The result of the play with Harrwitz had shaken the faith of the French players in Morphy. But as we left the café, he said laughingly to me, "How astonished all these men will be if Harrwitz does not get another game." And he did not. At dinner, I reasoned the matter with him, saying that the first requisite for any man engaged in a chess match, was rest for the brain; and that he ought, by this time, to be convinced of the absolute necessity of keeping early hours. And I wound up by exacting a promise from him that he would never be out of bed after midnight, during the match.
In the evening we went to the Opera Comique, and witnessed a very unsatisfactory performance of "La Part du Diable." Morphy has a great love for music, and his memory for any air he has once heard is astonishing. Mrs. Morphy is renowned in the salons of New Orleans as a brilliant pianist and musician, and her son, without ever having studied music, has a similar aptitude for it, and it is believed that he would have become as famous therein as in chess, had he given his attention to it. "La Part du Diable" was a new opera, and Morphy, after leaving the theatre, hummed over many of the airs to me, which he had just heard for the first time, with astonishing precision.
The next day we took a long drive among the "lions," and, in the evening, dined at the residence of that chess veteran and friend of Deschappelles and Labourdonnais, Monsieur Doazan. Harrwitz was of the company, and, for the nonce, acted Jupiter Triumphans in superb style. I felt indignant at such conduct towards a man so inoffensive and modest as Mr. Morphy, and I observed: "I am sorry, Mr. Harrwitz, you have not yet found Mr. Morphy in good fighting trim. The fact is, he has been preparing to meet you by not going to bed until common men are about to rise, but he has promised to retire early in future, and you will then find in him a very different antagonist." It was merely a hint, but the gentle Harrwitz did not like it. The following morning, Morphy said to me at breakfast, "If I beat Harrwitz to-day, you will say it is because I went to bed at eleven o'clock;" to which I replied, "Perhaps; but I do say that you lost the first two games because you went to bed at four."
The third and fourth games Morphy scored in beautiful style. The latter, Staunton declared, "would have excited the admiration of Labourdonnais," and the effect upon Harrwitz was interesting. During its progress, his conduct was quite gentlemanly, with the exception of a violent shaking consequent upon nervous excitement. There was cause for this. On the other side of the board sat Morphy, looking, in his peculiar way, like a block of impassible, living marble, the very embodiment of penetration and decision. No hesitancy or excitement there, but all cool, calm action, knowing where it must end; and, as he rose from his seat, everybody congratulated him on the score now standing two to two, and assured him they were confident what would be the result. We laughed heartily at these men who, but a few days previous, had looked woefully chopfallen, fearing that Harrwitz was too strong for Morphy.
The fifth game was played on the following Monday, and the Prussian lost it, although he had the move. Harrwitz felt uncomfortable, plainly feeling that his present antagonist was, as he expressed himself to a friend, "very much stronger than any he had ever met." We now had several days' intermission from play, the plea being "ill health;" and, finally, Morphy received a letter from his opponent, asking for a respite of a week or ten days, to which a reply was returned granting the request, on condition that, when the match was resumed, a game should be played daily, Sundays alone excepted. At the termination of ten days, Harrwitz lost the sixth game, so that the score now stood—Morphy, four; Harrwitz, two; drawn, none. And the latter, in spite of the agreement, was again absent from the battle-field for some days.
CHAPTER X.
MORPHY'S GREATEST BLINDFOLD FEAT.
Awaiting the return of his antagonist, Paul Morphy announced his intention of playing eight blindfold games, simultaneously, in the public café. It is needless to assure my readers that the mere announcement produced the greatest excitement; the newspapers heralded the fact throughout the city, and crowds of strangers came pouring into the Régence, and asking particulars of the habitués in relation to the approaching performance. Harrwitz had already asked Morphy to join him in a public display of the same description, to which the admission was to be five francs, and Morphy felt embarrassed in answering him; but the good offices of Mr. Lequesne arranged the difficulty, without hurting any one's amour propre, and the proposed exhibition was set on one side. Morphy has an intense dislike to money-fingering in connection with chess; and he made it a sine qua non that, if he played blindfold at all, the Café de la Régence should be open to any one who chose to walk in. The proprietor, Monsieur Delaunay, was only too glad to accede to this; not merely foreseeing that the exhibition would attract crowds to his establishment, and be an admirable advertisement, but also from a friendly feeling for our hero. The frequenters of the place used to say that Delaunay would give Morphy half his café, if he asked him for it.
The blindfold struggle was publicly announced to commence at noon; but, at an early hour, the crowd was already considerable. The billiard-tables in the further room were sacrificed to the exigencies of the occasion; I requested the waiters to put a thick cord round them, so as to rail off a space for Morphy, and a large easy-chair, placed in the enceinte, made the whole arrangements as comfortable for him as could be wished. He, however, was not up to the mark, as regards bodily health. Morphy is a water-drinker, and Paris water would cure any Maine Liquor Law bigot of Teetotalism in a week. Since the outset of the match with Harrwitz, he had been ailing, but he preferred playing to making excuses. His own expression was, "Je ne suis pas homme aux excuses"—(I am no man to make excuses,) and he was always ready for Harrwitz, although obliged to ride to the café. Nothing proves so satisfactorily to me Morphy's wondrous powers in chess, as his contests in France, laboring, as he constantly did, under positive bodily suffering. A man's brain will often be more than ordinarily active and clear when the body is weak from late illness; but it is not so when there is pain existing. At breakfast, on the morning fixed for this blindfold exhibition, he said to me, "I don't know how I shall get through my work to-day. I am afraid I shall be obliged to leave the room, and some evil-minded persons may think I am examining positions outside." Yet, in spite of this, he sits down, and, during ten long hours, creates combinations which have never been surpassed on the chess-board, although his opponents were men of recognized strength, and, as a collective body, Pawn and Two Moves stronger than the Birmingham eight.
The boards for Morphy's antagonists were arranged in the principal room of the café, numbered as follows:—