EIGHT

The sudden surge of surprise and delight, the disappearance of the tension inside me, the excitement I wanted to conceal though it was beyond my power to suppress—the only explanation I can think of for all this is that it must have resulted in a remarkable split taking place in my consciousness. I heard the baron’s voice, I heard every word he said, but at the same time I felt I was no longer there, but in bed in a sick-room somewhere. I felt this quite distinctly: there was a warm, damp something on my brow and at the back of my head. I tried to touch it, but suddenly I could not move my arm, and I heard the nurse’s soft footsteps. That seems to have been my first premonition of the state in which the whole of this adventure was to end for me. Later I had such premonitions several times, but usually only when I was tired, generally at night when I was just dropping off to sleep, but never so vividly as that morning. I wondered what was the matter with me. Where am I? I said to myself. A moment ago I was talking to the baron. Bibiche is coming, she’ll be here in a week’s time. Then I came round. The baron was bending over me with a glass of brandy in his hand. I emptied it, and then emptied it a second time. What happened to me? I wondered. Was I dreaming? Yes, dreaming in broad daylight. Bibiche is coming, that isn’t a dream, it’s reality. Aloud I said something about overwork and slight attacks of faintness that didn’t mean anything.

“That’s a city-dweller’s nerves,” I heard the baron saying. “Life in the country will be good for you.” The words “life in the country” reminded me of Bibiche, and I realised I had made an enormous emotional leap. A few moments before I had not dared hope I should ever see her again, and now a whole week’s wait before seeing her struck me as nearly intolerable.

By now I had my nerves under control again, and felt rather ashamed of what had happened. “The air’s bad in here,” the baron said. “Let us let some ozone in. I’ve been smoking like a chimney all morning.” He rose and opened a window. A gust of cold air swept through the room, the papers on the desk rustled, and at that moment Federico must have come in. When I caught sight of him he was standing against the oak panelling between the two-handed sword and a Scottish claymore. He must have come straight from the moor or the forest, for snow mingled with pine needles was on his leggings and the shiny bluish head of some marsh bird protruded from his open game bag. Once more I was amazed at the resemblance—no, it was not an illusion, this boy had the features, the noble features of a man long dead who must have been a great man in his time—and when I saw him standing next to the two-handed sword I had a strange thought. He was born for that weapon, I said to myself, it was made for him. And I was almost surprised to see that instead of the sword he was holding a shot-gun.

A smile flitted across the baron’s hard, narrow face.

“Back already?” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you before midday. How’s the work in the forest going?”

“The tree-fellers have nearly got down to the stream. Carting the stuff away is going to begin tomorrow. Two new men, railway workers, have been taken on.”

“I don’t much like railway workers,” the baron said. “They’re no good. Who took them on? Praxatin?”

He turned to me without waiting for an answer.

“This is Federico,” he said, without mentioning anything else, neither the lad’s origin or the relationship between them. “And this is our new doctor, he arrived yesterday.”

Federico bowed slightly, and nothing in his face betrayed that we had already met. I took a step towards him, but the surprise and rejection in his iris-blue eyes reminded me that we were enemies, and I dropped my half-outstretched hand and stopped. The baron noticed nothing.

“Do you shoot?” he said. “Federico knows every hare for miles around. The shooting’s good here, even roe-deer can be seen from time to time. You know nothing about shooting? What a pity. Your father used to bring down the duck in droves, doctor. I’ll teach you stalking if you like. You don’t want to? I’m sorry to hear it. Don’t you go in for any kind of sport?”

“I do. I fence.”

“Oh, do you? That interests me. German? Italian?”

I told him I was equally practised in both schools.

This piece of information delighted him.

“We’ve certainly scored a hit with you,” he exclaimed. “It’s so rare to come across a good fencer. What do you say to a short bout?”

“Now?”

“If it suits you.”

“Certainly. With pleasure. With you?”

“No, with Federico. He’s my pupil, and a very gifted pupil, if I may say so. But perhaps you’re still tired. That little faint just now . . .”

I glanced at Federico. He was waiting for my answer with an expression of tense excitement. When he noticed I was looking at him he turned away.

“That’s all over,” I said to the baron. “I feel perfectly fit now, and I’m at your service.”

“Splendid,” said the baron. “Federico, take the doctor to the gym. Here’s the key to the sword cupboard. I’ll come along later.”

Federico went ahead, humming an Italian tune. He walked so quickly that I had difficulty keeping up. In the gym we took off our jackets and waistcoats, and he silently handed me the head mask and foil. Obviously he had no intention of waiting for the baron. We stood apart and saluted each other, and then took up our positions.

