II
Joseph's departure left my mind in an unsettled state. I hadn't the slightest interest in the great surgeon who had made the cure of the year, nor in the stout advocate with his nickel-plated digestive apparatus. Both of them might have broken every mirror in the hotel and have thrown the fragments out of the window, and the manager after them, without raising my pulse a beat. Neither did the medical convention nor the doctor's exhibit cause me a moment's thought. Such things were commonplace and of every-day occurrence. Only the dramatic in life appeals to so staid and gray an old painter as myself, and even Joseph's picturesque imagination could not imbue either one of the incidents of the morning with that desirable quality.
What really did appeal to me as I conjured up in my mind the picture of the fat man sprawled over the sofa-cushions roaring with laughter was the duel and the causes that led up to it. Why, if the man was his friend, had the doctor selected the hilarious advocate as an antagonist, and what could have induced the surgeon to pick out that particular section of his friend's surface in which to insert his sword.
That same night, in the smoking-room of the hotel, Joseph caught sight of me as he passed the open door and moved forward to my table. He had changed his dress of the morning, discarding the inflammatory waistcoat, and was now upholstered in a full suit of black. He explained that there were some friends of his living in the village who were going to have some music. The Englishman was in bed and asleep, and now that he was sure that I was comfortable, he could give himself some little freedom, with his mind at rest.
I motioned him to a seat.
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."
SIMPLE FOLK