de Gonse, a gentleman much older than myself, with whom I had not
actual acquaintance, though we had a host of friends in common. Upon
his departure I protested vehemently against this outrage of the
proprieties. I besought them to show a little more circumspection in
their choice of friends, admitting no man to their intimacy who counted
not his fifty years. But my protestations were received with laughter;
I was told that the marquis was a friend of Sonia’s father, and was
trying to effect a reconciliation highly to be desired. Berthe accused
me mockingly of wishing to keep the little Russian to myself. Indeed,
she said, what could be more demoralising to her companion than the
constant presence of a beautiful young hussar? With her saucy tongue
she put me completely to the blush; in vain I pleaded and argued; de
Gonse’s footing was assured. Yet, if they had searched all Paris, they
could not have found a man more undesirable, or more dangerous for two
young women to know. Ardent, generous, and himself full of aspirations
for the advancement of humanity, nothing was better calculated to
appeal to him than the struggle in which my sister was engaged. His
sympathy, his sincere desire to put his own shoulder to the wheel, were
more to be feared than the most strenuous protestations of regard. If
he had made love to my sister, she was enough a woman of the world to
have sent him to the right about; but he adopted, all unconsciously, I
am sure, a more subtle plan to win her good opinion: he was converted!
“If I shut my eyes I can see him sitting there in that low garret as
he appeared on one occasion which particularly imprinted itself on my
mind; such a high-bred, such a distinguished figure, with his silk hat
and gloves beside the box which had been given him for a chair, and his
face full of wonder and sadness! You have read of Marie Antoinette in
prison, of her sufferings so uncomplainingly borne, of her nobility and
steadfastness in the squalor of her cell! You have revolted, perhaps,
at the picture--clinched your little fists and felt a great bursting
of the heart? It was thus with M. de Gonse. Berthe he had often seen
at our château in Nemours; Sonia’s father he had known in Russia, a
general of reputation, standing high in the favour of the Czar. None
was better aware than he of what the young ladies had given up. I could
see that he was deeply moved. He asked many questions; at times he
exclaimed beneath his breath. He insisted on learning everything--the
amount of their income, the nature of their studies, all their
makeshifts and contrivances. The two beautiful, solitary girls, from
whom sympathy and appreciation had so long been withheld, unbared
their lives to us without reserve. Berthe told us, amid the passionate
interjections of Sonia Boremykin, the story of their struggles at the
medical school: the open hostility of the professors; the brutal sneers
and innuendoes; the indescribable affronts that had been put upon them.
During this terrible recital--for it was terrible to hear of outrages
so patiently borne, of insults which bring the blood to the cheek even
to remember after all these years--de Gonse rose more than once from
his seat, walking up and down like one possessed, uttering cries of
rage and pity. It was no feigned anger, no play-acting to win the
regard of these poor women. Let me do the man that justice.
“I don’t think my sister was prepared for the effect of her eloquence
on the marquis, or could have foreseen, even for a moment, the tempest
she had raised within his breast. He swore he would challenge every
professor in the school; that he would unloose spadassins on the
offending students, whose bones should be broken with clubs; that to
blight their careers in after life he would make his business, his
pleasure, his joy! It was with difficulty that he was recalled to the
realities of every-day existence, my sister telling him frankly that
such a course as he proposed might benefit woman in general, but could
not fail to destroy the future of herself and Sonia Boremykin. To be
everywhere talked about, to get their names into the newspapers, to
be pointed at on the street as the victims of frightful insults--what
could be more detestable, more ruinous to the careers they hoped to
make? De Gonse was reluctantly compelled to withdraw his plans of
extermination; for who could controvert the logic with which they
were demolished or fail to see the justice of my sister’s contention?
Confessing himself beaten on this point, he sought for some other
solution of the problem. Private tutors? Intolerably expensive, came
the answer; poor substitutes for one of the greatest schools in Europe;
unable, besides, to confer the longed-for degree. The University of
Geneva, famous for its generous treatment of women? Good, but its
diploma would not carry the desired prestige in France. I hazarded
boys’ clothes and false mustaches; but my remark was greeted with a
shout of laughter and a half-blushing confession from Mademoiselle
Sonia that one experiment in this direction had sufficed. It was to the
marquis that light finally came.
