Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas by Arthur Schnitzler

Author:Arthur Schnitzler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-11-09T16:27:00+00:00

I WAS TWENTY-THREE YEARS OLD at that time, and it was my seventh duel-not my own, but the seventh in which I participated as a second. You can smirk if you want. I know it's become fashionable these days to make fun of such events. But I don't think that does them justice, and I assure you, life was more beautiful and certainly had a more elevated air in those days-among other reasons, precisely because one sometimes had to put one's life on the line for something that in a higher or at least in a different sense possibly did not exist or which at leastmeasured by today's standards-was not worth it. For honor, for example, or the virtue of a beloved woman, or the good reputation of a sister, or for some other such triviality. Nevertheless it's important to remember that in the course of the last decades people were required to sacrifice their lives for even more insignificant things, completely needlessly and at the command or wish of others. True, one's own discretion always played a role in a duel, even when it apparently was a matter of compulsion, convention, or snobbishness. That one at least had to come to terms with the possibility or even the unavoidability of duels within social circles-that alone, believe me, gave social life a certain dignity or at least a certain style. And it gave the people in these social circles, even the most worthless or the most ridiculous of them, a certain attitude-yes, the appearance of being constantly ready to die-even if this phrasing should appear to you altogether too grandiose in this context.

But I digress even before I've begun. I want to tell you the story of my seventh duel, and you are smirking as you did before, because I'm talking about my duel again, even though, as appeared to be my fate, I was once again merely a witness and not a dueler. At eighteen, when I was a volunteer in the cavalry, for the first time I was a second in an affair of honor between a comrade and an attache of the French embassy. Soon after that the famous rider Vulkovicz chose me to be his second in a duel with the Prince of Luginsfeld, and after that, even though I was neither a nobleman nor a professional officer, and was even of Jewish descent, people turned to me, especially for the more difficult cases when a second was required. I won't deny that I sometimes regretted participating in these affairs only as a secondary figure. Just once I would have liked to have stood opposite a dangerous opponent. I don't even know what I would have preferred-to win or to die. But it never came to that, even though there wasn't really any lack of opportunities and, as you may imagine, there was never the slightest doubt about my willingness to duel. Maybe that's why I never received a challenge or why in those cases when I was forced to issue a challenge, the matter was settled in a gentlemanly fashion.

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