"Dead! Why, don't you see he is? Come down I say—come, descend from your Belvedere—the farce is played out, and your legs are all right. You are a rank coward! however, no one is aware of it but me. Don't let others see it!" and in a minute Adolphe was at my side.
"Listen, you fire-eater! and I will make you a hero, though you could not manage to make yourself one. There were four shots fired; now, take your gun, and remember that the two first, those ghastly holes in the chest, were your handiwork—do you hear?"
"Yes, but what a horrible morning! what a brute! what a savage country!"
"True, it is not like the Boulevard des Italiens;" and a few minutes after, Adolphe received, with some confusion, attributed to modesty, the congratulations of all the party. This diffidence, as it may be imagined, did not last long; his assurance soon returned, and the hurrahs had scarcely died away, before he had imagined and given a very graphic description of the last moments of the gallant boar. His toilet made, the monstrous carcass was placed upon a litter, hastily constructed with the branches of a tree, and the peasants, hoisting it on their shoulders, bore the deceased monarch of the woods in triumph to the chateau.
In the evening, Adolphe's self-satisfaction was completed by an ovation from the ladies, who bestowed upon him the most flattering epithets. From the prettiest lips I heard, "What! this Parisian! this pale and slender young man, with such delicate hands and rose-coloured nails, fought face to face with this terrible beast? Admirable! And he was not frightened?"
"Frightened, ladies," said I, "why he was smoking a cigar all the time!" And the secret was so well kept, and Adolphe so bepraised, that I am sure had I felt disposed to throw a doubt upon the circumstances, he would have stoutly contended that he really did kill the animal himself; and, to say the truth, he was to a certain extent authorized to say so, for the head, handsomely decorated, was sent to his mother, the following words having been nicely printed on the tusks:
"Killed by Gustave Adolphe de M. the 15th of August, 18—."
In the course of time Adolphe's nerves improved so much that he could manage to knock down a leash of birds, or roll over a hare; but boars and wolves he declined to have anything further to do with; and when I met him by accident some years after, in the presence of mutual friends, he said, "Ah! de Crignelle, what two famous shots those were I put into that boar! But, gentlemen," he continued, with a sigh which seemed pumped up from his very heels, "what terrible forests those are of Le Morvan, and how dangerous the chasse aux sangliers!"