Coralie should have the protection of the
management.
At five o'clock that morning, Rastignac came for Lucien.
"The name of your street my dear fellow, is particularly appropriate
for your lodgings; you are up in the sky," he said, by way of
greeting. "Let us be first upon the ground on the road to
Clignancourt; it is good form, and we ought to set them an example."
"Here is the programme," said de Marsay, as the cab rattled through
the Faubourg Saint-Denis: "You stand up at twenty-five paces, coming
nearer, till you are only fifteen apart. You have, each of you, five
paces to take and three shots to fire--no more. Whatever happens, that
must be the end of it. We load for your antagonist, and his seconds
load for you. The weapons were chosen by the four seconds at a
gunmaker's. We helped you to a chance, I will promise you; horse
pistols are to be the weapons."
For Lucien, life had become a bad dream. He did not care whether he
lived or died. The courage of suicide helped him in some sort to carry
things off with a dash of bravado before the spectators. He stood in
his place; he would not take a step, a piece of recklessness which the
others took for deliberate calculation. They thought the poet an
uncommonly cool hand. Michel Chrestien came as far as his limit; both
fired twice and at the same time, for either party was considered to
be equally insulted.
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