I was desirous to ascertain the truth. My second still lay at full length on the ground; Monsieur de Witcheritche had thought it better to retire to a considerable distance, behind a clump of trees; my adversary turned his head aside, waiting for me to take aim, which I had no purpose of doing, although convinced that his weapons were not dangerous; but the baron"s cheeses were within two yards of me, and I discharged my pistol at them. The explosion blew the three-cornered hat away, and a mult.i.tude of sc.r.a.ps of paper adhered to the little Neufchatels. While I was laughing over the end of my duel, Raymond came toward me with outstretched hand, shouting at a distance:
"It"s all settled, my friend; I am satisfied, embrace me!"
"What!" said I; "you don"t want another shot? I have pistols, too."
"No, my dear fellow, let"s forget it all; embrace me, I beg you."
"So be it; I will do whatever is agreeable to you."
While my neighbor threw himself into my arms, the baron ran to his cheeses, and was like one turned to stone when he saw that they were all speckled with bits of paper.
"Mein jheese, tay shmell ov te bowder lige te teffel!" he said, putting his nose to them.
"A thousand pardons, monsieur le baron; but as I did not wish to fire at my friend Raymond, I aimed in this direction; the bullet must have gone through them."
Raymond flushed to his ears; my ironical manner led him to fear that I had detected his little fraud; but I did not care to deprive him of the pleasure of being able to say everywhere that he had fought a duel. I ran to my second, who was still on the ground, and urged him to rise; he did not stir, and I saw that the poor devil had swooned during our battle. I called Raymond to my a.s.sistance; he had a flask of strong aromatic vinegar in his pocket, with which we inundated Vauvert"s face, and he finally came to himself. After feeling himself all over and making sure that he was not wounded, he tried to make us think that his swoon was caused by his affection for us both. We thanked him and set him on his legs; but we had to take an arm each to help him to walk; for he was in no condition to stand erect without our support.
Monsieur de Witcheritche put the remains of his cheeses in his pocket handkerchief, and we left the wood. The rain continued, but my second could not walk fast, so that we were compelled to endure it. Raymond was in the highest spirits; he was overjoyed by his day"s experience. He knew Vauvert, and he was sure that his duel would soon be the absorbing topic of the whole company of amateur musicians, even if he himself should not take pains to spread it everywhere.
"You showed extraordinary courage, messieurs," said Vauvert, as we marched along; "such sang-froid! such calmness! that was true valor!"
"Oh! yez! yez! tese two chentlemens pe fery prave."
"Oh! my neighbor Raymond"s not like other men; I am sure that he would fight the same way ten times a day."
Raymond bowed, but said nothing. I fancied that he realized that I knew how his pistols were loaded.
At last, we spied madame la baronne seated under a large tree; her husband ran to her and took her arm, and we walked toward the barrier.
"I haf mooch abbetide," said Madame de Witcheritche to her husband.
"Ve vill tine soon, matame."
The couple bowed to us and quickened their pace. I presumed that they were on the lookout for a restaurant; but I noticed that, all the way from the barrier, two huge dogs had been following monsieur le baron, who did all that he could to drive them away, but to no purpose.
"Do those two dogs belong to Monsieur le Baron de Witcheritche?" I asked Vauvert.
"No, I don"t think so; I never saw at his place anything but poodles."
"It"s strange," said Raymond; "he must have something in his pocket that attracts them."
I looked for a cab, but the rain had caused them all to be taken up. We had lost sight of Monsieur de Witcheritche and his wife, when we heard loud cries, and soon saw the two dogs running for their lives, one with a bologna sausage, the other with a bit of salt pork in its mouth. The baron and baroness came running after them, crying:
"Shtop tief! shtop tief! Ach! te file peasts! tey haf shtole our tinner!"
Madame la baronne, being weaker than her husband, was obliged to stop, and told us how the two dogs had succeeded in extracting from monsieur le baron"s pocket the dinner she and her dear spouse, who had been a long time arranging that little outing for her, expected to eat in the country.
While we were consoling the poor woman, Monsieur de Witcheritche, who was not the man to abandon his sausage and his pork, kept on in pursuit of the dogs, at which he threw all the stones he could find on the road. He had already wounded one and compelled it to slacken its pace.
Hoping to hit the other, which was just pa.s.sing the barrier, he threw a great stone at it with all his force. But the stone was ill-aimed, and, instead of striking the dog, struck the customs clerk in the eye, as he was looking up at the sky to see if the storm were pa.s.sing away.
The poor man fell, crying:
"I am dead!"
His comrades ran to him. One of the dogs, which was then pa.s.sing the city limits, ran among the clerks" legs and made them stagger. The second dog, trying to escape, was seized by monsieur le baron, who thought of nothing but his dinner and pursued his course, unmindful of anything else. He succeeded in catching the dog by the tail, and a battle ensued between him and the animal, which refused to give up the sausage. The soldiers from the neighboring post ran up in response to the outcries of the clerks. The vehicles of all kinds pa.s.sing in or out were compelled to stop; the soldiers would allow no one to pa.s.s until they had found out what the matter was. A crowd gathered to see what was going on, and everyone put forward some conjecture.
"It"s an important prisoner whom they arrested just as he was leaving the city," said one, "and it seems that he wounded the clerk who seized him."
"No; they"ve just discovered some contraband goods in one of those wagons; it was being smuggled in."
Amid the tumult, which was augmented by the barking of the dogs, the baron shouted triumphantly:
"I haf him! I haf him!" and he waved aloft the bologna sausage, which he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from his enemy"s jaws; then, before the poor devil whose eye he had put out had recovered consciousness, Monsieur de Witcheritche slipped into the crowd and returned to his wife, leaving the clerks, soldiers, and bystanders asking one another what it was all about.
Madame la baronne had recovered her husband, Vauvert was in a condition to walk unaided, and Raymond began to play the dandy. I left the company and took a cab to return to Paris.
XVIII
A LITTLE DISSERTATION IN WHICH THERE IS NOTHING ENTERTAINING
When I arrived at Caroline"s it was after five o"clock; my duel and its sequel had prolonged my absence, and she scolded me for going away without waking her, and said that she had been vexed at my delay. I would have preferred that she should have been bored, but I realized that she had had no leisure for that; there are so many thousand things to do in a new apartment, to say nothing of the indispensable purchases.
She showed me a very modish bonnet that she had bought, and tried it on for me. It was a fascinating one; however, at twenty years, with a pretty face and a graceful figure, a woman might wear a sugar loaf on her head and she would still be good-looking. It seemed to me that I liked her better in her little cap than in a bonnet; but I concluded that I should get used to it.
The rest of the costume must necessarily correspond with the bonnet; that was in the regular order. I have always wondered at the importance which women attribute to all the gewgaws and trifles which are called dress! at the amount of thought and calculation they waste upon the best way of placing a flower or a ribbon! With what care they arrange a bit of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, a bouquet, a curl! All this is sometimes the result of several days" meditation! But let us not charge it to them as a crime: it is to seduce us that they array themselves; we should be very ungrateful to criticise what they do to please us.
Caroline had changed already; she wore her new garb with much ease of manner; she was no longer the grisette of Rue des Rosiers, but the _pet.i.te-maitresse_ of the Chaussee d"Antin. Women form themselves in everything more rapidly than we do. Observe yonder villager: after three months in the city, he is still awkward, loutish, and embarra.s.sed. But this little peasant girl left her home only a week ago, and already her parents would not recognize her; ere long she will not recognize her parents.
A fortnight had pa.s.sed since Caroline"s installation on Rue Caumartin. I saw her every day; I dare not say that it was love that I felt for her; certainly it was not a very impa.s.sioned love; but she still pleased me as much as ever. I believed that she loved me more than at the beginning of our liaison; at all events, she told me so.
Things had not turned out precisely as I had arranged, for she had ceased to go to her shop, and she could hardly be said to work in her room; but, by way of compensation, she had acquired the manners of good society, the tone of a lady, and the general aspect of an _elegante_. It is true that I refused her nothing, although I frequently considered the project of reducing my expenses. But how can you refuse anything to a pretty woman who entreats you with a melting voice, and, while entreating you, looks at you in a certain way? As for myself, I confess that I have never had the strength to resist. It has been my misfortune, perhaps.
I began to discover that what I called gewgaws formed a very important item in the keeping of a woman. I ruined myself in trifles: every day it was a dress, a neckerchief, a hat, or a shawl! I do not know how Caroline went about it, but she invariably proved to me that it was the fashion, and, therefore, that it was necessary; I am too just to refuse a woman what is necessary. But my income was insufficient; I had borrowed; I was running in debt. What in heaven"s name would happen if she should take it into her head to want the superfluous!
Every other day I found a bouquet at my door when I went home. My little Nicette did not forget me, and I never went to see her; if I chanced to pa.s.s her stand, I never thought of her being there and never glanced in her direction! And yet, every time that I found a bouquet, I determined that I would go to thank her; but Caroline gave me so much occupation that I never had a free moment; every day there was some new pleasure party; I never had the courage to refuse her; she knew a way to make me approve all her plans. Her graceful ways charmed me, her wit fascinated me, her merriment amused me; the hussy was so adroit in making the most of all the gifts she had received from nature!
One morning I received a note written in an unfamiliar hand. It was from Madame de Marsan, who reproached me good-naturedly for not keeping the promise I had made to attend her musical evenings, and invited me to a small party she was giving at her country house. I had almost forgotten Madame de Marsan, for I often forget a person who has set me on fire the night before; a very lucky thing for one who takes fire so easily; it proves that the heart has no share in the nonsense we call love. I determined to go to the party in question, for I did not propose that Mademoiselle Caroline should make me lose sight of all my acquaintances; I ought not to abandon good society because she could not go thither with me. The girl had already led me into too much folly! And there was my sister, whose letter I had not answered, and who expected me from day to day! I was not at all content with myself. But the torrent bore me on; I closed my eyes and let myself go.
Someone entered my room: it was my neighbor, whom I had not seen since the day of our famous duel. He had a shrewd suspicion that I was not taken in by his false gallantry--I who had witnessed his abject terror on the day of the _partie fine_. I knew that he had made a great noise about his valor, prating of his duel to everybody he saw; but he had avoided meeting me in company; my presence would have embarra.s.sed him in his narrative of our combat. I wondered what he wanted of me.
"Good-morning, my dear friend!" he began; "how goes the health this morning?"
"Why, I am inclined to think it goes too fast; I am going at a rapid pace."
"You must be prudent, neighbor."