Joseph Conrad

“ She would marry somebody else. His very soul writhed. The tenacity of that Feraud, the awful persistence of that imbecile brute came to him with the tremendous force of a relentless fatality. General D'Hubert trembled as he put down the empty water ewer. “He will have me,” he thought. General D'Hubert was tasting every emotion that life has to give. He had in his dry mouth the faint, sickly flavour of fear, not the honourable fear of a young girl's candid and amused glance, but the fear of death and the honourable man's fear of cowardice. ”

“ Of a happy-go-lucky disposition, of a temperament more pugnacious than military, Lieutenant Feraud had been content to give and receive blows for sheer love of armed strife and without much thought of advancement. But after this disgusting experience an urgent desire of promotion sprang up in his breast. This fighter by vocation resolved in his mind to seize showy occasions and to court the favourable opinion of his chiefs like a mere worldling. He knew he was as brave as any one and never doubted his personal charm. ”

“ Neither are you, Monsieur D'Hubert. You and I have something that your Bonaparte's, princes, dukes, and marshals have not because there's no power on earth that could give it to them,” retorted the émigré, with the rising animation of a man who has got hold of a hopeful argument. “Those people don't exist—all these Ferauds. Feraud! What is Feraud? A va-nu-pieds disguised into a general by a Corsican adventurer masquerading as an emperor. There is no earthly reason for a D'Hubert to s'encanailler by a duel with a person of that sort. You can make your excuses to him perfectly well. ”

“ Lieutenant D'Hubert, on the contrary, became very pale at the sound of the unsavoury word, then flushed pink to the roots of his fair hair.
“But you can't go out to fight; you are under arrest, you lunatic,” he objected, with angry scorn.
“There's the garden. It's big enough to lay out your long carcass in,” spluttered out Lieutenant Feraud with such ardour that somehow the anger of the cooler man subsided.
“This is perfectly absurd,” he said, glad enough to think he had found a way out of it for the moment. “We will never get any of our comrades to serve as seconds. ”

“ These would have been his last words on earth if General D'Hubert had been holding the pistols in his hand. But the pistols were lying on the ground at the foot of a tall pine. General D'Hubert had the second's 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. ”

“ Short, hairy, black-faced with layers of grime, and a thick sprouting of a wiry beard, a frost-bitten hand, wrapped in filthy rags, carried in a sling, he accused fate bitterly of unparalleled perfidy towards the sublime Man of Destiny. Colonel D'Hubert, his long moustache pendent in icicles on each side of his cracked blue lips, his eyelids inflamed with the glare of snows, the principal part of his costume consisting of a sheepskin coat looted with difficulty from the frozen corpse of a camp follower found in an abandoned cart, took a more thoughtful view of events. ”

“ General D'Hubert was not the man to be satisfied merely with the girl and the fortune—when it came to the point. His pride—and pride aims always at true success—would be satisfied with nothing short of love. But as pride excludes vanity, he could not imagine any reason why this mysterious creature, with deep and candid eyes of a violet colour, should have any feeling for him warmer than indifference. The young lady (her name was Adèle) baffled every attempt at a clear understanding on that point. ”

“ General D'Hubert, beginning to wonder where the other had dodged to, was come upon so suddenly that the first warning he had of his danger consisted in the long, early-morning shadow of his enemy falling aslant on 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 instinctively, leaving the pistols on the ground. The irresistible instinct of most people (unless totally paralysed by discomfiture) would have been to stoop—exposing themselves to the risk of being shot down in that position. ”

“ Is it possible that you know men so little? My dear general, at the very first sitting of the commission names poured on us like rain off the tiles of the Tuileries. Names! We had our choice of thousands. How do you know that the name of this Feraud, whose life or death don't matter to France, does not keep out some other name?...”
The voice out of the armchair stopped. General D'Hubert sat still, shadowy, and silent. Only his sabre clinked slightly. The voice in the armchair began again. “And we must try to satisfy the exigencies of the allied sovereigns. ”

“ And now the seconds, who had been standing in a close group with the heads of their horses together, separated at an easy canter, leaving a large, clear field between him and his adversary. Captain D'Hubert looked at the pale sun, at the dismal landscape, and the imbecility of the impending fight filled him with desolation. From a distant part of the field a stentorian voice shouted commands at proper intervals: Au pas—Au trot—Chargez! Presentiments of death don't come to a man for nothing he thought at the moment he put spurs to his horse. ”

