It was with the recollection of the effect he made on me thus clad, that, sixteen years later, I wrote the scene between Comte Hermann and Karl, a scene where, at the moment of letting his nephew go to fight a pistol duel, Comte Hermann buttons Karl's coat and tucks the ends of his collar under his cravat. It is well known how difficult it is to hit a man clad wholly in black. When Carrel was wounded by Giradin, a year or two later, it was on the few threads from the end of his yellow waistcoat which stuck out beyond his black coat.
I shared my observation with Bixio.
"Where will you aim?" he asked me.
"I do not know, upon my word," I replied.
Suddenly I squeezed him by the arm.
"Well?" he asked.
"He has cotton wool in his ears," I said; "I will try to break his head for him."
Meanwhile, M. Gaillardet was talking animatedly with the seconds, and it was easily seen that his gestures were negative ones. Indeed, he refused a third time to fight with swords. His two seconds came to announce that his resolution on this point was immovable; there was nothing more left to do but to choose a spot for the duel. We left the carriage where it was, instructing the driver to come when he heard the firing and we plunged into the wood. After walking for five minutes we found a suitable opening: straight and without the sun. There were but the final settlements to make—the business of the seconds—they met and entered into committee. Meanwhile, I placed the letters intended for my mother, in case of accident, in Bixio's charge. My final injunctions to him were delivered in so simple a manner and in such confident tones, that Bixio took my hand and pressed it, saying—
"Bravo! dear fellow! I should not have believed you would have been so cool under the circumstances."
"It is on such occasions that I am cool," I said to him; "I slept badly the night after M. Gaillardet's provocation; but, it is part of my very character—temperament, whatever you like to call it—from a doctor's point of view, to be far less moved by danger the nearer it approaches me."