At sixteen years of age Hector-Marie-Aymont-von Widinitz Dunoisse
fought his first duel, with a fellow-student of the Royal School of
Technical Military Instruction, Rue de la Vallée Ste. Gabrielle.
The quarrel occurred after one of the weekly inspections by the
General-Commandant, when Hector, accoutered with the black shiny
sword-belt and cartridge-belt; armed with the sword, bayonet, and the
heavy little brass-mounted, muzzle-loading musket, commonly displayed,
when not in use, with two hundred and ninety-nine similar weapons in
the long gallery running above the class-rooms--when Hector with his
fellow-pupils of the First Division had performed a series of military
evolutions in the presence of Miss Harriet Smithwick, admitted with
other persons standing in the parental and protective relation to
the young neophytes of the School, to the dusty patch of tree-shaded
grass at the lower end of the smaller exercise-ground, where Messieurs
the hundred-and-fifty pupils of the two companies of the Junior
Corps--the great boys of the Senior possessing a parade-ground to
themselves--commonly mustered for drill.
On other days, visitors and friends were received in a small
entrance-yard, dank and moist in wet weather, baking and gritty in hot;
inhospitable and uninviting at all times; in which enclosure M. and
Madame Cornu were permitted by the authorities to purvey fruit and
sweets, and a greasy kind of _galette_, with ices of dubious complexion
in June and July; and syrups of _groseille_ and _grenadine_, served
hot--and rendered, if possible, even stickier and more vapidly cloying
beverages by being thus served,--in the bitter winter months.
The good Smithwick would have enjoyed herself better if permitted to
ascend to the department on the floor above the Infirmary, where Madame
Gaubert presided, in an atmosphere strongly flavored with soft-soap,
over long rows of shelves divided into regulation pigeon-holes,
containing within an officially-appointed space of one foot ten inches
square the linen of young Hector and his companions. It would have
satisfied a burning curiosity from which the poor little lady had long
suffered, had she been permitted to observe for herself the process of
lavation that deprived her ex-pupil’s shirts of every button, while
leaving the dirt untouched; and to gauge with her own eyes the holes
of the rats and mice that ate such prodigious mouthfuls, not only in
the garments named, but in the sheets and bolster-covers, towels and
napkins, which, by the amiable dispensation of a paternal Government,
the boy was permitted to bring from home.
Instead, the poor fluttered spinster occupied a small share of one of
the green benches set beneath the shade of the semicircle of lime-trees
at the lower end of the exercise-ground; her neighbors on the right and
left being the venerable Duchesse de Moulny of the Faubourg St-Honoré
and Mademoiselle Pasbas of the Grand Opera Ballet. Pédelaborde,
inventor of an Elixir for the preservation of the teeth to extreme
old age, who in fact enjoyed a Government contract for attending to
the dental requirements of the young gentlemen of the School, weighed
down the bench at its farther end; and M. Bougon, principal physician
of the body to His Majesty King Louis-Philippe, balanced his meager
and wizened anatomy upon the other extremity. Nor was there the lack
of sympathy between the occupants of the bench that might have been
expected. The Duchesse had a grandson--Bougon a son--Pédelaborde a
nephew--the opera-dancer a young _protégé_ (in whom, for the sake of
an early friend, an officer of Cuirassiers, Mademoiselle took a tender
interest)--little Miss Smithwick the adored offspring of a revered
employer, to observe blandly, and discreetly manifest interest in,
and secretly throb and glow and tremble for; so simple and common and
ordinary is Nature beneath all the mass of pretenses we pile upon her,
so homespun are the cords of love, and sympathy, and interest, that
move the human heart.
When the General-Commandant--for this was an ordinary informal
inspection of young gentlemen in the School undress of belted blouse
and brass-badged, numbered _képi_, not the terrific bi-monthly review
_en grande tenue_ of the entire strength of the establishment, when
General, Colonel, Captains, Adjutants, the four Sergeants-Major, the
six drummers, and all the pupils of the Junior and Senior Corps,
wearing the little cocked hat with the white plume and gold lace
trimming; the black leather stock, the blue frocked coat faced with
red, trimmed and adorned with gilt buttons and gold braid, must
pass under the awful eye of a Field-Marshal, assisted by a Colonel
of the Staff, a Major of Artillery, and a fearful array of Civil
Professors--when the General, addressing Alai-Joseph-Henri-Jules de
Moulny, briefly remarked:
“Pupil No. 127, you have the neck of a pig and the finger-nails of a
gorilla! Another offense against that cleanliness which should adorn
the person of a Soldier of France, and the _galon_ of Corporal, which
you disgrace, will be transferred to the sleeve of one more worthy to
wear it.”
You beheld the immense bonnet of the venerable aristocrat, its
great circular sweep of frontage filled with quillings of costly
lace and chastely tinted cambric blossoms, its crown adorned with
nodding plumes, awful as those upon the helmet of the Statue of the
Commendatore, condescendingly bending towards the flamboyant headgear
of the Pasbas--as the Duchesse begged to be informed, her lamentable
infirmity of deafness depriving her of the happiness of hearing the
commendations bestowed by his Chief upon her young relative,--what
Monsieur the General had actually said?
* * * * *
“I myself, Madame, failed to catch the expression of approval actually
employed. But,” explained Mademoiselle Pasbas, as she lowered her
_lorgnette_ and turned a candid look of angelic sweetness upon the
dignified old lady, “Madame may rely upon it that they were thoroughly
merited by the young gentleman upon whom they were bestowed.”
“I thank you, Mademoiselle.” The bonnet of the Duchesse bent in
gracious acknowledgment. “It is incumbent upon the members of my family
to set an example. Nor do we fail of our duty, as a rule.”
Perhaps the roguish dimples of Mademoiselle Pasbas were a trifle more
in evidence; possibly the humorous creases of enjoyment deepened in the
stout Pédelaborde’s triple chin; it may be that the sardonic twinkle
behind the narrow gold-rimmed spectacles of M. Bougon took on extra
significance; but all three were as demure as pussycats, not even
exchanging a glance behind the overwhelming patrician headgear with
the stupendous feathers;--to see one another over it would have been
impossible without standing on the bench. This is the simple truth,
without a particle of exaggeration. My Aunt Julietta at this date
purchased from a fashionable milliner in the West End of London----But
my Aunt Julietta has no business on the Calais side of the English
Channel!--let her and her bonnets wait!
The General’s salute closed the review. The pupils presented arms,
a superb effect of a hundred and fifty muskets, not infrequently
thrilling parents to the bestowal of five-franc pieces; the six
drummers beat the disperse as one overgrown hobbledehoy; the orderly
ranks broke up. Discipline gave place to disorder. Boys ran, chasing
one another and yelling, boys skylarked, punching and wrestling, boys
argued in gesticulatory groups, or whispered in knots of two or three
together.... The spectators on the painted benches behind the railing
had risen. Now they filed out by a door in the high-spiked wall behind
the dusty lime-trees, in whose yellow-green blossoms the brown bees
had been humming and droning all through the hot, bright day of June.
The bees were also dusty, and the spectators were liberally powdered
with dust, for the clumping, wooden-heeled, iron toe-capped School
regulation shoes of the young gentlemen had raised clouds which would
have done credit to the evolutions of a battery of horse. And the
yearning desires of Hector Dunoisse were turning in the direction
of a cooling draught of Madame Cornu’s _grenadine_, or of the thin,
vinegary, red ration-wine; when to him says Alain-Joseph-Henri-Jules
de Moulny:
“Tell me, Redskin, didst thou twig my respected grand-mamma perched
in the front row between a variegated she-cockatoo and a molting old
female fowl, who held her head on one side, and cried into a clean
starched pocket-hand-kerchief?”
“She did not cry!” warmly contradicted the young gentleman thus
assailed. “It is her cold-in-the-head that never gets well until she
goes back to England for her holiday once a year; and then she has
_migraine_ instead. All the Smithwick family are like that, Miss
Smithwick says; it is an inherited delicacy of the constitution.”
“‘Smizzique ... Mees Smeezveek.’ ... There’s a name to go to bed
with!...” pursued de Moulny, his thick lips, that were nearly always
chapped, curling back and upwards in his good-natured schoolboy’s grin.
“And how old is she?--your Sm----. I cannot say it again!... And why
does she wear a bonnet that was raked off the top of an ash-barrel, and
a shawl that came off a hook at the Morgue?”
