It becomes a general endemic; and a person who, lost in the world of Paris, where he is unknown, might hesitate about demanding satisfaction for an insult however gross, would, in that atmosphere, be ready any day, or hour of the day, to call a man out for merely looking at him.
The pool was begun. Never did a party, when a large sum of money depended on the issue of the game, play with more care and caution than those thirteen to decide which of them was to fight. By degrees the players lost their three lives, and the number was at last reduced to two; these two were the stranger guest and Alfonse. The lookers-on watched anxiously every stroke. Those balls, that as they rolled carried with them the fate of a man, were followed by earnest looks. The officers came nearer and nearer, and ranged themselves round the billiard. They were not a little interested to know whether they, or rather one of them, – which they knew not, – was to enter the lists with a freshman, no doubt unpractised in fencing, or with the most adroit and terrible duellist of the university.
The chances were against them. The stranger lost.
A singular excitement was occasioned by the disappearance of the last ball in the pocket. Some faces grew pale; but no one stirred from the spot where he had been standing as a spectator. Alfonse looked steadily round him, and made two or three times the circuit of the room, as though he were in search, but in vain, of some one worth quarrelling with. At last he perceived a sort of sub-lieutenant, originally drum-major and maître-d'armes, and who boasted of having killed his thirty pequins, sitting quietly in a corner. Alfonse walked straight up to him, and, saluting him with a politeness that electrified the company, said, in his cool way,
"Monsieur, I am exceedingly distressed at the situation in which I find myself placed; but my honour is concerned, and you will allow me to engage yours."
Without further preliminaries, he gave him a severe hit in the face.
The officer, who little expected so abrupt and unanswerable a mode of provocation, sprang like a madman from his chair; and had not Alfonse, with the activity and nimbleness of a cat, leaped with one bound on the table, the ex-drum-major would probably have strangled him on the spot.
He was quickly at the aggressor's heels, when his own comrades stopped him of their own accord, saying,
"Come, come! no child's play or boxing! the thing is too serious! C'est un combat à la mort!"
"Where shall I find you to-morrow?" said one of the officers, addressing Alfonse.
"Fix your ground," was the reply.
"No to-morrows!" said the officer who had received the blow; "this instant!"
"This instant be it, if you please," replied Alfonso with the utmost indifference.
"I shall not sleep to-night till that blow is avenged!" said the other, foaming with rage.
"I, too, want to unnumb my hand. I have hurt my knuckles against your cheek-bones," said Alfonse.
"Where would they fight at such a time of night as this?" observed some of the officers.
"In the garden behind the café," cried the ancient maître d'armes; "a sword in one hand, and a billiard-lamp in the other."
"But," said Alfonse, "I am tired. I know your style of fighting men, Crane; you want to make me break ground, and drive me step by step round the garden. Don't think it, my lad. Besides, the lamp may go out. But, if you have no objection, the billiard-table will be a good arena. We shall be well lighted, and there will be no means of drawing back a foot.
"Be it so," said the other.
The doors were closed, and they laid hands on the waiters and the proprietor of the café, who were going to the police. The swords were then brought. The two adversaries cast lots for them, and then pulled off their coats and waistcoats, and unbuttoned their shirts, to show that they had nothing under.
Both then took their swords.
The officer wrapt round his hand a handkerchief, leaving both ends dangling. Alfonse neglected this practice, the object of which was to distract the attention of the adversary by the perpetual flutter of their two white points, thus to turn away his attention from the sword. But Alfonse had a manner of fighting of his own, and cared little for these petty proceedings. He never looked at the steel; but, fixing his eye on that of his antagonist, anticipated every motion that he made.
The two wrestlers, or gladiators I might say, got on the table together, and, according to the terms or conditions agreed on between the students and the officers, rested their swords on the toes of their boots. A traveller from a commercial house who happened to be present, and could have no interest in the scene other than what its novelty excited, was fixed on to clap his hands three times, and at the third the swords were upraised in the air, and the two combatants came to guard.
A terrible silence reigned through the room, and for some seconds it was only broken by the clashing of the steel; for both parties, as they skirmished, were well aware that a single faux pas was death. The slightest stepping back, shrinking of the body, or leaping on one side, must inevitably prove fatal.
The officer was a head and shoulders taller than Alfonse, and looked as though he could crush him; but he little heeded this advantage, if advantage it was, for he by degrees lowered his body till he was right under the sword of his foe, and almost bent himself down upon the bed of the table. No other change in his attitude then took place.
All at once the officer, taking this posture for the effect of fear, made a furious lunge, which was parried with the greatest sang froid and skill, and Alfonse allowed the officer to return to his ground without attempting to return it. His adversary was deceived by this sort of timid defence, and, become more adventurous, attacked him again with increased fury, – so much so, that, thrown off his guard, his left foot quitted the cushion of the table, against which it had been fixed. Then it was that Alfonse made a rapid lunge at the officer's face. He endeavoured to regain the ground he had lost, to resume his position. The student would not give him time, and charged with impetuosity his disconcerted enemy, who could only avoid his thrusts by keeping his body bent backwards. Alfonse forced him to the edge of the table, when his foot tripped, and at that moment drove the sword up to the hilt in his heart.
The unhappy officer cried out "Hit! hit!" Then he raised himself to his full height, and fell backwards from the top of the table to the floor.
Awful was the sound that the weight of that body made upon the boards of the room! There was mixed up with it a feeling – a dread lest the dead man should hurt himself in falling. Never did I see, for I was present, so dreadful a contest! Never did I experience anything so frightful as the silence of those two men, – as the flashing of their swords by the light of the lamps, – as the fall of the vanquished, who, disappearing behind the table, seemed at once to have been engulfed in a tomb that opened from behind to receive him!
THE MONK OF RAVENNE
The Monk of Ravenne was daring and great,
He had risk'd his life for the Church's estate;
He was loved by all who the Virgin love,
And the Pope and he were hand and glove;
Not a deed was done by friars or men,
But that deed was known to the Monk of Ravenne.
The Monk of Ravenne on his death-bed lay,
His eyes were closed to the light of day,
His ears drank in the fathers' prayers,
And his soul shook off its earthly cares;
Many a tongue and many a pen
Moved in praise of the Monk of Ravenne.
The Monk of Ravenne in the tomb was placed,
With noble and fair the chapel was graced,
The requiem rose with the organ's swell,
And an hundred voices peal'd his knell;
The