One day one of the lovely ladies there, who plundered Zabaroff and caressed his son, amused herself with a war of words between the lads, and so heated, stung, spurred and tormented the Hungarian boy that, exasperated by the sallies and satires of his foe, and by the presence of this lovely goddess of discord, he so far forgot his chivalry that he turned on Vassia with a taunt. 'You would be a serf if you were in Russia!' he said, with his great black eyes flashing the scorn of the noble on the bastard. Without a word, Vassia, who had come in from riding and had his whip in his hand, sprang on him, held him in a grip of steel, and thrashed him. The fiery Magyar, writhing under the blows of one who to him was as a slave, as a hound, freed his right arm, snatched from a table near an oriental dagger lying there with other things of value, and plunged it into the shoulder of his foe. The cries of the lady, alarmed at her own work, brought the men in from the adjoining room; the boys were forced apart and carried to their chambers.
Prince Vàsàrhely left the house that evening with his son, still furious and unappeased. Vassia Kazán remained, made a hero of and nursed by the lovely woman who had thrown the apple of strife. His wound was healed in three weeks' time; soon after his father's house-party was scattered, and he himself returned to his college. Not a syllable passed between him and Zabaroff as to his quarrel with the little Hungarian magnate. To the woman who had wrought the mischief Zabaroff said: 'Almost I wish he were my lawful son. He is a true wolf of the steppes. Paris has only combed his hide and given him a silken coat; he is still a wolf, like all true Russians.'
Looking on the sleeping child of Sabran, all that half-forgotten scene had risen up before the eyes of Egon Vàsàrhely. He seemed to see the beautiful fair face of Vassia Kazán, with the anger on the knitted brows, and the ferocity on the delicate stern lips as he had raised his arm to strike. Twenty years had gone by; he himself, whenever he had remembered the scene, had long grown ashamed of the taunt he had cast, not of the blow he had given, for the sole reproof his father had ever made him was to say: 'A noble, only insults his equals. To insult an inferior is ungenerous, it is derogatory; whom you offend you raise for the hour to a level with yourself. Remember to choose your foes not less carefully than you choose your friends.'