He laid his silk hat and one glove on an adjoining table, spread his
coat-tails, and deposited himself on the extreme edge of a chair--a
position which would enable him to regain his feet at a moment's notice
should any of my friends chance to join me. It is just such delicate
recognition of my rank and lordly belongings that makes Joseph's
companionship ofttimes a pleasure.
"You tell me, Joseph, that that crazy doctor stabbed the fat man in a
duel."
"Not _stabbed_, my Lord! That is not the nice word. It was done
so--_so_--so." And Joseph's wrist, holding an imaginary sword, performed
the grand thrust in the air. "He is a master with the rapier. When he
was at the Sorbonne he had five duels and never once a scratch. His
honor was most paramount. He would fight with anybody, and for the
smallest thing--if one man had a longer cane, or wore a higher hat, or
took cognac in his coffee. Not for the grisette or for the cards in the
face; not so big a thing as that; quite a small thing that nobody would
remember a moment. And with his friends always--never with the man he
did not before know."
"And was the fat man his friend?"
"His friend! Mon Dieu! they were like the brothers. One--two--five year,
I think--all the whole time of the instruction. I was not there, of
course, but a friend of mine tell me--a most truthful man, my friend."
"What was the row about? Cognac in his coffee?"
"I do not know--perhaps somethings. Yes, I do remember now. It was the
cutting of the hair. Barsac like it short and Mariguy like it long.
Barsac tried to cut the hair from Mariguy's head when he was asleep, and
then it began. It was in that little wood at the bridge at Surèsne that
they went to fight. You know you turn to the right and there is a little
place--all small trees--there it was.
"When they all got ready, there quickly arrive a carriage all dust, and
the horse in a sweat, and out jumps an old lady--it was Mariguy's
mother. Somebody had told her--not Mariguy, of course, but some student.
'Stop!' she cried; 'you do not my son kill. You, Barsac, you do nothing
but fight!' Then they all talk, and Mariguy say to Barsac, 'It cannot
be; my mother, as you see, is old. There is no one but me. If I am
wounded, she will be in the bed with fright. If I am killed, she will be
dead. It is my mother, you see, that you fight, not me.'
"Barsac take off his hat and bow to madame." (Joseph had now reached
for his own and was illustrating the incident with an appropriate
gesture.) "'Madame Mariguy,' said Barsac, 'I make ten thousand pardons.
I respect the devotion of the mother,' and he went back to Paris, and
Mariguy got into the carriage and go away with the mother."
"But, Joseph, of course that was not the last of it?"
"Yes, my Lord, until one year ago."
"Why, did they have another quarrel, Joseph?"
"No, not another--never but that one. They were for a long time what you
call friends of the bosom. Every day after that they see each other, and
every night they dine at the Louis d'Or below the Luxembourg. Then
pretty soon the doctor, he have to take his degree and come back to
Basle to live, and Monsieur Mariguy also have take his degree and become
a great advocate in Paris. Every week come a letter from Barsac to
Mariguy, and one from Mariguy to Barsac."
Joseph stopped in his narrative at this point, noticing perhaps some
shade of incredulity across my countenance, and said parenthetically: "I
am quite surprised, my Lord, that you have not this heard before. It was
quite the talk of Paris at the time. No? Well, then, I will tell you
everything as it did happen, for I do assure you that it is most
exciting.
"All this time--it was quite ten years, perhaps fifteen--not one word
does Monsieur Barsac say to Monsieur Mariguy about the insult of the
long hair. All the time, too, they are together. For the summer they go
to a little village in the Swiss mountains, and for the winter they go
to Nice, and 'most every night they play a little at the tables. It was
there I met them.
