The blood which issued from the little fawn made a widening pool, and one saw the ladies of the hunt, who came to look as near as possible, pluck up their habits so that they would not tread in it. The sight of the great stag crushed by weariness, gradually drooping his branching head, tormented by the howls of the hounds which the whipper-in held back with difficulty, and that of the little one, cowering beside him and dying with gaping throat, would have been touching had one given way to sentiment.
I noticed that the imminent slaying of the stag excited a certain curious fever. Around me the women and young girls especially elbowed and wriggled their way to the front, and shuddered, and were glad.
They cut the throats of the beasts, the big and the little, amid absolute and religious silence, the silence of a sacrament. Madame Lacaille vibrated from head to foot. Marie was calm, but there was a gleam in her eyes; and little Marthe, who was hanging on to me, dug her nails into my arm. The prince was prominent on our side, watching the last act of the run. He had remained in the saddle. He was more splendidly red than the others—empurpled, it seemed, by reflections from a throne. He spoke in a loud voice, like one who is accustomed to govern and likes to discourse; and his outline had the very form of bidding. He expressed himself admirably in our language, of which he knew the intimate graduations. I heard him saying, "These great maneuvers, after all, they're a sham. It's music-hall war, directed by scene-shifters. Hunting's better, because there's blood. We get too much unaccustomed to blood, in our prosaic, humanitarian, and bleating age. Ah, as long as the nations love hunting, I shall not despair of them!"
Just then, the crash of the horns and the thunder of the pack released drowned all other sounds. The prince, erect in his stirrups, and raising his proud head and his tawny mustache above the bloody and cringing mob of the hounds, expanded his nostrils and seemed to sniff a battlefield.
The next day, when a few of us were chatting together in the street near the sunken post where the old jam-pot lies, Benoît came up, full of a tale to tell. Naturally it was about the prince. Benoît was dejected and his lips were drawn and trembling. "He's killed a bear!" said he, with glittering eye; "you should have seen it, ah! a tame bear, of course. Listen—he was coming back from hunting with the Marquis and Mademoiselle Berthe and some people behind. And he comes on a wandering showman with a performing bear. A simpleton with long black hair like feathers, and a bear that sat on its rump and did little tricks and wore a belt. The prince had got his gun. I don't know how it came about but the prince he got an idea. He said, 'I'd like to kill that bear, as I do in my own hunting. Tell me, my good fellow, how much shall I pay you for firing at the beast? You'll not be a loser, I promise you.' The simpleton began to tremble and lift his arms up in the air. He loved his bear! 'But my bear's the same as my brother!' he says. Then do you know what the Marquis of Monthyon did? He just simply took out his purse and opened it and put it under the chap's nose; and all the smart hunting folk they laughed to see how the simpleton changed when he saw all those bank notes. And naturally he ended by nodding that it was a bargain, and he'd even seen so many of the rustlers that he turned from crying to laughing! Then the prince loaded his gun at ten paces from the bear and killed it with one shot, my boy; just when he was rocking left and right, and sitting up like a man. You ought to have seen it! There weren't a lot there; but I was there!"
The story made an impression. No one spoke at first. Then some one risked the opinion. "No doubt they do things like that in Hungary or Bohemia, or where he reigns. You wouldn't see it here," he added, innocently.
"He's from Austria," Tudor corrected.
"Yes," muttered Crillon, "but whether he's Austrian or whether he's Bohemian or Hungarian, he's a grandee, so he's got the right to do what he likes, eh?"
Eudo looked as if he would intervene at this point and was seeking words. (Not long before that he had had the queer notion of sheltering and nursing a crippled hind that had escaped from a previous run, and his act had given great displeasure in high places.) So as soon as he opened his mouth we made him shut it. The idea of Eudo in judgment on princes!
And the rest lowered their heads and nodded and murmured, "Yes, he's a grandee."