“‘Fool! Idiot!’ he thundered, striking himself on his handsome forehead
with his fist. ‘Why did I not think of it before? To-morrow I join the
medical school myself--the student de Gonse, cousin of the marquis,
a man tired of the hollowness and the trivialities of high life. I
do nothing to show I am acquainted with you, nothing to compromise
you in the faintest manner. But de Gonse, the medical student, is a
gentleman, a man of honour. A companion ventures on a remark derogatory
to the dignity of the young ladies; behold, his head cracks like an
egg against his desk! Another opens his mouth, only to discover that
_le boxe_ (you know I am quite an Anglais) is driving the teeth down
his throat, setting up medical complications of an extraordinary and
baffling nature. A professor so far forgets his manhood as to heap
insults on the undefended; the strange medical student tweaks his nose
in the tribune and challenges him to combat! How simple, how direct!’
“Imagine my surprise a few days later to learn that this had been no
idle gasconade on the marquis’s part. True to his word, he had appeared
at the school elaborately attired for the part he was to play, even to
a detestable cravat and a profusion of cheap jewellery! Unquestionably
there must have been others in the plot, for no formalities anywhere
tied his hands or opposed the least obstacle to his audacity. As one
would have expected from a man so eager and so full of resource, the
object for which he came was soon achieved. Mingling with the students
as one of themselves, he singled out those who went the farthest in
persecuting the women, and insensibly cajoled them into a better way of
conduct. The minority, too, those that still kept alive the chivalry
of young France, were strengthened and encouraged by the force of his
example, so that the crusade, once authoritatively begun, went on
magnificently of itself. Not a blow was struck, not a wry word said,
and behold, de Gonse had accomplished a miracle! From that time the
position of women was assured; protectors arose on every side as though
by magic; in a word, gallantry became the fashion. When professors
ventured on impertinences, hisses now greeted them in place of cheers;
they changed colour, and were at pains to explain away their words. The
battle, indeed, was won.
“Had de Gonse contented himself with this victory, which saved my
sister and Mademoiselle Sonia from countless mortifications, how
much human misery would have been averted, how great a tragedy would
have remained unplayed! But evil and good are inexplicably blended
in this world, a commonplace of whose truth, mademoiselle, you will
have many opportunities of verifying. Having acted so manly a part,
one so calculated to earn the gratitude and esteem of these poor
girls, he turned from one to the other, wondering with which he should
reward himself. I have reason to think his choice first fell on Sonia
Boremykin, who had the whitest skin and the prettiest blue eyes in
the world. How can I doubt, to judge from her wild, tragic after life,
but that he could have persuaded her to her ruin? But he must have
paused half-way, struck by the incomparable superiority of my sister.
In beauty she was not perhaps the equal of her companion, though to
compare _blonde_ and _brune_ is a matter of supererogation. In other
ways, at least, there never lived a woman more desirable than Berthe
de Charruel. She possessed to a supreme degree the charm that springs
from intelligence,--I might say from genius,--which, when found in
the person of a young and beautiful woman, is almost irresistible to
any man that gains her favour. Jeanne d’Arc was such another as my
poor sister, and must have been impelled on her career by something of
the same fire, something of the same passionate earnestness. To break
a heart like hers seemed to de Gonse the crown to a hundred vulgar
intrigues and _bonnes fortunes_.
“Of course, I knew nothing of this gradual undoing of my sister, though
during the course of my visits to the little garret I often found the
marquis in the society of Berthe and her friend. I disliked to see
him there, but I was powerless to interfere. I was often puzzled,
indeed, by the ambiguous conduct of Mademoiselle Sonia, who had the
queerest way of looking at me, and whose eyes were always meeting mine
in singular glances, whether of warning or appeal I was at a loss to
tell. Her words, too, often left me uneasy, recurring to me constantly
when I was in the saddle at the head of my troop or as I lay awake
in bed awaiting the reveille. I wondered if the little Russian were
making love to me, for, like all hussars, I was something of a coxcomb,
though, to do me justice, neither a lady-killer nor a pursuer of
adventures. It was in my profession that I found my only distraction,
my only mistress. I am almost ashamed to tell you how good I was, how
innocent--how in me the Puritan stock of my mother seemed to find a
fresh recrudescence. Some thought me a hypocrite, others a coward; but
I was neither.
“I learned the truth late one afternoon from Sonia Boremykin, who came
to my quarters closely veiled, in a condition of agitation the most
frightful. I could not believe her; I seemed to see only another of
her devices to win my regard. My sister! My Berthe! It was impossible!
I said to her the crudest things; I was beside myself. She went on
her knees; she hid nothing; it was all true. My anger flamed like a
blazing fire; I rushed out of the barracks regardless of my duties--of
everything except revenge. A lucky _rencontre_ on the street put me
on de Gonse’s track, and I ran him down in the _salle_ of the Jockey
Club. He was standing under one of the windows, reading a letter by the
fading light, a note, as like as not, he had just received from Berthe.
I think he changed colour when he saw me; at least, he drew back with a
start.
“I lifted my glove and struck him square across his handsome face.
“‘You will understand what that is for, M. le Marquis de Gonse!’ I
cried.
“He turned deadly white, and with a quick movement caught my wrists in
both his hands.
“‘_Mon enfant!_’ he exclaimed in a loud voice, which he tried to invest
with a tone of jocularity, ‘you carry your high spirits beyond all
reason; I am too old to enjoy being hit upon the nose.’ Then in a lower
key he whispered: ‘Paul, calm thyself; for the love of God, do not
force a quarrel. Come outside and let us talk with calmness.’
“But I was in no humour to be cajoled. I fiercely shook off his
restraining hands. ‘Messieurs,’ I cried, as the others, detecting a
scene, began to close round us, ‘Messieurs, behold how I buffet the
face of the Marquis de Gonse!’ And with that I again flicked my glove
across his face.
“De Gonse slunk back with a sort of sob.
“‘Captain de Charruel and I have had an unfortunate difference of
opinion,’ he cried, recovering his aplomb on the instant. ‘It seems we
cannot agree upon the Spanish Succession. M. le Comte, my seconds will
await on you this evening.’
“I turned and left the club, my head in a whirl, my face so distraught
and haggard that I carried consternation through the jostling street,
the people making way for me as though I were a madman. To obtain
seconds was my immediate preoccupation, a task of no difficulty for
a young hussar. My colonel kindly condescended to act, and with him
my friend Nicholas van Greef, the military attaché of the Netherlands
government. To both I told the same story of the Spanish Succession and
the quarrel of which it had been the occasion. But my colonel smiled
and laid a meaning finger against his nose; the Dutchman said drily it
was well to keep ladies’ names out of such affairs. I am convinced,
however, that neither of them had the faintest glimmering of the
truth. Having thus arranged matters with my seconds, I attempted next
to find my poor sister, hastening up her interminable stairs with an
impatience I leave you to imagine. Needless to say, she was not in the
garret, which was inhabited by Mademoiselle Sonia alone, her pretty
face swollen with weeping, her humour one of extraordinary caprices and
contradictions. She blamed me altogether for the catastrophe: I ought
not to have given Berthe a sou; I ought to have starved her back into
servitude. Women were intended for slaves; to make them free was to
give them the rope to hang themselves. For her part, said mademoiselle,
she thought a convent the right place for girls, and crochet work the
best occupation! At any other time I might have stared to hear such
sentiments from my sister’s friend, but for the moment I could think of
nothing but Berthe. To find her was my one desire. In this, however,
Sonia would afford me no assistance, frankly asking what would be the
good.
“‘The harm is done, my poor Paul,’ she said, looking at me sorrowfully.
‘Why should I expose you or her to an interview so unpleasant? How
could it profit any one?’
“I could not altogether see the force of this acquiescence in evil. I
said that the honour of one of the oldest families in France was at
stake; that if my sister did not leave the marquis I should kill her
with my own hands and fly the country. I implored Mademoiselle Sonia,
with every argument I thought might move her, to betray my sister’s
hiding-place. But she kept putting me off, mocked at my impatience, and
tried to learn, on her side, whether or not I meant to fight de Gonse.
“‘If you really wish to find out where she is,’ she cried at last,
‘why don’t you make me tell you? Why don’t you take me by the throat
and pound my head against the wall, as they do down-stairs with such
admirable success? Those women positively adore their men.’ As she
spoke she threw back her head and exposed her charming neck with a
gesture half defiant, half submissive! Upon my soul, I felt like
carrying her suggestion into effect and choking her in good earnest,
for I had become furious at her contrariety. But, restraining the
impulse, I saw there was nothing left for me save to retire.
“‘Mademoiselle Boremykin,’ I said, ‘you are heartless and wicked beyond
anything I could have imagined possible. You have helped to bring a
noble name to dishonour, and in place of remorse your only feelings
seem those of levity. I have the honour of wishing you good day.’
