The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road, where the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the last few days.

The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther edge of the clearing.

The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in the deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and Nesvitski's and Dolokhov's sabers, which were stuck into the ground ten paces apart to mark the barrier.

It was thawing and misty; at forty paces' distance nothing could be seen.