a man in order to define one’s relation to a guilty wife and son? I should still just as much have to decide what I ought to do with her. But what is more probable and what would doubtless occur — I should be killed or wounded. I, the innocent person, should be the victim — killed or wounded. It’s even more senseless. But apart from that, a challenge to fight would be an act hardly honest on my side. Don’t I know perfectly well that my friends would never allow me to fight a duel — would never allow the life of a statesman, needed by Russia, to be exposed to danger? Knowing perfectly well beforehand that the matter would never come to real danger, it would amount to my simply trying to gain a certain sham reputation by such a challenge. That would be dishonest, that would be false, that would be deceiving myself and