What had happened was absolutely predictable: both of the seconds whom Tildy had sent to challenge Năstase to a duel — with army pistols at fifteen paces — came back and reported, with a serious expression, but not without a hint of malicious pleasure, that Năstase had politely but resolutely declined to accept Tildy’s challenge.
His words had been more or less as follows: “Gentlemen, please convey my thanks to Major Tildy. I am honored by his request — if that is the correct expression for such a case, though I can’t really say since I have no experience in this area. I am a writer, and hence I cannot — in fact, I am not allowed to — claim that I am a gentleman. Major Tildy will presumably have the kindness to realize that I have not the slightest practice with weaponry of any kind, whether lances, sabers, pistols, rifles, machine guns, clubs, or spiked maces, or whatever else military men and gentlemen prefer to use to settle their differences of opinion. You may further advise the major that in this matter it would be difficult — by any means at all — to dispose of our difference in opinion, unless he were to dispose of himself. He feels obliged to defend the honor of his beautiful sister-in-law, but his conviction is completely at odds with the otherwise unanimous opinion that she neither possesses such honor nor would ever aspire to possess it. To the great enjoyment of all of us, as you, dear sirs, will no doubt agree. Please have the kindness to further convey to the major that I must regrettably retract my previous regrets concerning his own wife’s seclusion. I have since had occasion to see her. She was in the process of using an umbrella to attack the rolling shades at the apothecary in the Wassergasse, where I had gone with a few friends to a familiar place for a morning drink. Instead of a hat she was wearing what I took to be a hot-water bottle in a crocheted cover. Her nose is very ugly. The major need have no worries concerning our curiosity to uncover a certain familial resemblance to her sister. If the major should now have the idea of taking his riding whip to me, as is the custom among gentlemen, please inform him that I would not hesitate to hire a few powerful men who would return the favor with a bullwhip. And last but not least, gentlemen, please convey my compliments to Major Tildy for his understanding and steadfastness of character. It’s well known that his compatriots, the Germans, have to call an assembly in order to understand a joke. He, however, abandoned the attempt from the start. That compels a certain respect from me. Apart from that, I have nothing to offer you except for a little plum brandy, which I presume you will have to politely decline, first because it would not fit the code and second because you probably realize that I want to drink it all myself.”
The two officers did indeed decline, thanked Năstase, and went back to Tildy to convey everything that had been said, as faithfully as possible, down to the intonation of every syllable.
But before Tildy had a chance to proceed to the next step, he was ordered to see his commanding officer.
Given the exertions of the previous night, it was perfectly understandable that the colonel had shown up late at the barracks the following morning — too late to prevent Tildy from sending his seconds to Năstase. In other words, it took much explaining, and much hard work to activate Turturiuk’s memory, before he had any idea what the whole incident was about. But then he began to rage like a rabid buffalo.
Nor was his rage directed solely at Tildy. He roared through all the guardrooms and sleeping quarters of the vast barracks grounds, raged through the stables, inspected the ostensibly freshly groomed horses with a thoroughness that made the long-serving sergeant green with envy, and yelled until his throat hurt when he scratched a fingernail’s worth of dust from just below a bad-tempered kicking horse’s tailbone. Then he stormed into the arena, where a pack of hapless recruits in a hard trot on the stiffest old training mounts were having what was left of their brains pounded out of their peasant skulls, picked up a longe whip, and took over the instruction himself, until the arena looked like a witch’s cauldron. When a bit of tanbark abundantly laden with horse manure landed on the colonel’s shoulder, an eager corporal attempted to brush it off, whereupon Turturiuk turned around and soundly slapped the man.
Having thus worked himself into the proper mood, the colonel reminded the first-years on the parade ground of their duties, blasting away at them — as the proper term goes — for a good half hour from a practiced throat, and especially upbraiding them for their rampant alcoholism. After that, he meted out a few hefty punishments among the higher ranks, which were bound to set off chain reactions lower down, and then, spurs clanging, his heavy cavalry saber trailing between his Cossack legs, his collar opened down to his chest, his shako boldly shoved into his neck, he marched back into his lion’s den.
There the two officers Tildy had sent to Năstase as seconds were already waiting, clearly anything but happy with that assignment. Turturiuk didn’t even take the trouble to close the door behind him, but blasted them the moment he stepped over the threshold, using expressions the noncommissioned officers would repeat much later in the mess hall, with great awe and admiration, as if the words of a poet. After he had promised to demote them and ship them off to the Okna salt mines for a few years’ forced labor, he had them present a fully detailed report on Năstase’s reply, though they had to explain to him its sheer malice sentence by sentence. Finally he was ready to face Tildy one-on-one.