“De Gonse and I met the following morning in the Bois de Boulogne. His
had been the choice of arms, and he selected rapiers, knowing, like
all men of the world, that a pistol has the knack of killing. I ground
my teeth at his decision, for he had the reputation of being a fine
fencer, while I could boast no more than the average proficiency. He
appeared to great advantage on the field; so cool, so handsome, such
a _grand seigneur_--in every way so marked a contrast to myself. It
was not unnatural, however: he was there to prick me in the shoulder,
I to kill him if I could. Small wonder that my face was livid, that
my eyes burned like coals in my head, that I was petulant with my own
seconds, insulting towards my adversary’s. I looked at these with
scorn, the supporters of a scoundrel, themselves, no doubt, seducers
and libertines like him they served. My dear old colonel chid me for my
discourtesy--bade me be a _galant homme_ for his sake, if not for mine.
I kissed his wrinkled hand before them all; I said I respected men only
who were honourable like himself. Every one laughed at my extravagance,
at the poor old man’s embarrassment. It was plain they considered me a
coward. They said things I could not help overhearing. But I cared for
nothing. My God, no! I was there to kill de Gonse, not to pick quarrels
with his friends.
“We were placed in position. Everything was _en règle_. The doctors, of
whom there were a couple, lit cigarettes and did not even trouble to
open their wallets. They knew it to be an affair of scratches.
“The handkerchief fell. We set to, warily, cautiously, looking into
each other’s eyes like wild beasts. More than once he could have killed
me, so openly did I expose myself to his attack, so unconscionably did
I force him back, hoping to give lunge for lunge, my life for his. But
in his adventurous past de Gonse must often have crossed swords with
men no less desperate than myself; it was no new thing to him to face
a determined foe, or to guard himself against thrusts that were meant
to kill. His temper was under admirable control; he handled his weapon
like a master in the school of arms, and allowed me to tire myself out
against what seemed a wall of steel. Suddenly he forced my guard with a
stroke like a lightning-flash; I felt my left arm burn as though melted
wax had been dropped upon it. Some one seized my sword; some one caught
me in his arms!
“My dizziness, my bewilderment, were the sensations of a moment,
and in a trice I was myself again. The wound was nothing--a nicely
calculated stroke through the fleshy part of the arm. I laughed when
they talked of honour satisfied and of our return to the barracks. I
said I never felt better in my life. It was true, for I was possessed
with a berserker rage, as they call it in the old Norse sagas; a bullet
through my heart could not have hurt me then. The seconds demurred;
they told me that I was in their hands; that I was overruled; repeated,
like parrots, that honour was satisfied. This only made me laugh the
more. I went up to the marquis and asked him was it necessary for me to
strike him again? I called him a coward, and swore I would post him in
every salon and club in Paris. I slapped him in the face with my bare
hand--my right, for my left felt numb and strange. There was another
scene. De Gonse appeared discomposed for the first time; the seconds
were pale and more than perturbed. One had a sense of death being in
the air. There were consultations apart; appeals to which I would not
listen; expostulations as idle as the wind. De Gonse, trembling with
wrath, left himself unreservedly to his seconds, walking up and down
at a little distance like a sentinel on duty. I also strolled about
to show how strong and fit I was--the angriest, the bitterest man in
France.
“At length it was decided that we might continue the combat. De Gonse
solemnly protested, bidding us all take notice that he had been allowed
no alternative. My colonel was almost in tears. Repeatedly, as a favour
to himself, he besought me to apologise for that second blow and retire
from the field. But I was adamant. ‘_Mon colonel_,’ I said to him, in a
whisper, ‘this is a quarrel in which one of us must fall. Let me assure
you it is not about a trifle.’
“Again we ranged ourselves; again we grasped our rapiers, saluted, and
stood ready for the game to begin. The marquis’s coolness had somewhat
forsaken him. The finest equanimity is ruffled by a buffet in the face;
one cannot command calm at will. His friends said afterwards that he
showed extraordinary self-control, but I should rather have described
it as extraordinary uneasiness. No duellist cares for a berserker
foe. De Gonse was, moreover, of a superstitious fancy. There are such
things, besides, as presentiments; I think he must have had one then.
