" Soon La Fontaine's sword flies out of his
hand, the friends go to breakfast, and the whole affair is at an end.]
I will teach you, you rogue, to laugh at my expense, and to cuckold
people without showing them any respect. (_After going three or four
steps he comes back again_.) But gently, if you please, this man looks
as if he were very hot-headed and passionate; he may, perhaps, heaping
one insult upon another, ornament my back as well as he has done my brow.
[Footnote: In the original there is a play on words which cannot be
rendered in English. _Il pourrait bien ... charger de bois mon dos
comme, il a fait mort front_. _Bois_ means "stick" and "stags'
antlers."]
I detest, from the bottom of my heart, these fiery tempers, and vastly
prefer peaceable people. I do not care to beat for fear of being beaten;
a gentle disposition was always my predominant virtue: But my honour
tells me that it is absolutely necessary I should avenge such an outrage
as this. Let honour say whatever it likes, the deuce take him who
listens. Suppose now I should play the hero, and receive for my pains an
ugly thrust with a piece of cold steel quite through my stomach; when
the news of my death spreads through the whole town, tell me then, my
honour, shall you be the better of it.
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