, there it is; the disgrace remains; and I shall have to leave the regiment.” With both hands pressed to his aching brow, Sarudine tossed from side to side, for the pain in his eye was excruciating. Then, in a fit of fury, he muttered: