At eight o'clock next morning his antagonist, followed by two
seconds and a surgeon, arrived first on the ground.
"We shall do very nicely here; glorious weather for a duel!" he cried
gaily, looking at the blue vault of sky above, at the waters of the
lake, and the rocks, without a single melancholy presentiment or doubt
of the issue. "If I wing him," he went on, "I shall send him to bed
for a month; eh, doctor?"
"At the very least," the surgeon replied; "but let that willow twig
alone, or you will weary your wrist, and then you will not fire
steadily. You might kill your man instead of wounding him."
The noise of a carriage was heard approaching.
"Here he is," said the seconds, who soon descried a caleche coming
along the road; it was drawn by four horses, and there were two
postilions.
"What a queer proceeding!" said Valentin's antagonist; "here he comes
post-haste to be shot."
The slightest incident about a duel, as about a stake at cards, makes
an impression on the minds of those deeply concerned in the results of
the affair; so the young man awaited the arrival of the carriage with
a kind of uneasiness. It stopped in the road; old Jonathan laboriously
descended from it, in the first place, to assist Raphael to alight; he
supported him with his feeble arms, and showed him all the minute
attentions that a lover lavishes upon his mistress.
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