“ He imagined it making its way through the garrison, through the whole army, with every possible distortion of motive and sentiment and circumstance, spreading a doubt upon the sanity of his conduct and the distinction of his taste even into the very bosom of his honourable family. It was all very well for that fellow Feraud, who had no connections, no family to speak of, and no quality but courage which, anyhow, was a matter of course, and possessed by every single trooper in the whole mass of French cavalry. ”

“ The strangers wore civilian clothes. Lean and weather-beaten, lolling back in their chairs, they looked at people with moody and defiant abstraction from under their hats pulled low over their eyes. It was not difficult to recognise them for two of the compulsorily retired officers of the Old Guard. As from bravado or carelessness they chose to speak in loud tones, General D'Hubert, who saw no reason why he should change his seat, heard every word. They did not seem to be the personal friends of General Feraud. ”

“ His name came up with some others; and hearing it repeated General D'Hubert's tender anticipations of a domestic future adorned by a woman's grace were traversed by the harsh regret of that warlike past, of that one long, intoxicating clash of arms, unique in the magnitude of its glory and disaster—the marvellous work and the special possession of his own generation. He felt an irrational tenderness toward his old adversary, and appreciated emotionally the murderous absurdity their encounter had introduced into his life. ”

“ It seemed to him that he was keeping his adversary off with his eyes much more than with his point. Lieutenant Feraud crouched and bounded with a tigerish, ferocious agility—enough to trouble the stoutest heart. But what was more appalling than the fury of a wild beast accomplishing in all innocence of heart a natural function, was the fixity of savage purpose man alone is capable of displaying. Lieutenant D'Hubert in the midst of his worldly preoccupations perceived it at last. It was an absurd and damaging affair to be drawn into. ”

“ The colonel softened his glance and lowered his voice.
“It's deplorable,” he murmured. And again he changed his tone. “Come,” he went on persuasively, but with that note of authority which dwells in the throat of a good leader of men, “this affair must be settled. I desire to be told plainly what it is all about. I demand, as your best friend, to know.”
The compelling power of authority, the softening influence of the kindness affected deeply a man just risen from a bed of sickness. Lieutenant D'Hubert's hand, which grasped the knob of a stick, trembled slightly. ”

“ We must take pistols, that's all. A little lumbago. We must have pistols. He's sure game for my bag. My eyes are as keen as ever. Always were. You should have seen me picking off the dodging Cossacks with a beastly old infantry musket. I have a natural gift for firearms.”
In this strain General Feraud ran on, holding up his head with owlish eyes and rapacious beak. A mere fighter all his life, a cavalry man, a sabreur, he conceived war with the utmost simplicity as in the main a massed lot of personal contests, a sort of gregarious duelling. ”

“ If human beings by an oversight of Providence came into the world in the state of civilians, they were born again into a regiment as infants are born into a family, and it was that military birth alone which really counted.
At the sight of Lieutenant D'Hubert standing before him bleached and hollow-eyed, the heart of the old warrior was touched with genuine compassion. ”

“ What matter?” asked D'Hubert with a sidelong look at the heavy-faced, gray-haired figure seated on a wooden chair.
“Whatever it is,” said the surgeon, “I wouldn't pronounce an opinion on your conduct....”
“By heavens, you had better not,” burst out D'Hubert.
“There! There! Don't be so quick in flourishing the sword. It doesn't pay in the long run. Understand once for all that I would not carve any of you youngsters except with the tools of my trade. But my advice is good. Moderate your temper. If you go on like this you will make for yourself an ugly reputation.” ”

“ A thoughtless person may think that with a whole host of inanimate bodies bestrewing the path of retreat there could not have been much difficulty in supplying the deficiency. But the great majority of these bodies lay buried under the falls of snow, others had been already despoiled; and besides, to loot a pair of breeches from a frozen corpse is not so easy as it may appear to a mere theorist. It requires time. You must remain behind while your companions march on. And Colonel D'Hubert had his scruples as to falling out. They arose from a point of honour, and also a little from dread. ”

“ Good-morning.” Turning his back on the little Gascon who, always sober in his potations, was as though born intoxicated, with the sunshine of his wine-ripening country, the northman, who could drink hard on occasion, but was born sober under the watery skies of Picardy, made calmly for the door. Hearing, however, the unmistakable sound, behind his back, of a sword drawn from the scabbard, he had no option but to stop.
“Devil take this mad Southerner,” he thought, spinning round and surveying with composure the warlike posture of Lieutenant Feraud with the unsheathed sword in his hand. ”