Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/387

 "and I am at your disposal for any satisfaction that you are pleased to require."

"Good heaven, my dear sir," continued the unknown, "the chances of a duel between us would be very unequal. A duel besides appears to me, in general, but a poor game, in which children hurt themselves. But there are certain circumstances in life in which the earth becomes too narrow for two men, and when even one of these men lived on Caucasus and the other on the banks of the Tiber, one of them must be effaced from among the living to allow the other to breathe at ease. In these very rare cases a duel, but a duel without mercy, may become useful, indispensable. As for ourselves, I do not think that we are reduced to this experiment. A single combat would be madness. If I killed you, I should put an end perhaps to days, rich in hope and expectation; if I should fall, you would have put an end to a deplorable existence. You therefore see that the chances would never be equal. Besides, to put an end to this discussion, I assure you that I do not consider myself insulted. You desired me to leave the room, and—I yielded to your wishes—that is all."

The stranger's accent in uttering these words revealed, in spite of his efforts to conceal it, an innate suffering against which he tried in vain to struggle. Siegfried renewed more urgently his frank protestations, accounting for his anger by attributing it to the painful impression produced upon him by the singularly sad look of the stranger.

"May then this look," exclaimed the old man, "remain forever graven upon your memory to preserve you from the dangers which threaten your future. Distrust the uncertainty of gaming before it is too late to throw off the fascination which it already exercises upon you: for in less time than you would believe, I see you ruined and your honor lost!"

The baron could not refrain from repulsing this fatal threat; "all that he should lose amounted," he said, "to two hundred louis d'or; and his pertinacity in playing only proceeded from a formal vow he had taken to triumph over his luck at play, which was tiresome to him beyond all expression."