This was the height of impudence. The moustachioed teacher cast his mask aside. In her own establishment had sprung up the ill-weeds of poetry and bouquets. Should she give him notice? Under existing circumstances she resolved not at once to speak about these love poems, so opposed to all rule, but to hold farther mental debates with herself. Iduna's next exercise teemed with red corrections. Lori rewarded Dr. Sperner for them with a grateful smile. CHAPTER IV. IN THE FOREST OF JUDITENKIRCHEN. Early in the morning the carriage stopped before the village inn. Blanden, Kuhl, and two other gentlemen sprang oat; the pistol cases were left in the carriage. "We have come too early; there is still half an hour's time," said Kuhl, "a morsel to eat cannot hurt us." "The morning is as hard as iron; the roads sparkle as if they were armour clad," said the Doctor. Blanden drummed his fingers upon the table. Kuhl sat down beside him. "I cannot, indeed, understand why you plunged yourself into this danger?" "It is to revenge Giulia's honour upon a miscreant." "Well, you know my opinion about duels; it is a special act of friendship that I second you. I have, it is true, several times, used a human body as a target, and marked it there when I intended to do, because I set to work conscientiously, and did not swerve an iota from my intentions. I wish you had my eye and hand to-day!" "I prefer to leave it to chance," said Blanden, "then I shall have a clearer conscience." "But now," continued Kuhl, "no one would easily inveigle me into such a duel. I do not hold Falstaff's views about honour, but I think that all which does but exist in the opinion of mankind, enjoys a very shadowy existence, and that it is not worth while, for the sake of such dissolving views, for such opinions which fade into mist, and from day to day assume a different form, to let a bullet be driven into one's body." "But we are dependent upon the opinions of mankind, especially of those human beings with whom we must live." "Those are the so-called class prejudices; for a citizen of the world like you they should not exist. You know best that in Honolulu upon such matters people think quite differently from what they do in the Fiji Islands, or even in Japan, where they simply rip up their own persons. It would be too cheap a mode of regaining one's lost honour if it were only necessary to burn powder in the pan." "We often long to punish an enemy," said Blanden, "and there is no other suitable method than that of standing before him with sword or pistol in one's hand. Hatred and enmity cannot be eradicated, and such silently nourished ill-will, such Platonic hatred, as people might term it, gnaws at one's vitals, just as does Platonic love. Every passion must obtain satisfaction, therefore the world has produced swords and pistols."