“I asked no questions, for what was the good
of trying to understand? Besides, the old woman,
who grew more and more terrified, could not find any
French words, and chattered wildly. I jumped up
and got into my shoes and overcoat and ran down the
stairs, and in the street.
“Ten minutes later, I recovered my breath and
my senses, without knowing what streets I had been
through, nor where I had come from, and I stole furtively
into my hotel, as if I had been a malefactor.
“In the cafes the next morning, nothing
was talked of except a crime that had been committed
during the night. A German baron had killed his
wife with a revolver, but he had been liberated on
bail, as he had appealed to his counsel, to whom he
had given the following explanation, to the truth
of which the lady companion of the baroness had certified.
“She had been married to her husband almost
by force, and detested him, and she had some particular
reasons (which were not specified) for her hatred
of him. In order to have her revenge on him, she
had had him seized, bound and gagged by four hired
ruffians, who had been caught, and who had confessed
everything. Thus, reduced to immobility, and
unable to help himself, the baron had been obliged
to witness a degrading scene, where his wife caressed
a Frenchman, and thus outraged conjugal fidelity and
German honor at the same time. As soon as he was
set at liberty, the baron had punished his faithless
wife, and was now seeking her accomplice.”
“And what did you do?” someone asked Pierre
Dufaille.
“The only thing I could do, by George!”
he replied. “I put myself at the poor devil’s
disposal; it was his right, and so we fought a duel.
Alas! It was with swords, and he ran me right
through the body. That was also his right, but
he exceeded his right when he called me her ponce.
Then I gave him his chance, and as I fell, I called
out with all the strength that remained to me:
‘A Frenchman! A Frenchman! Long live
France!’”
“Ah; my-dear fellow, what jades women are!”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because they have played me an abominable trick.”
“You?”
“Yes, me.”
“Women, or a woman?”
“Two women.”
“Two women at once?”
“Yes.”
“What was the trick?”
The two young men were sitting outside a cafe
on the Boulevards, and drinking liquors mixed with
water, those aperients which look like infusions of
all the shades in a box of water-colors. They
were nearly the same age, twenty-five to thirty.
One was dark and the other fair, and they had the
same semi-elegant look of stock-jobbers, of men who
go to the Stock Exchange, and into drawing-rooms,
who are to be seen everywhere, who live everywhere,
and love everywhere. The dark one continued.
“I have told you of my connection with that
little woman, a tradesman’s wife, whom I met
on the beach at Dieppe?”
