had indeed been in love, but had known the romance would end the moment Gumilyov saw her. Gumilyov allegedly talked in public about his romantic affair with Dmitrieva and he did it in rather rude expressions, and on 19 November 1909, at the studio of artist Ivan Bilibin, Voloshin slapped Gumilyov across the face, which by the customs of the time made a duel inevitable. The duel took place on 22 November on the banks of the Chernaya River, which had been the site of the fatal duel between Alexander Pushkin and Georges d'Anthès. Voloshin's seconds were Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi and Count Shervashidze; Gumilyov's seconds were Mikhail Kuzmin and Eugene Znosko-Borovsky. Antique flint smoothbore pistols without flies of the Pushkin era were chosen. Gumilyov shot first, but missed (or according to another version shot into the air). Voloshin's pistol misfired. He proposed to end the duel, but Gumilyov insisted that Voloshin has to shoot. Voloshin tried to shoot a second time - again a misfire. Gumilev insisted on Voloshin's third attempt, but the seconds refused and declared the duel over. Later, Voloshin confessed that he simply didn't know how to shoot. The seconds offered that they shake hands, but both refused. All contacts between them were broken off until a few months before Gumilyov's death in 1921, when he visited Voloshin. The next meeting and reconciliation took place only in Feodosia (in the Crimea) - Gumilev denied at the meeting that he had said the words attributed to him about Dmitrieva in 1909, accused Dmitrieva herself of pure fiction. Elisaveta Dmitrieva The real author of Gabriak's poetry, Elisaveta Dmitrieva, was born on 31 March 1887. Between 1890 and 1903 she suffered from tuberculosis of the bones and was left lame and barely able to walk. She studied old French and spanish literature at Saint Petersburg State University, and published some verses both before and after her Gabriak period but without much success. In 1911 she married Vsevolod Nikolaievitch Wassilieff, an engineer and uncle of french admiral Alexandre Wassilieff and took his last name. In the early 1920s, she worked with poet and translator Samuil Marshak on theatrical plays for children. Later she also published prose and translations. Starting from 1921, she was searched and interrogated by the State Political Directorate along with other members of the Anthroposophic Society. Finally in 1927 she was exiled to Tashkent where she died in