One, with his black hair, swarthy skin, slender limbs and sombre eyes, was the type of the Southern race which counts among its ancestors Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Spaniards.

The other, with his rosy skin, large blue eyes, and hands dimpled like a woman's, was the type of that race of temperate zones which reckons Gauls, Germans and Normans among its forebears.
Had one wished to magnify the situation it were easy to believe this something greater than single combat between two men.

One might have thought it was a duel of a people against another people, race against race, the South against the North.
Was it these thoughts which we have just expressed that filled Roland's mind and plunged him into that melancholy revery.
Probably not; the fact is, for an instant he seemed to have forgotten seconds, duel, adversary, lost as he was in contemplation of this magnificent spectacle.

M.de Barjols' voice aroused him from this poetical stupor.
"When you are ready, sir," said he, "I am." Roland started.
"Pardon my keeping you waiting, sir," said he.

"You should not have considered me, I am so absent-minded.