"One morning at Basle the doctor was at his table eating the breakfast
when the newspaper is put on the side. He read a little and sip his
coffee, and then he read a little more--all this, my Lord, was in the
papers at the time--I am quite astonished that you have not seen it--and
then the doctor make a loud cry, and throw the paper down, run
upstairs, pack his bag, jump into a fiacre and go like mad to the
station. The next morning he is in Paris, and at the house of his friend
Mariguy. In three days they are at Surèsne again--not in the little
wood, but in the garden of Monsieur Rochefort, who was his second. It
was against the law to go into the little wood to fight, so they took
the nearest place to their old meeting--a small sentiment, you see, my
Lord, which Monsieur the Doctor always enjoys.
"They toss up for the sun, and Monsieur Barsac he gets the shade. At the
first pass, no one is hurt. At the second, Monsieur Barsac has a little
scratch on his wrist, but no blood. The seconds make inspection most
careful. They regret that the encounter must go on, but the honor is not
yet satisfied. At the third, Monsieur Mariguy made a misstep, and
Monsieur Barsac's sword go into Monsieur Mariguy's shirt and come out at
Monsieur Mariguy's back.
"You can imagine what then take place. Doctor Barsac cry in a loud voice
that his honor is satisfied, and the next moment he is on his knees
beside his friend. Monsieur Mariguy is at once put in the bed, and for
one--two--three months he is dead one day and breathe a little the next.
Barsac never leave the house of his friend Monsieur Rochefort one
moment--not one day does he go back to Basle. Every night he is by the
bed of Monsieur Mariguy. Then comes the critical moment. Monsieur
Mariguy must have a new stomach; the old one is like a stocking with a
hole in the toe. Then comes the great triumph of Monsieur le Docteur.
All Paris come out to see. To make a stomach of silver is to make one
the fool, they say. The old doctors shake their heads, but Barsac he
only laugh. In one more month Monsieur Mariguy is on his feet, and every
day walks a little in the Bois near the house of Monsieur Rochefort. In
one more month he run, and eat himself full like a boy.
"He is now no longer the great advocate. He is the _example_ of Monsieur
Barsac. That is why he is here at the medical convention. They arrived
only yesterday and leave to-night. If you turn a little, my Lord, you
can see into the other room. There they sit smoking.--Ah! do you hear?
That is Monsieur Mariguy's laugh. Oh, they enjoy themselves! They have
drank two bottles of Johannisberger already--twenty-five francs each, if
you please, my Lord. The head waiter showed me the bottles. But what
does Barsac care? He cut everything out of the insides of the Prince
Morin one day last month, and had for a fee fifty thousand francs and
the order of St. John."
I bent my head in the direction of Joseph's index finger and easily
recognized the two men at the table. The smaller man, Barsac, was even
more trim and alert-looking than when I caught a glimpse of him in the
bedroom. As he sat and talked to Mariguy he looked more like an officer
in the French army than a doctor. His hair was short, his mustache
pointed, and his beard closely trimmed. He had two square shoulders and
a slim waist, and talked with his hands as if they were part of his
mental equipment. The other man, Mariguy, the "example," was just a fat,
jolly, good-natured Frenchman, who to all appearance loved a bottle of
wine better than he did a brief.
Joseph was about to begin again when I stopped him with this inquiry:
"There is one thing in your story, Joseph, that I don't quite get: you
say they were students together?"
"Yes, my Lord."
"That the first duel--the one that the mother stopped--was fifteen years
ago?"
"Quite true, my Lord."
"And that this last duel was fought a year ago, and that all that time
they were together whenever they could be, and devoted friends?"
"Every word true, my Lord."
"Well, then, why didn't they fight before?"
Joseph looked at me with a curious expression on his face--one rather of
disappointment, as if I had utterly failed to grasp his meaning.
"Fight before! It would have been impossible, my Lord. Barsac's honor
was at the stake."
"And he must wait fifteen years," I asked with some impatience, "to
vindicate it?"
"Certainly, my Lord--or twice that time if it was necessary. It was only
when he read in the paper at the table of his breakfast that morning in
Basle that he knew."
"What difference did that make?"
"Every difference, my Lord; Madame Mariguy, the mother, was only the day
before dead."