Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

that descended to her is there in her eyes and skin and mouth that stoop even to beguile a peasant. There is your promise, monsieur poet, for a happy life. Drink your wine. At last, mademoiselle, I am rid of you.”

The marquis drank. A little grievous cry, as if from a sudden wound, came from the girl’s lips. David, with his glass in his hand, stepped forward three paces and faced the marquis. There was little of a shepherd in his bearing.

“Just now,” he said, calmly, “you did me the honor to call me ‘monsieur.’ May I hope, therefore that my marriage to mademoiselle has placed me somewhat nearer to you in⁠—let us say, reflected rank⁠—has given me the right to stand more as an equal to monseigneur in a certain little piece of business I have in my mind?”

“You may hope, shepherd,” sneered the marquis.

“Then,” said David, dashing his glass of wine into the contemptuous eyes that mocked him, “perhaps you will condescend to fight me.”

The fury of the great lord outbroke in one sudden curse like a blast from a horn. He tore his sword from its black sheath; he called to the hovering landlord: “A sword there, for this lout!” He turned to the lady, with a laugh that chilled her heart, and said: “You put much labour upon me, madame. It seems I must find you a husband and make you a widow in the same night.”

“I know not swordplay,” said David. He flushed to make the confession before his lady.

“ ‘I know not swordplay,’ ” mimicked the marquis. “Shall we fight like peasants with oaken cudgels? Hola! François, my pistols!”

A postilion brought two shining great pistols ornamented with carven silver, from the carriage holsters. The marquis tossed one upon the table near David’s hand. “To the other end of the table,” he cried; “even a shepherd may pull a trigger. Few of them attain the honour to die by the weapon of a De Beaupertuys.”

The shepherd and the marquis faced each other from the ends of the long table. The landlord, in an ague of terror, clutched the air and stammered: “M-M-Monseigneur, for the love of Christ! not in my house!⁠—do not spill blood⁠—it will ruin my custom⁠—” The look of the marquis, threatening him, paralyzed his tongue.

“Coward,” cried the lord of Beaupertuys, “cease chattering your teeth long enough to give the word for us, if you can.”

Mine host’s knees smote the floor. He was without a vocabulary. Even sounds were beyond him. Still, by gestures he seemed to beseech peace in the name of his house and custom.

“I will give the word,” said the lady, in a clear voice. She went up to David and kissed him sweetly. Her eyes were sparkling bright, and colour had come to her cheek. She stood against the wall, and the two men levelled their pistols for her count.

“Un⁠—deux⁠—trois!”

The two reports came so nearly together that the candles flickered but once. The marquis stood, smiling, the fingers of his left hand resting, outspread, upon the end of the table. David remained erect, and turned his head very slowly, searching for his wife with his eyes. Then, as a garment falls from where it is hung, he sank, crumpled, upon the floor.

With a little cry of terror and despair, the widowed maid ran and stooped above him. She found his wound, and then looked up with her old look of pale melancholy. “Through his heart,” she whispered. “Oh, his heart!”

“Come,” boomed the great voice of the marquis, “out with you to the carriage! Daybreak shall not find you on my hands. Wed you shall be again, and to a living husband, this night. The next we come upon, my lady, highwayman or peasant. If the road yields no other, then the churl that opens my gates. Out with you into the carriage!”

The marquis, implacable and huge, the lady wrapped again in the mystery of her cloak, the postilion bearing the weapons⁠—all moved out to the waiting carriage. The sound of its ponderous wheels rolling away echoed through the slumbering village. In the hall of the Silver Flagon the distracted landlord wrung his hands above the slain poet’s body, while the flames of the four and twenty candles danced and flickered on the table.

The Right Branch

Three leagues, then, the road ran, and turned into a puzzle. It joined with another and a larger road at right angles. David stood, uncertain, for a while, and then took the road to the right.

Whither it led he knew not, but he was resolved to leave Vernoy far behind that night. He travelled a league and then passed a large château which showed testimony of recent entertainment. Lights shone from every window; from the great stone gateway ran a tracery of wheel tracks drawn in the dust by the vehicles of the guests.

Three leagues farther and David was weary. He rested and slept for a while on a bed of pine boughs at the roadside. Then up and on again along the unknown way.

Thus for five days he travelled the great road, sleeping upon Nature’s balsamic beds or in peasants’ ricks, eating of their black, hospitable bread, drinking from streams or the willing cup of the goatherd.

At length he crossed a great bridge and set his foot within the smiling city that has crushed or crowned more poets than all the rest of the world. His breath came quickly as Paris sang to him in a little undertone her vital chant of greeting⁠—the hum of voice and foot and wheel.

High up under the eaves of an old house in the Rue Conti, David paid for lodging, and set himself, in a wooden chair, to his poems. The street, once sheltering citizens of import and consequence, was now given over to those who ever follow in the wake of decline.

The houses were tall and still possessed of a ruined dignity, but many of them were empty