They went downstairs. A gentleman was awaiting them in the carriage. Rival introduced him as “Doctor Le Brument.” Duroy shook hands, saying, “I am very much obliged to you,” and sought to take his place on the front seat. He sat down on something hard that made him spring up again, as though impelled by a spring. It was the pistol case.

Rival observed: “No, the back seat for the doctor and the principal, the back seat.”

Duroy ended by understanding him, and sank down beside the doctor. The two seconds got in in their turn, and the driver started. He knew where to go. But the pistol case was in the way of everyone, above all of Duroy, who would have preferred it out of sight. They tried to put it at the back of the seat and it hurt their own; they stuck it upright between Rival and Boisrenard, and it kept falling all the time. They finished by stowing it away under their feet. Conversation languished, although the doctor related some anecdotes. Rival alone replied to him. Duroy would have liked to have given a proof of presence of mind, but he was afraid of losing the thread of his ideas, of showing the troubled state of his mind, and was haunted, too, by the disturbing fear of beginning to tremble.

The carriage was soon right out in the country. It was about nine o’clock. It was one of those sharp winter mornings when everything is as bright and brittle as glass. The trees, coated with hoar frost, seemed to have been sweating ice; the earth rang under a footstep, the dry air carried the slightest sound to a distance, the blue sky seemed to shine like a mirror, and the sun, dazzling and cold itself, shed upon the frozen universe rays which did not warm anything.

Rival observed to Duroy: “I got the pistols at Gastine Renette’s. He loaded them himself. The box is sealed. We shall toss up, besides, whether we use them or those of our adversary.”

Duroy mechanically replied: “I am very much obliged to you.”