God knows, perhaps he was struggling with remorse. The handkerchief
fell; we crossed swords, and the combat was resumed with the utmost
vivacity. The air rang with the shivering steel. The doctors smoked
no longer, but looked on with open mouths. A duel in grim earnest is
seldom seen in France, though I venture to say there was one that
morning. It lasted only a minute; we had scarcely well begun before
I felt a stinging in my side, and saw, as in a dream, my enemy’s
triumphant face, red with his exertions. The exasperation of that
moment passes the power of words to describe. This was my revenge,
this a villain’s punishment on the field of honour! He would leave it
without a scratch, to be lionised in salons, to relate in boudoirs the
true inwardness of the quarrel! Remember, I felt all this within the
confines of a single second, as a drowning man in no more brief a space
passes his entire life in review. Imagine, if you can, my rage, my
uncontrollable indignation, my unbounded fury. What I did then I would
do now,--by God, I would,--if need be, a dozen times! I caught his
rapier in my left hand and held it in the aching wound, while with my
unimpeded right I stabbed him through the body, again and again, with
amazing swiftness--so that he fell pierced in six places. There was a
terrible outcry; shouts of ‘Murder!’ ‘Coward!’ ‘Assassin!’ on every
side looks of horror and detestation. One of the marquis’s seconds
beset me like a maniac with his cane, and I believe I should have
killed him too had not the old colonel run between us.
“The other second was supporting de Gonse’s head and assisting the
surgeons to staunch the pouring blood. But it was labour lost; any one
could see that he was doomed. From a little distance I watched them
crowding about him where he lay on the grass; for I had drawn apart,
sick and dizzy with my own wounds, conscious that I was now an outcast
among men. At last one came towards me; it was Clut, the doctor. He
said nothing, but drew me gently towards the group he had just quitted.
They opened for me to pass as though I were a leper. A second later I
stood beside the dying man, gazing down at his face.
“‘He wishes to shake hands with you,’ said the other doctor, solemnly,
guiding the marquis’s hand upward in his own. ‘Let his death atone, he
says; he wishes to part in amity.’
“I folded my arms.
“‘No, monsieur,’ I said. ‘What you ask is impossible.’ With that
I walked away, not daring to look back lest I might falter in my
resolution. I can say honestly that de Gonse’s death weighs on me very
little; yet I would give ten years of my life to unsay those final
words--to recall that last brutality. In my dreams I often see him so,
holding out the hand, which I try to grasp. I hear the doctor saying,
‘He wishes to part in amity.’
“I fainted soon after leaving my opponent’s side. I lay on the
ground where I fell, no one caring to come to my assistance. When
consciousness returned I saw them lifting the marquis’s body into a
carriage, and I needed no telling to learn that he was dead. My colonel
and Van Greef assisted me into another cab, neither of them saying a
word nor showing me the least compassion. I suppose I should have been
thankful they did so much. Was not I accursed? Were they not involved
in my dishonour? They abandoned me, wounded, faint, and parching with
thirst, to find my own way to Paris. Alone? No, not altogether. On the
seat beside me my colonel laid a flask of brandy and a loaded pistol.
The first I drank; the revolver I pitched out of window. I never
thought to kill myself. For cheating at cards, for several varieties of
dishonour, yes. But not for what I had done--never in all the world.
My conscience was as undisturbed as that of a little child; excepting
always that--why had I not taken his hand!
“I was arrested, of course, and tried--tried for murder. You see, there
were too many in the secret for it to be long kept. It was a _cause
célèbre_, attracting universal attention. The quarrel concerned the
Spanish Succession; as to that they could not shake me. There were
many surmises, many suspicions, but no one stumbled on the truth.
To a single man only was it told--Maître Le Roux, my counsel. Him I
had to tell, for at first he would not take up my case at all. There
was a great popular outcry against me, the army furious and ashamed,
the bourgeoisie in hysterics. I was condemned; sentenced to death;
reprieved at the particular intercession of the Marquise de Gonse, the
dead man’s mother, who threw herself on her knees before the Chief
Executive--reprieved to transportation for life!
“You will be surprised I mention not my mother. Ah, mademoiselle, there
are some things which will not permit themselves to be told--even to
you. She went mad. She died. My military degradation is another of
those things unspeakable. The epaulets were torn from my shoulders, the
_galons_ from my sleeves, my sword broken in two; all this in public
before my regiment in hollow square. Picture for yourself, on every
side, those walls of faces, scarcely one not familiar; my colonel,
choking on his charger, the agitated master of ceremonies; my former
friends and comrades trying not to meet my eye; in the ranks many of
my own troopers crying, and the officers swearing at them below their
breath. My God, it was another Calvary!