* * * * *
Young Hector had been conscious of the antiquated silk bonnet, in hue
the faded maroon of pickling-cabbage, sadly bent as to its supporting
framework of stiffened gauze and whalebone, by the repeated tumbles
of the bonnet-box containing it off the high top-corner of the walnut
wardrobe in Miss Smithwick’s fourth-floor sleeping-apartment at home
in the Rue de la Chaussée-d’Antin. It had been eating into him like a
blister all through the General’s inspection, that venerable wintry
headgear, with its limp veil like a sooty cellar-cobweb, depending
from its lopsided rim. To say nothing of the shawl, a venerable yellow
cashmere atrocity, with long straggling white fringes, missing here and
there, where the tooth of Time had nibbled them away. But though these
articles of apparel made good Smithwick’s ex-pupil feel sick and hot
with shame, they were not to be held up to ridicule. That was perfectly
clear....
Hector could not have told you why the thing was so clear; even as
he thrust a challenging elbow into the big de Moulny’s fleshy ribs,
turning pale under the red Egyptian granite tint of skin that had
earned him his nickname from these boys, his comrades--who like other
boys all the world over, had recently fallen under Fenimore Cooper’s
spell--and said, with a dangerous glitter in his black-diamond eyes:
“I do not know how old she is--it is not possible for a gentleman to
ask a lady her age. But she is a lady!” he added, neatly intercepting
the contradiction before it could be uttered. “_Une femme de bon
ton, une femme comme il faut._ Also she dresses as a lady should ...
appropriately, gracefully, elegantly....” He added grandiloquently,
tapping the brass hilt of his little School hanger: “I will teach you
with this, M. de Moulny, to admire that bonnet and that shawl!”
“_Nom d’un petit bonhomme!_” spluttered the astonished de Moulny. But
there was no relenting in Hector’s hard young face, though he was
secretly sick at the pit of his stomach and cold at heart.
“I will fight you!” he repeated.
De Moulny, always slow to wrath, began to lose his temper. The
outspoken compliments of Monsieur the General had stung, and here was
a more insufferable smart. Also, it was a bosom friend who challenged.
One may be angry with an enemy; it is the friend become foe who drives
us to frenzied rage.
He said, pouting his fleshy lips, sticking out his obstinate chin,
staring at the changed unfriendly face, with eyes grown hard as blue
stones:
“I do not know that I can oblige you by giving you the opportunity of
learning how quickly boasters are cured of brag. For one thing, I have
my stripe,” he added, holding up his head and looking arrogantly down
his nose.
“Since yesterday,” agreed Hector, pointedly. “And after to-day you will
not have it. The squad-paper will hang beside another fellow’s bed,--M.
the Commandant will have reduced you to the ranks for uncleanliness on
parade. So we will fight to-morrow.”
“Possibly!” acquiesced de Moulny, his heavy cheeks quivering with
anger, his thick hands opening and shutting over the tucked-in thumbs.
“Possibly!” he repeated. His sluggish temperament once fairly set
alight, burned with the fierce roaring flame and the incandescent heat
of a fire of cocoanut-shell. And it was in his power to be so well
revenged! He went on, speaking through his nose:
“As it is only since yesterday that you became legitimately entitled
to carry the name you bear, you may be admitted to know something
of what happened yesterday.” He added: “But of what will happen
to-morrow, do not make too sure, for I may decline to do you the honor
of correcting you. It is possible, that!” he added, as Hector stared
at him aghast. “A gentleman may be a bastard--I have no objection to a
bar-sinister.... But you are not only your father’s son--you are also
your mother’s! We de Moulnys are ultra-Catholic----” This was excellent
from Alain-Joseph-Henri-Jules, whose chaplet of beads lay rolling in
the dust at the bottom of the kitlocker at his bed-foot, and who was
scourged to Communion by the family Chaplain at Christmas and Easter,
and at the Fête-Dieu. “Ultra-Catholic. And your mother was a Carmelite
nun!”
“My mother assumed the Veil of Profession when I was eight years old.
With my father’s consent and the approval of her Director,” said
Hector, narrowing his eyelids and speaking between his small white
teeth. “Therefore I may be pardoned for saying that the permission of
the family of de Moulny was not indispensable, or required.”
Retorted de Moulny--and it was strange how the rough, uncultured
intonations, the slipshod grammar, the slang of the exercise-yard and
the schoolroom, had been instinctively replaced in the mouths of these
boys by the phraseology of the outer world of men:
“You are accurate, M. Hector Dunoisse, in saying that your mother was
received into the Carmel when you were eight years old. What you do not
admit, or do not know, is that she was a professed Carmelite when you
were born.” He added, with a pout of disgust: “It is an infamy, a thing
like that!”
“The infamy is yours who slander her!” cried out Hector in the
quavering staccato squeak of fury. “You lie!--do you hear?--You lie!”
And struck de Moulny in the face.