The American by Henry James (good inspirational books txt) 📖

Valentin remained, and the two men, in their respective places, sat out the rest of the performance, which was also enjoyed by Mademoiselle Nioche and her truculent admirer. At the end Newman joined Valentin again, and they went into the street together. Valentin shook his head at his friend’s proposal that he should get into Newman’s own vehicle, and stopped on the edge of the pavement. “I must go off alone,” he said; “I must look up a couple of friends who will take charge of this matter.”

“I will take charge of it,” Newman declared. “Put it into my hands.”

“You are very kind, but that is hardly possible. In the first place, you are, as you said just now, almost my brother; you are about to marry my sister. That alone disqualifies you; it casts doubts on your impartiality. And if it didn’t, it would be enough for me that I strongly suspect you of disapproving of the affair. You would try to prevent a meeting.”

“Of course I should,” said Newman. “Whoever your friends are, I hope they will do that.”

“Unquestionably they will. They will urge that excuses be made, proper excuses. But you would be too good-natured. You won’t do.”

Newman was silent a moment. He was keenly annoyed, but he saw it was useless to attempt interference. “When is this precious performance to come off?” he asked.

“The sooner the better,” said Valentin. “The day after to-morrow, I hope.”

“Well,” said Newman, “I have certainly a claim to know the facts. I can’t consent to shut my eyes to the matter.”

“I shall be most happy to tell you the facts,” said Valentin. “They are very simple, and it will be quickly done. But now everything depends on my putting my hands on my friends without delay. I will jump into a cab; you had better drive to my room and wait for me there. I will turn up at the end of an hour.”

Newman assented protestingly, let his friend go, and then betook himself to the picturesque little apartment in the Rue d’Anjou. It was more than an hour before Valentin returned, but when he did so he was able to announce that he had found one of his desired friends, and that this gentleman had taken upon himself the care of securing an associate. Newman had been sitting without lights by Valentin’s faded fire, upon which he had thrown a log; the blaze played over the richly-encumbered little sitting-room and produced fantastic gleams and shadows. He listened in silence to Valentin’s account of what had passed between him and the gentleman whose card he had in his pocket—M. Stanislas Kapp, of Strasbourg—after his return to Mademoiselle Nioche’s box. This hospitable young lady had espied an acquaintance on the other side of the house, and had expressed her displeasure at his not having the civility to come and pay her a visit. “Oh, let him alone!” M. Stanislas Kapp had hereupon exclaimed. “There are too many people in the box already.” And he had fixed his eyes with a demonstrative stare upon M. de Bellegarde. Valentin had promptly retorted that if there were too many people in the box it was easy for M. Kapp to diminish the number. “I shall be most happy to open the door for you!” M. Kapp exclaimed. “I shall be delighted to fling you into the pit!” Valentin had answered. “Oh, do make a rumpus and get into the papers!” Miss Noémie had gleefully ejaculated. “M. Kapp, turn him out; or, M. de Bellegarde, pitch him into the pit, into the orchestra—anywhere! I don’t care who does which, so long as you make a scene.” Valentin answered that they would make no scene, but that the gentleman would be so good as to step into the corridor with him. In the corridor, after a brief further exchange of words, there had been an exchange of cards. M. Stanislas Kapp was very stiff. He evidently meant to force his offence home.

“The man, no doubt, was insolent,” Newman said; “but if you hadn’t gone back into the box the thing wouldn’t have happened.”

“Why, don’t you see,” Valentin replied, “that the event proves the extreme propriety of my going back into the box? M. Kapp wished to provoke me; he was awaiting his chance. In such a case—that is, when he has been, so to speak, notified—a man must be on hand to receive the provocation. My not returning would simply have been tantamount to my saying to M. Stanislas Kapp, ‘Oh, if you are going to be disagreeable’”— —

“‘You must manage it by yourself; damned if I’ll help you!’ That would have been a thoroughly sensible thing to say. The only attraction for you seems to have been the prospect of M. Kapp’s impertinence,” Newman went on. “You told me you were not going back for that girl.”

“Oh, don’t mention that girl any more,” murmured Valentin. “She’s a bore.”

“With all my heart. But if that is the way you feel about her, why couldn’t you let her alone?”

Valentin shook his head with a fine smile. “I don’t think you quite understand, and I don’t believe I can make you. She understood the situation; she knew what was in the air; she was watching us.”

“A cat may look at a king! What difference does that make?”

“Why, a man can’t back down before a woman.”

“I don’t call her a woman. You said yourself she was a stone,” cried Newman.

“Well,” Valentin rejoined, “there is no disputing about tastes. It’s a matter of feeling; it’s measured by one’s sense of honor.”

“Oh, confound your sense of honor!” cried Newman.

“It is vain talking,” said Valentin; “words have passed, and the thing is settled.”

Newman turned away, taking his hat. Then pausing with his hand on the door, “What are you going to use?” he asked.

