Description

Set during the Napoleonic Wars this story features two French Hussar officers DHubert and Feraud Their quarrel over an initially minor incident turns into a bitter longdrawn out struggle over the following fifteen years interwoven with the larger conflict that provides its backdrop At the beginning Feraud is the one who jealously guards his honor and repeatedly demands satisfaction anew when a duelling encounter ends inconclusively he aggressively pursues every opportunity to locate and duel his foe As the story progresses DHubert also finds himself caught up in the contest unable to back down or walk away This Conrad short story evidently has its genesis in the real duels that two French Hussar officers fought in the Napoleonic era Their names were Dupont and Fournier which Conrad disguised slightly changing Dupont into DHubert and Fournier into Feraud In 1977 it was turned into a movie The Duellists starring Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel