The Duel by Joseph Conrad - Part 6 of 7

The delicate attentions of his adoring sister had secured for the general perfect liberty of movement and the house where he was a guest. He had even his own entrance through a small door in one corner of the orangery. Thus he was not exposed that evening to the necessity of dissembling his agitation before the calm ignorance of the other inmates. He was glad of it. It seemed to him that if he had to open his lips he would break out into horrible and aimless imprecations. Start breaking furniture, smashing china and glass. From the moment he opened the private door and while ascending the 28 steps of a winding staircase, giving access to the corridor on which his room opened, he went through a horrible and humiliating scene in which an infuriated madman with bloodshot eyes and a foaming mouth played inconceivable havoc with everything inanimate that may be found in a well-appointed dining room. When he opened the door of his apartment the fit was over and his bodily fatigue was so great that he had to catch at the backs of the chairs while crossing the room to reach a low and broad divan on which he let himself fall heavily. His moral prostration was still greater. That brutality of feeling which he had known only when charging the enemy, saber in hand, amazed this man of 40 who did not recognize in it the instinctive fury of his menaced passion. But in his mental and bodily exhaustion this passion got cleared, distilled, refined into a sentiment of melancholy despair and having perhaps to die before he had taught this beautiful girl to love him. That night General Hubert stretched out on his back with his hands over his eyes or lying on his breast with his face buried in a cushion made the full pilgrimage of emotions, nauseating disgust at the absurdity of the situation, doubt of his own fitness to conduct his existence and mistrust of his best sentiments. For what the devil did he want to go to Fouché for? He knew them all in turn. I am not an idiot, neither more nor less, he thought, a sensitive idiot, because I overheard two men talking in a cafe. I am an idiot afraid of lies, whereas in life it is only truth that matters. Several times he got up and walking in his socks in order not to be heard, by anybody downstairs, drank all the water he could find in the dark, and he tasted the torments of jealousy, too. She would marry somebody else. His very soul writhed. The tenacity of that farad, the awful persistence of that imbecile brute, came to him with the tremendous force of a relentless destiny. General Hubert trembled as he put down the empty water ewer. He will have me, he thought. General Hubert was tasting every emotion that life has to give. He had in his dry mouth the faint sickly flavor of fear, not the excusable fear before a young girl's candid and amused glance, but the fear of death and the honorable man's fear of cowardice. But if true courage consists in going out to meet an odious danger from which our body, soul, and heart recoil together, General Hubert had the opportunity to practice it for the first time in his life. He had charged exultingly at batteries and at infantry squares, and ridden with messages through a hail of bullets without thinking anything about it. His business now was to sneak out unheard at break of day to an obscure and revolting death. General Hubert never hesitated. He carried two pistols on a leather bag, which he slung over his shoulder. Before he had crossed the garden, his mouth was dry again. He picked two oranges. It was only after shutting the gate after him that he felt a slight faintness. He staggered on. Disregarding it, and after going a few yards, regained the command of his legs, and the colorless and pellucid dawn of the wood of pines detached its columns of trunks and its green canopy very clearly against the rocks of the gray hillside. He kept his eyes fixed on it steadily, and sucked at an orange as he walked. That temperamental, good-humored coolness in the face of danger, which made him an officer, liked by his men, and appreciated by his superiors, was gradually asserting itself. It was like going into battle, arriving at the edge of the wood. He sat down on a boulder, holding the other orange in his hand, and reproached himself for coming so ridiculously early on the ground. Before very long, however, he heard the swishing of bushes, footsteps on the hard ground, and the sounds of a disjointed, long conversation. A voice somewhere behind him said boastfully, He's game for my bag. He thought to himself, Here they are. What's this about game? Are they talking to me? And becoming aware of the other orange in his hand, he thought further. These are very good oranges. They own his own tree. I may just as well eat this orange now, instead of flinging it away. Emerging from a wilderness of rocks and bushes, General Farad and his seconds discovered General Hubert engaged in peeling the orange. They stood still, waiting till he looked up. Then the seconds raised their hats, while General Farad, putting his hands behind his back, walked aside a little away. I am compelled to ask one of you messieurs to act for me. I have brought no friends. Will you? The one-eyed curioseur said judiciously, That cannot be refused. The other veteran remarked, It's awkward all the same. Owing to the state of the people's mind in this part of the country, there was one I could trust safely with the object of your presence here, explained General Hubert urbainly. They saluted, looked round, and remarked both together, Poor ground. It's unfit. Why bother about ground, measurements, and so on? Let us simplify matters. Load the two pairs of pistols, I will take those of General Farad, and let him take mine. Or better still, let us take a mixed pair, one of each pair. Then let us go into the woods and shoot at sight, while you remain outside. We did not come here for ceremonies, but for war, war to the death. Any ground is good enough for that. If I fall, you must leave me where I lie and clear out. It wouldn't be healthy for you to be found hanging about here after that. It appeared after a short parley that General Farad was willing to accept these conditions. While the seconds were loading the pistols, he could be heard whistling, and was seen to rub his hands with perfect contentment. He flung off his coat briskly, and General Hubert took off his own and folded it carefully on a stone. Suppose you take your principal to the other side of the wood and let him enter exactly in ten minutes from now, suggested General Hubert, calmly, but feeling as if he were giving directions for his own execution. This, however, was his last moment of weakness. Wait, let us compare watches first. He pulled out his own. The officer with the chipped nose went over to borrow the watch of General Farad. They bent their heads over them for a time. That's it, at four minutes to six by yours, seven to two by mine. It was the Curassier who remained by the side of General Hubert, keeping his one eye fixed immovably on the white face of the watch he held in the palm of his hand. He opened his mouth, waiting for the beat of the last second long before he snapped out the word, avances. General Hubert moved on, passing from the glaring sunshine of the provincial morning into the cool and aromatic shade of the pines. The ground was clear between the reddish trunks, whose multitude, leaning at slightly different angles, confused his eye at first. It was like going into battle. The commanding quality of confidence in himself woke up in his breast. He was all to his affair. The problem was how to kill the adversary. Nothing short of that would free him from this imbecile nightmare. It's no use wounding that brute, thought General Hubert. He was known as a resourceful officer. His comrades years ago used also to call him the Strategist, and it was a fact that he could think in the presence of the enemy. Whereas Farad had been always a mere fighter, but a dead shot, unluckily. I must draw his fire at the greatest possible range, said General Hubert to himself. At that moment he saw something white moving far off between the trees, the shirt of his adversary. He stepped out at once between the trunks, exposing himself freely, then quick as lightning leaped back. It had been a risky move, but it succeeded in its object. Almost simultaneously, with the pop of a shot, a small piece of bark chipped off by the bullet stung his ear painfully. General Farad, with one shot expended, was getting cautious. Peeping around the tree, General Hubert could not see him at all. This ignorance of the foe's whereabouts carried with it a sense of insecurity. General Hubert felt himself abominably exposed on his flank and rear. Again, something white fluttered in his sight. Ha! The enemy was still on his front then. He had feared a turning movement, but apparently General Farad was not thinking of it. General Hubert saw him pass without special haste from one tree to another, and the straight line of approach. With great firmness of mind, General Hubert stayed his hand. Too far yet. He knew he was no marksman. He must be a waiting game to kill. Wishing to take advantage of the greater thickness of the trunk, he sank down to the ground, extended at full length onto his enemy. He had his person completely protected. Exposing himself would not do now, because the other was too near by this time. A conviction that Farad would presently do something rash was like balm to General Hubert's soul. But to keep his chin raised off the ground was irksome, and not much use either. He peeped round, exposing a fraction of his head with dread, but really with little risk. His enemy, as a matter of fact, did not expect to see anything of him so far down as that. General Hubert caught a fleeting view of General Farad shifting trees again, with deliberate caution. He despises my shooting, he thought. Displaying that insight into the mind of his antagonist, which is of such great help in winning battles, he was confirmed in his tactics of immobility. If I could only watch my rear as well as my front, he thought anxiously, longing for the impossible. It required some force of character to lay his pistols down, but on a sudden impulse, General Hubert did this very gently, one on each side of him. In the army he had been looked upon as a bit of a dandy, because he used to shave and put on a clean shirt on the days of battle. As a matter of fact, he had always been very careful of his personal appearance. In a man of nearly 40, in love with a young and charming girl, this praiseworthy self-respect may run to such little weaknesses as, for instance, being provided with an elegant little leather folding case containing a small ivory comb, and fitted with a piece of looking-glass on the outside. General Hubert, his hands being free, felt in his breeches pockets for that implement of innocent vanity excusable in the possessor of long silky mustaches. He drew it out, and then, with the utmost coolness and promptitude, turned himself over on his back, and this new attitude, his head a little raised, holding the little looking-glass just clear of his tree, he squinted into it with his left eye, while the right kept a direct watch on the rear of his position. Thus was proved Napoleon's saying that, for a French soldier, the word impossible does not exist. He had the right tree nearly filling the field of his little mirror. If he moves from behind it, reflected with satisfaction, I am bound to see his legs. But any case, he can't come upon me unawares. And sure enough, he saw the boots of General Farad flash in and out, elipsing for an instant, everything else reflected in the little mirror. He shifted its position accordingly, but having to form his judgment of the change from that indirect view, he did not realize that now his feet and a portion of his legs were in plain sight of General Farad. General Farad had been getting gradually impressed by the amazing cleverness with which his enemy was keeping cover. He had spotted the right tree with bloodthirsty precision. He was absolutely certain of it, and yet he had not been able to glimpse as much as the tip of an ear, as he had been looking for it at the height of about five feet ten inches from the ground. It was no great wonder, but it seemed very wonderful to General Farad. The first few of these feet and legs determined a rush of blood to his head. He literally staggered behind his tree and had to steady himself against it with his hand. The other was lying on the ground, on the ground, perfectly still, too, exposed. What could it mean? The notion that he had knocked over his adversary at the first shot entered then General Farad's head. Once there, it grew with every second of attentive gazing, overshadowing every other supposition. Irresistible, triumphant, ferocious. What an ass I was to think I could have missed him, he muttered to himself. He was exposed in plain sight, the fool, for quite a couple of seconds. General Farad gazed at the motionless limbs, the vestiges of surprise fading before an unbounded admiration of his own deadly skill with a pistol. Turned up his toes. By the God of War, that was a shot he exulted mentally. Got it through the head, no doubt, just where I aimed. Staggered behind that tree, rolled over on his back, and died. And he stared. He stared, forgetting to move, almost awed, almost sorry. But for nothing in the world would he have had it undone. Such a shot, such a shot. Rolled over on his back, and died. For it was this helpless position, lying on the back, that shouted its direct evidence at General Farad. It never occurred to him that it might have been deliberately assumed by a living man. It was inconceivable. It was beyond the range of sane supposition. There was no possibility to guess the reason for it. And it must be said, too, that General Hubert's turned-up feet looked thoroughly dead. General Farad expanded his lungs for a centurion shout to his seconds. But from what he felt to be an excessive scrupulousness, refrained for a while. Oh, we'll just go and see first whether he breathes yet, he mumbled to himself, leaving carelessly the shelter of his tree. This move was immediately perceived by the resourceful General Hubert. He concluded it to be another shift. But when he lost the boots of the field of the mirror, he became uneasy. General Farad had only stepped a little out of the line, but his adversary could not possibly have supposed him walking up with perfect unconcern. General Hubert, beginning to wonder at what had become of the other, was taken unaware so completely that the first warning of danger consisted in the long, early morning shadow of his enemy falling aslant in his outstretched legs. He had not even heard a footfall on the soft ground between the trees. It was too much even for his coolness. He jumped up thoughtlessly, leaving the pistols on the ground. The irresistible instinct of an average man, unless totally paralyzed by discomfiture, would have been to stoop for his weapons, exposing himself to the risk of being shot down in that position. Instinct, of course, is irreflective. It is its very definition. But it may be an inquiry worth pursuing whether, in reflective mankind, the mechanical promptings of instinct are not affected by the customary mode of thought. In his young days, Armand Hubert, the reflective, promising officer, had emitted the opinion that in warfare one should never cast back on the lines of a mistake. This idea, defended and developed in many discussions, had settled into one of the stock notions of his brain, had become part of his mental individuality. Whether it had gone so inconceivably deep as to affect the dictates of his instinct, or simply because, as he himself declared afterwards, he was too scared to remember the confounded pistols, the fact is that General Hubert never attempted to stoop for them. Instead of going back on his mistake, he sees the rough trunk with both hands, and swung himself behind it with such impetuosity, that going right round in the very flash and report of the pistol shot, he reappeared on the other side of the tree face to face with General Farad. This last, completely unstrung by such a show of agility on the part of a dead man, was trembling yet. A very faint mist of smoke hung before his face, which had an extraordinary aspect, as if the lower jaw had come unhinged. Not mist, he croaked hoarsely from the depths of a dry throat. This sinister sound loosened the spell that had fallen on General Hubert's senses. Yes, mist, about portant, he heard himself saying, almost before he had recovered the full command of his faculties. The revulsion of feeling was accompanied by a gust of homicidal fury, resuming in its violence the accumulated resentment of a lifetime. For years, General Hubert had been exasperated and humiliated by an atrocious absurdity imposed upon him by this man's savage caprice. Besides, General Hubert had been, in this last instance, too unwilling to confront death for the reaction of his anguish not to take the shape of a desire to kill. And I have my two shots to fire yet, he added pitilessly. Besides, General Hubert had been, in this last instance, too unwilling to confront death for the reaction of his anguish not to take the shape of a desire to kill. And I have my two shots to fire yet, he added pitilessly. General Farad snapped, too. His teeth and his face assumed an irate, undaunted expression. Go on, he said grimly. These would have been his last words if General Hubert had been holding the pistols in his hands. But the pistols were lying on the ground at the foot of a pine. General Hubert had the second of leisure necessary to remember that he had dreaded death, not as a man, but as a lover, not as a danger, but as a rival, not as a foe to life, but as an obstacle to marriage. And behold, there was the rival defeated, utterly defeated, crushed, done for. He picked up the weapons mechanically, and instead of firing them into General Farad's breast, he gave expression to the thoughts uppermost in his mind. You will fight no more duels now. His tone of leisurely, ineffable satisfaction was too much for General Farad's stoicism. Don't dawdle, then, damn you, you bloodied staffed cockscomb. He roared out suddenly, out of an impassive face held erect on a rigidly still body. General Hubert uncocked the pistols carefully. This proceeding was observed with mixed feelings by the other general. You missed me twice, the victor said, coolly, shifting both pistols to one hand, the last time within a foot or so. By every rule of single combat, your life belongs to me. That does not mean that I want to take it now. I am no use for your forbearance, muttered General Farad gloomily. Allow me to point out that this is no concern of mine, said General Hubert, whose of every word was dictated by a consummate delicacy of feeling. In anger, he could have killed that man, but in cold blood he recoiled from humiliating by a show of generosity this unreasonable being, a fellish soldier of the Grand Armée. A companion in the wonders and terrors of the great military epic. You don't set up the pretension of dictating to me what I am to do with what's my own. General Farad looked startled, and the other continued. You force me, on a point of honor, to keep my life at your disposal, as it were, for 15 years. Very well. Now that the matter is decided to my advantage, I am going to do what I like with your life on the same principle. You shall keep it at my disposal as long as I choose, neither more nor less. You are on your honor till I say the word. I am, but sacrebleu! This is an absurd position for a General of the Empire to be placed in, cried General Farad, in accents of profound and dismayed conviction. It amounts to sitting all the rest of my life with a loaded pistol in a drawer, waiting for your word. It's, it's idiotic. I shall be an object of derision. Absurd. Idiotic. Do you think so? queried General Hubert with sly gravity. Perhaps I don't see how that can be helped. However, I'm not likely to talk at large of this adventure. Nobody need ever know anything about it, just as no one to this day, I believe, knows the origin of our quarrel. Not a word more, he added hastily. I can't really discuss this question with a man who, as far as I am concerned, does not exist. When the two duelists came out into the open, General Farad, walking a little behind, and rather with the air of walking in a trance, the two seconds hurried towards them, each from his station on the edge of the wood, General Hubert addressed them, speaking loud and distinctly. Monsieurs, I make it a point of declaring to you solemnly, in the presence of General Farad, that our differences, at last, settle for good. You may inform all the world of that fact. A reconciliation, after all, they exclaimed together. Reconciliation? Not that exactly. It is something much more binding. It is not so, General. General Farad only lowered his head in sign of assent. The two veterans looked at each other. Later in the day, when they found themselves alone, out of their moody friend's earshot, the Curassier remarked suddenly, Generally speaking, I can see with my one eye as far as most people, but this beats me. He won't say anything.