Federico began with a lunge from quarte and a one-two followed by a cut-over in regular text-book fashion which I had no difficulty in parrying. Actually, I did not expect much pleasure from this bout, I had accepted the challenge only to please the baron. My heart was not in it, but I felt quite sure of myself, and while mechanically parrying my opponent’s thrusts and lunges my mind was on Bibiche, whom I was soon going to see again.

But then the bout took a turn that I had not expected. After a beat by which I displaced his blade Federico replied with a series of feints which he carried out very skilfully indeed. I suddenly realised that I had underrated him, and before I was able to guess his intentions a riposte came out of his circular parry that I was only half able to parry. It touched my shoulder.

“Touché,” I called out, and resumed my stance. I was furious with myself, and could not understand how I had allowed this to happen. In the past few years I had won prizes at two tournaments, and here I was up against a novice, an adolescent.

“Well, that’s that,” I said, and at the same time noticed that my shirt was torn over the left shoulder and that blood was coming from a small scratch, and only now did I realise that the point of my opponent’s foil lacked the leather-covered button that is supposed to prevent wounds. He had been using a deadly weapon.

He had taken off his mask.

“There’s no safety-button on your foil,” I pointed out. “Did you know that?”

“The same applies to yours,” he replied.

For a moment I did not realise what he meant. I looked at him in surprise, but he withstood my gaze.

You don’t expect me to fight a duel with a schoolboy?

No, I didn’t say that, I only wanted to. But the look in those big, silvery blue iris eyes prevented me, and then something happened inside me that to the present day I do not understand. Perhaps it was anger at having been pinked, perhaps it was the desire to get my own back, to make good the indignity I had suffered. But no, it cannot have been that alone, it was his eyes, the expression on that strange face of his that held me under its spell, made me feel suddenly that I was faced not with a boy, but a man—a man whom I had offended and to whom I owed satisfaction.

I heard Federico’s voice.

“Well? Are you ready?” he said.

I forgot all my hesitations and felt nothing but an ardent desire to deal with this opponent.

“Come on,” I called out, and our foils crossed.

At first I had a kind of plan, I remember. I still believed I was his superior and that the outcome of the encounter was in my hands. I did not want to wound him, but to restrict myself to defence, to parry his attacks and, when the opportunity arose, to knock the weapon from his hand.

That is not what happened.

After the first few thrusts and parries I realised that so far he had been only playing with me. Now he was in earnest. I was faced with a fencer of stature and a bitter enemy. He attacked me with a boldness and a passion and at the same time with a cautiousness that I had never before met in an opponent. With whom was I fencing? I wondered as I retreated step by step. Who is this terrible opponent? Whence this ungovernable spirit? I had no more thought of restricting myself to defence, I realised that I was fighting for my life, and I attacked, but he parried my onslaughts with ease. I was startled to discover that this was an opponent against whom I had no chance. He had driven me back to the wall. My arm was tiring and I felt that I was lost. I knew that the last decisive thrust was coming in the next few moments, and with the strength of despair I tried to postpone the inevitable. I was afraid . . .

A voice called out “Stop.”

We stopped.

“Well, doctor,” the baron asked, “are you satisfied with my pupil?”

I think I laughed. My answer was a hysterical laugh.

“I shall now take charge, Federico, do as I say. Take a step back. And another. Hits to be acknowledged. Are you ready? Go.”

His orders followed in rapid succession, and so did Federico’s responses.

“Balestra! Parry! Disengage! Quarte! Well done, doctor. Riposte! Bind! Good. Disarm him!”

The weapon flew from my hand. Federico picked it up and handed it to me. Then he silently offered me his hand.

The baron accompanied me to the park gate, where he said goodbye.

“He fences pretty well for a fifteen-year-old, doesn’t he?” he said.

“Fifteen, is he?” I repeated. “But he’s not a boy, he’s a man.”

The baron dropped my hand.

“Quite right, so he is,” he replied, and a shadow flitted across his face. “The people from whom he comes mature before their time.”

On the way back to my lodgings I was in a strange frame of mind. I felt, not as if I were walking, but as if I were floating down the village street—sometimes one feels like that in a dream, as if one were gliding along on a breath of wind. I felt weightless, and at the same time deeply moved. Bibiche was coming, and I had just fought a duel, a matter of life and death. My whole being was stirred up, I felt far more than usual that I was alive.

I think I was very happy that morning.

A little old woman was in my waiting room, the mother of the shopkeeper next door. She complained of a painful cough, shortness of breath, difficulty in swallowing and a bad sore throat.

I looked at her in uncomprehending surprise.

I had completely forgotten that I was the village doctor.