XIII The Challenge
Whether or not Dujarier had used offensive expressions to De Beauvallon on this particular occasion, the opportunity for bringing to a head the long-standing feud between the two newspapers was too good to be missed.
That afternoon the literary editor was waited upon at his office by two gentlemen—the Vicomte d’Ecquevillez, a French officer in the Spanish service, and the Comte de Flers. They informed him that they came upon behalf of Monsieur de Beauvallon, who considered himself insulted by the tone of his remarks the previous evening, and required an apology or satisfaction. Dujarier affected contempt for his rival, making a point of mispronouncing his name. He had no apology to offer, and referred his visitors to Monsieur Arthur Berrand, and Monsieur de Boigne. As the seconds withdrew D’Ecquevillez mentioned that Monsieur de Beauvoir also considered himself entitled to satisfaction.
The rest of that day Lola could not but remark the intense pre-occupation of her lover—that concentration of mind that all men experience at the near menace of death. On the battle-field it may last for a minute or an hour; in other circumstances it may last for days together. Dujarier felt himself already a dead man. He had hardly handled a pistol in his life. He envied his mistress, who had often given him an exhibition of her powers as a shot. De Beauvallon, on the other hand, was known to be skilled in all the arts of attack and defence. Nor could Dujarier doubt that he wished to see him dead. In the evening Bertrand and De Boigne arrived. Lola was with difficulty persuaded to leave them to attend her rehearsal. Dujarier, pale and nervous, discussed the matter with his friends. “C’est une querelle de boutique!” he exclaimed bitterly, but expressed his determination to proceed with the affair if it cost him his life. Bertrand, fully alive to the gravity of the situation, sought De Beauvallon’s seconds, and argued that nothing said by his principal could be considered ground for an encounter. His efforts at a reconciliation were useless. De Boigne tried to give precedence to De Beauvoir, who was accounted an indifferent shot; but that easily placable author had just lost his mother, and displayed no anxiety to defraud De Beauvallon of his vengeance. Seeing the encounter was inevitable, Bertrand and De Boigne exacted from the other side this written statement:—
“We, the undersigned, declare that in consequence of a disagreement, Monsieur Dujarier has been challenged by Monsieur de Beauvallon in terms which render it impossible for him to decline the encounter. We have done everything possible to conciliate these gentlemen, and it is only upon Monsieur de Beauvallon insisting that we have consented to assist them.”
This statement was signed by all four seconds. It left Dujarier, as the injured party, the choice of arms. He chose the pistol, thinking, it is to be presumed, that as his adversary was equally experienced in the use of the rapier and firearms, chance might possibly favour him with the latter.
Lola, while these negotiations were proceeding, was a prey to the most painful apprehensions. Pressed by her, Dujarier admitted that he was about to engage in an affair of honour, but gave her to understand that his opponent would be Roger de Beauvoir. Her alarm at once subsided. No one feared Roger. “You know I am a woman of courage,” she said; “if the duel is just, I will not prevent it.”
“Oh, what after all is a duel!” said her lover lightly, but she noticed that his smile was forced.
She drove to the Porte-St.-Martin; Dujarier, at three in the afternoon, paid a visit to Alexandre Dumas. He picked up a sword that stood in a corner of the room, and made a few passes. “You don’t know how to wield the sword, I can see,” observed the novelist. “Can you use any other weapon?”
“Well, I must use the pistol,” replied the journalist significantly.
“You mean you are going to fight?”
“Yes, to-morrow, with De Beauvallon.”
Dumas looked grave. “Your adversary is a very good swordsman,” he said. “You had better choose swords. When De Beauvallon sees how you handle the weapon, the duel will be at an end.”
He told Dujarier that Alexandre, junior, practised at the same fencing-class as De Beauvallon, and he strongly urged him to reconsider the choice of weapons. But the journalist was obstinate. He had no confidence in his opponent’s clemency, and he feared his skill with the rapier. With the pistol there was always a chance; with cold steel he was bound to be killed. In vain Dumas argued that the sword could spare, while the pistol could slay, even if the trigger were pulled by the least experienced hand. Dujarier dined with father and son. The friends parted at nine in the evening. The journalist, in company with Bertrand, went to a shooting gallery, where he tried his hand at the pistol. He hit a figure as large as a man only twice in twenty shots! Dumas strolled into the Variétés. He was ill at ease. Finally he took a cab and drove to the Rue Laffitte. He found Dujarier seated at his bureau, writing his will, as it afterwards proved.
