'Let us end this unpleasant conversation!' he cried at last. 'I must own I don't see why you've been pleased to come to me.'
'You don't see what I've come to you for?' Avdey asked inquiringly.
'Astonishing!... This is astonishing! Who'd have thought it of a fellow of your intelligence!'
'I have come, Mr. Kister,' said Avdey, slowly rising to his feet, 'I have come to challenge you to a duel. Do you understand now? I want to fight you. Ah! you thought you could get rid of me like that! Why, didn't you know the sort of man you have to do with? As if I'd allow...'
'Very good,' Kister cut in coldly and abruptly. 'I accept your challenge. Kindly send me your second.'
'Yes, yes,' pursued Avdey, who, like a cat, could not bear to let his victim go so soon: 'it'll give me great pleasure I'll own to put a bullet into your fair and idealistic countenance to-morrow.'
'You are abusive after a challenge, it seems,' Kister rejoined contemptuously. 'Be so good as to go. I'm ashamed of you.'
'Oh, to be sure, _délicatesse_!... Ah, Marya Sergievna, I don't know French!' growled Avdey, as he put on his cap. 'Till we meet again, Fyodor Fedoritch!'
Kister paced several times up and down the room. His face burned, his breast heaved violently. He felt neither fear nor anger; but it sickened him to think what this man really was that he had once looked upon as a friend. The idea of the duel with Lutchkov was almost pleasant to him.... Once get free from the past, leap over this rock in his path, and then to float on an untroubled tide... 'Good,' he thought, 'I shall be fighting to win my happiness.' Masha's image seemed to smile to him, to promise him success. 'I'm not going to be killed! not I!' he repeated with a serene smile. On the table lay the letter to his mother.... He felt a momentary pang at his heart. He resolved any way to defer sending it off. There was in Kister that quickening of the vital energies of which a man is aware in face of danger. He calmly thought over all the possible results of the duel, mentally placed Masha and himself in all the agonies of misery and parting, and looked forward to the future with hope. He swore to himself not to kill Lutchkov... He felt irresistibly drawn to Masha. He paused a second, hurriedly arranged things, and directly after dinner set off to the Perekatovs. All the evening Kister was in good spirits, perhaps in too good spirits.