Page 517 - the-idiot

‘Don’t know! How can you not know? By-the-by, look
here—if someone were to challenge you to a duel, what
should you do? I wished to ask you this—some time ago—‘
‘Why? Nobody would ever challenge me to a duel!’
‘But if they were to, would you be dreadfully frightened?’
‘I dare say I should be—much alarmed!’
‘Seriously? Then are you a coward?’
‘N-no!—I don’t think so. A coward is a man who is afraid
and runs away; the man who is frightened but does not run
away, is not quite a coward,’ said the prince with a smile, af-
ter a moment’s thought.
‘And you wouldn’t run away?’
‘No—I don’t think I should run away,’ replied the prince,
laughing outright at last at Aglaya’s questions.
‘Though I am a woman, I should certainly not run away
for anything,’ said Aglaya, in a slightly pained voice. ‘How-
ever, I see you are laughing at me and twisting your face
up as usual in order to make yourself look more interest-
ing. Now tell me, they generally shoot at twenty paces, don’t
they? At ten, sometimes? I suppose if at ten they must be
either wounded or killed, mustn’t they?’
‘I don’t think they often kill each other at duels.’
‘They killed Pushkin that way.’
‘That may have been an accident.’
‘Not a bit of it; it was a duel to the death, and he was
killed.’
‘The bullet struck so low down that probably his antago-
nist would never have aimed at that part of him—people
never do; he would have aimed at his chest or head; so that

1 The Idiot