Dumas returned to the question of weapons. Dujarier showed a disposition to avoid the whole subject. “You are only losing your time,” he said, “and that is valuable. I don’t want you to arrange this affair, mind. It is my first duel. It is astonishing that I have not had one before. It’s a sort of baptism that I must undergo.”
His friend questioned him as to the cause of the proposed encounter. “Lord knows!” was the reply, “I can recollect no particular reason. I don’t know what I am fighting about. It’s a duel between the Globe and La Presse,” he added, “not between Monsieur Dujarier and Monsieur de Beauvallon.”
Seeing him determined both to fight and to choose fire-arms, Dumas recommended him at least not to use the hair-trigger pistol. To the novelist’s astonishment, Dujarier admitted he did not know the difference between one kind of pistol and another. Alexandre said he would show him, and drove off to his house for the purpose. As he descended the stairs, he passed Lola, who noticed his agitation. Dujarier was again writing when she entered his room. He was very pale. Dissimulating his preoccupation, he invited his mistress to read a flattering notice on her performance from the pen of Monsieur de Boigne. But Lola was not to be thus diverted from her purpose. She implored her lover to tell her more about the proposed encounter, to reveal the cause of his evident anxiety. He merely replied that he was extremely busy, that there was nothing to worry about. He insisted on her returning to her own apartments. “I’ll come and see you to-morrow,” he promised, “and, Lola!—if—if I should leave Paris for any reason, I don’t want you to lose sight of my friends. Promise that. They are good sorts.”
He almost forced Lola out of the house, only to admit Dumas a few minutes later. The novelist had brought a brand-new pair of pistols. “Use these,” he said; “I’ll give you a written statement that they have not been used before. That ought to satisfy the seconds.” Dujarier shook his head. “Look here,” said Dumas solemnly, “your luck has endured a long time. Take care that it does not fail you now.”
His friend’s well-meant pertinacity irritated the journalist. He replied brusquely: “What would you? Do you want me to pass for a coward? If I don’t accept this challenge, I shall have others. De Beauvallon is determined to fasten a quarrel on me. One of his seconds told me so. He said my face displeased him. However, this affair over, I shall be left in peace.”
It was one o’clock in the morning. Dumas, having exhausted all the resources of argument and persuasion, rose to depart. “At least,” he counselled his friend, “don’t fight till two in the afternoon. It is no use getting up early for so unpleasant an affair. Besides, I know you. You are always at your worst—nervous and fidgety—between ten and eleven.”
“You know that,” said Dujarier eagerly, “you won’t think it fear? And, Dumas,”... he went to his desk, and wrote a cheque on Laffitte’s for a thousand crowns. “I owe you this. Now this is drawn on my private account, and as the duel takes place at eleven, go there before eleven, for you don’t know what may happen. Go there before eleven, for after that my credit may be dead. I beg of you, go before eleven.”
The two friends wrung each other’s hand, and Dumas, heavy at heart, went downstairs. Dujarier was left to his thoughts. The reflections of a man who is practically sure that he will be dead next day are quite peculiar. The sensation is not fear in the ordinary acceptation of the term. It is an effort to realise what no man ever can properly realise—that the world around you, which in one (and a very true) sense has no existence except as it is perceived by you, will, notwithstanding, be existing to-morrow evening, while you will not exist. Intellectually you know this, but you cannot realise it.
At such moments men turn with relief to the pen. With ink and paper you can project yourself beyond your own grave. Dujarier signed his will, which began with these words:—
“On the eve of fighting for the most absurd reasons, on the most frivolous of pretexts, and without its being possible for my friends, Arthur Bertrand and Charles de Boigne, to avoid an encounter, which was provoked in terms that forced me on my honour to accept, I set forth hereafter my last wishes....”
Then he wrote to his mother.
“My Good Mother,—If this letter reaches you, it will be because I am dead or dangerously wounded. I shall exchange shots to-morrow with pistols. It is a necessity of my position, and I accept it as a man of courage. If anything could have induced me to decline the challenge, it would have been the grief which the blow would cause you, were I struck. But the law of honour is imperative, and if you must weep, dear mother, I would rather it be for a son worthy of you than for a coward. Let this thought assuage your grief: my last thought will have been of you. I shall go to the encounter to-morrow calm and sure of myself. Right is on my side. I embrace you, dear mother, with all the warmth of my heart.
“Dujarier.”
There was nothing more to be done or to be said. Only a few hours of the night remained. The experienced duellist would have steadied his nerves by as long a sleep as possible. But Dujarier regarded himself as doomed. He mentally contrasted his miserable performances at the shooting gallery with the wonderful things De Beauvallon was reported to have done with the pistol in Cuba. The stories might be inventions. He tried to snatch a few hours’ sleep.9