Bizmyónkoff made him no reply; but the Prince, without removing the handkerchief from the wound, nor even giving himself the satisfaction of teasing me at the barrier, replied with a smile: "The duel is ended," and fired into the air. I nearly wept with vexation and rage. That man, by his magnanimity, had definitively trampled me in the mud, had cut my throat. I wanted to protest, I wanted to demand that he should fire at me; but he stepped up to me, and offering me his hand, "Everything is forgotten between us, is it not?"--he said, in a cordial voice. I cast a glance at his pale face, at that blood-stained handkerchief, and utterly losing my head, blushing with shame, and annihilated, I pressed his hand... "Gentlemen!"--he added, addressing the seconds:--"I hope that all this will remain a secret?" "Of course!"--exclaimed Koloberdyáeff,--"but, Prince, allow me...." And he himself bound up his head. The Prince, as he departed, bowed to me once more; but Bizmyónkoff did not even bestow a glance on me. Slain,--morally slain,--I returned home with Koloberdyáeff. "But what ails you?"--the captain asked me. "Calm yourself; the wound is not dangerous. He can dance to-morrow, if he likes. Or are you sorry that you did not kill him? In that case, you 're wrong; he 's a splendid fellow." "Why did he spare me?!"--I muttered at last. "Oho! so that 's it!"--calmly retorted the captain... "Okh, these romancers will be the death of me!" I positively refuse to describe my tortures in the course of the evening which followed this unlucky duel. My pride suffered inexpressibly. It was not my conscience which tormented me; the consciousness of my stupidity annihilated me. "I myself have dealt myself the last, the final blow!" I kept repeating as I paced my room with long strides.... "The Prince wounded by me and forgiving me .... yes, Liza is his now. Nothing can save her now, nor hold her back on the brink of perdition." I was very well aware that our duel could not remain a secret, in spite of the Prince's words; in any case, it could not remain a secret to Liza. "The Prince is not so stupid"--I whispered in a frenzy--"as not to take advantage of it."... And, nevertheless, I was mistaken: the whole town heard about the duel and its actual cause,--on the very next day, of course; but it was not the Prince who had babbled--on the contrary; when he had presented himself to Liza with a bandaged head and an excuse which had been prepared in advance, she already knew everything... Whether Bizmyónkoff had betrayed me, or whether the news had reached her by other roads, I cannot say. And, after all, is it possible to conceal anything in a small town? You can imagine how Liza took it, how the whole Ozhógin family took it! As for me, I suddenly became the object of universal indignation, of loathing, a monster, a crazily jealous man, and a cannibal. My few acquaintances renounced me, as they would have renounced a leper.