He pushed aside the letter of congratulation he had begun to write, as in duty bound but without pleasure.  He took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote:  “This is my last will and testament.”  And, looking at these words, he gave himself up to unpleasant reflection; a presentiment that he would never see the scenes of his childhood overcame Captain D’Hubert.  He jumped up, pushing his chair back, yawned leisurely, which demonstrated to himself that he didn’t care anything for presentiments, and, throwing himself on the bed, went to sleep.  During the night he shivered from time to time without waking up.  In the morning he rode out of town between his two seconds, talking of indifferent things and looking right and left with apparent detachment into the heavy morning mists, shrouding the flat green fields bordered by hedges.  He leaped a ditch, and saw the forms of many mounted men moving in the low fog.  “We are to fight before a gallery,” he muttered bitterly.

His seconds were rather concerned at the state of the atmosphere, but presently a pale and sympathetic sun struggled above the vapours.  Captain D’Hubert made out in the distance three horsemen riding a little apart; it was his adversary and his seconds.  He drew his sabre and assured himself that it was properly fastened to his wrist.  And now the seconds, who had been standing in a close group with the heads of their horses together, separated at an easy canter, leaving a large, clear field between him and his adversary.  Captain D’Hubert looked at the pale sun, at the dismal landscape, and the imbecility of the impending fight filled him with desolation.  From a distant part of the field a stentorian voice shouted commands at proper intervals:  Au pas—­Au trot—­Chargez! Presentiments of death don’t come to a man for nothing he thought at the moment he put spurs to his horse.

And therefore nobody was more surprised than himself when, at the very first set-to, Captain Feraud laid himself open to a cut extending over the forehead, blinding him with blood, and ending the combat almost before it had fairly begun.  The surprise of Captain Feraud might have been even greater.  Captain D’Hubert, leaving him swearing horribly and reeling in the saddle between his two appalled friends, leaped the ditch again and trotted home with his two seconds, who seemed rather awestruck at the speedy issue of that encounter.  In the evening, Captain D’Hubert finished the congratulatory letter on his sister’s marriage.

He finished it late.  It was a long letter.  Captain D’Hubert gave reins to his fancy.  He told his sister he would feel rather lonely after this great change in her life.  But, he continued, “the day will come for me, too, to get married.  In fact, I am thinking already of the time when there will be no one left to fight in Europe, and the epoch of wars will be over.  I shall expect then to be within measurable distance of a marshal’s baton and you will be an experienced married woman.