“That is for M. Stanislas Kapp, as the challenged party, to decide. My own choice would be a short, light sword. I handle it well. I’m an indifferent shot.”

Newman had put on his hat; he pushed it back, gently scratching his forehead, high up. “I wish it were pistols,” he said. “I could show you how to lodge a bullet!”

Valentin broke into a laugh. “What is it some English poet says about consistency? It’s a flower, or a star, or a jewel. Yours has the beauty of all three!” But he agreed to see Newman again on the morrow, after the details of his meeting with M. Stanislas Kapp should have been arranged.

In the course of the day Newman received three lines from him, saying that it had been decided that he should cross the frontier, with his adversary, and that he was to take the night express to Geneva. He should have time, however, to dine with Newman. In the afternoon Newman called upon Madame de Cintré, but his visit was brief. She was as gracious and sympathetic as he had ever found her, but she was sad, and she confessed, on Newman’s charging her with her red eyes, that she had been crying. Valentin had been with her a couple of hours before, and his visit had left her with a painful impression. He had laughed and gossiped, he had brought her no bad news, he had only been, in his manner, rather more affectionate than usual. His fraternal tenderness had touched her, and on his departure she had burst into tears. She had felt as if something strange and sad were going to happen; she had tried to reason away the fancy, and the effort had only given her a headache. Newman, of course, was perforce tongue-tied about Valentin’s projected duel, and his dramatic talent was not equal to satirizing Madame de Cintré’s presentiment as pointedly as perfect security demanded. Before he went away he asked Madame de Cintré whether Valentin had seen his mother.

“Yes,” she said, “but he didn’t make her cry.”

It was in Newman’s own apartment that Valentin dined, having brought his portmanteau, so that he might adjourn directly to the railway. M. Stanislas Kapp had positively declined to make excuses, and he, on his side, obviously, had none to offer. Valentin had found out with whom he was dealing. M. Stanislas Kapp was the son of and heir of a rich brewer of Strasbourg, a youth of a sanguineous—and sanguinary—temperament. He was making ducks and drakes of the paternal brewery, and although he passed in a general way for a good fellow, he had already been observed to be quarrelsome after dinner. “Que voulez-vous?” said Valentin. “Brought up on beer, he can’t stand champagne.” He had chosen pistols. Valentin, at dinner, had an excellent appetite; he made a point, in view of his long journey, of eating more than usual. He took the liberty of suggesting to Newman a slight modification in the composition of a certain fish-sauce; he thought it would be worth mentioning to the cook. But Newman had no thoughts for fish-sauce; he felt thoroughly discontented. As he sat and watched his amiable and clever companion going through his excellent repast with the delicate deliberation of hereditary epicurism, the folly of so charming a fellow traveling off to expose his agreeable young life for the sake of M. Stanislas and Mademoiselle Noémie struck him with intolerable force. He had grown fond of Valentin, he felt now how fond; and his sense of helplessness only increased his irritation.

“Well, this sort of thing may be all very well,” he cried at last, “but I declare I don’t see it. I can’t stop you, perhaps, but at least I can protest. I do protest, violently.”

“My dear fellow, don’t make a scene,” said Valentin. “Scenes in these cases are in very bad taste.”

“Your duel itself is a scene,” said Newman; “that’s all it is! It’s a wretched theatrical affair. Why don’t you take a band of music with you outright? It’s d—d barbarous and it’s d—d corrupt, both.”

“Oh, I can’t begin, at this time of day, to defend the theory of dueling,” said Valentin. “It is our custom, and I think it is a good thing. Quite apart from the goodness of the cause in which a duel may be fought, it has a kind of picturesque charm which in this age of vile prose seems to me greatly to recommend it. It’s a remnant of a higher-tempered time; one ought to cling to it. Depend upon it, a duel is never amiss.”

“I don’t know what you mean by a higher-tempered time,” said Newman. “Because your great-grandfather was an ass, is that any reason why you should be? For my part I think we had better let our temper take care of itself; it generally seems to me quite high enough; I am not afraid of being too meek. If your great-grandfather were to make himself unpleasant to me, I think I could manage him yet.”

“My dear friend,” said Valentin, smiling, “you can’t invent anything that will take the place of satisfaction for an insult. To demand it and to give it are equally excellent arrangements.”

“Do you call this sort of thing satisfaction?” Newman asked. “Does it satisfy you to receive a present of the carcass of that coarse fop? does it gratify you to make him a present of yours? If a man hits you, hit him back; if a man libels you, haul him up.”

“Haul him up, into court? Oh, that is very nasty!” said Valentin.

“The nastiness is his—not yours. And for that matter, what you are doing is not particularly nice. You are too good for it. I don’t say you are the most useful man in the world, or the cleverest, or the most amiable. But you are too good to go and get your throat cut for a prostitute.”

Valentin flushed a little, but he laughed. “I shan’t get my throat cut if I can help it. Moreover, one’s honor hasn’t two different measures. It only knows that it is hurt; it