"Why is it that our nation above all others embraced the duel so whole-heartedly?" he asked the stairwell rhetorically. Some, no doubt, would simply dismiss it as a by-product of barbarism.

Given Russia's long, heartless winters, its familiarity with famine, its rough sense of justice, and so on, and so on, it was perfectly natural for its gentry to adopt an act of definitive violence as the means of resolving disputes.

But in the Count's considered opinion, the reason that dueling prevailed among Russian gentlemen stemmed from nothing more than their passion for the glorious and grandiose.