A Tramp Abroad

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> A Tramp Abroad




CHAPTER VI [A Sport that Sometimes Kills]

The third duel was brief and bloody. The surgeon stopped it when he saw
that one of the men had received such bad wounds that he could not fight
longer without endangering his life.

The fourth duel was a tremendous encounter; but at the end of five or
six minutes the surgeon interfered once more: another man so severely
hurt as to render it unsafe to add to his harms. I watched this
engagement as I watched the others--with rapt interest and strong
excitement, and with a shrink and a shudder for every blow that laid
open a cheek or a forehead; and a conscious paling of my face when I
occasionally saw a wound of a yet more shocking nature inflicted.
My eyes were upon the loser of this duel when he got his last and
vanquishing wound--it was in his face and it carried away his--but no
matter, I must not enter into details. I had but a glance, and then
turned quickly, but I would not have been looking at all if I had known
what was coming. No, that is probably not true; one thinks he would not
look if he knew what was coming, but the interest and the excitement are
so powerful that they would doubtless conquer all other feelings; and
so, under the fierce exhilaration of the clashing steel, he would yield
and look after all. Sometimes spectators of these duels faint--and it
does seem a very reasonable thing to do, too.

Both parties to this fourth duel were badly hurt so much that the
surgeon was at work upon them nearly or quite an hour--a fact which is
suggestive. But this waiting interval was not wasted in idleness by
the assembled students. It was past noon, therefore they ordered their
landlord, downstairs, to send up hot beefsteaks, chickens, and such
things, and these they ate, sitting comfortable at the several tables,
whilst they chatted, disputed and laughed. The door to the surgeon's
room stood open, meantime, but the cutting, sewing, splicing, and
bandaging going on in there in plain view did not seem to disturb
anyone's appetite. I went in and saw the surgeon labor awhile, but could
not enjoy; it was much less trying to see the wounds given and received
than to see them mended; the stir and turmoil, and the music of the
steel, were wanting here--one's nerves were wrung by this grisly
spectacle, whilst the duel's compensating pleasurable thrill was
lacking.

Finally the doctor finished, and the men who were to fight the closing
battle of the day came forth. A good many dinners were not completed,
yet, but no matter, they could be eaten cold, after the battle;
therefore everybody crowded forth to see. This was not a love duel, but
a "satisfaction" affair. These two students had quarreled, and were here
to settle it. They did not belong to any of the corps, but they were
furnished with weapons and armor, and permitted to fight here by the
five corps as a courtesy. Evidently these two young men were unfamiliar
with the dueling ceremonies, though they were not unfamiliar with the
sword. When they were placed in position they thought it was time
to begin--and then did begin, too, and with a most impetuous energy,
without waiting for anybody to give the word. This vastly amused the
spectators, and even broke down their studied and courtly gravity and
surprised them into laughter. Of course the seconds struck up the swords
and started the duel over again. At the word, the deluge of blows began,
but before long the surgeon once more interfered--for the only reason
which ever permits him to interfere--and the day's war was over. It was
now two in the afternoon, and I had been present since half past nine in
the morning. The field of battle was indeed a red one by this time;
but some sawdust soon righted that. There had been one duel before I
arrived. In it one of the men received many injuries, while the other
one escaped without a scratch.

I had seen the heads and faces of ten youths gashed in every direction
by the keen two-edged blades, and yet had not seen a victim wince, nor
heard a moan, or detected any fleeting expression which confessed the
sharp pain the hurts were inflicting. This was good fortitude, indeed.
Such endurance is to be expected in savages and prize-fighters, for they
are born and educated to it; but to find it in such perfection in these
gently bred and kindly natured young fellows is matter for surprise.
It was not merely under the excitement of the sword-play that this
fortitude was shown; it was shown in the surgeon's room where an
uninspiring quiet reigned, and where there was no audience. The doctor's
manipulations brought out neither grimaces nor moans. And in the fights
it was observable that these lads hacked and slashed with the same
tremendous spirit, after they were covered with streaming wounds, which
they had shown in the beginning.

The world in general looks upon the college duels as very farcical
affairs: true, but considering that the college duel is fought by boys;
that the swords are real swords; and that the head and face are exposed,
it seems to me that it is a farce which had quite a grave side to it.
People laugh at it mainly because they think the student is so covered
up with armor that he cannot be hurt. But it is not so; his eyes are
ears are protected, but the rest of his face and head are bare. He
can not only be badly wounded, but his life is in danger; and he would
sometimes lose it but for the interference of the surgeon. It is
not intended that his life shall be endangered. Fatal accidents are
possible, however. For instance, the student's sword may break, and the
end of it fly up behind his antagonist's ear and cut an artery which
could not be reached if the sword remained whole. This has happened,
sometimes, and death has resulted on the spot. Formerly the student's
armpits were not protected--and at that time the swords were pointed,
whereas they are blunt, now; so an artery in the armpit was sometimes
cut, and death followed. Then in the days of sharp-pointed swords, a
spectator was an occasional victim--the end of a broken sword flew five
or ten feet and buried itself in his neck or his heart, and death ensued
instantly. The student duels in Germany occasion two or three deaths
every year, now, but this arises only from the carelessness of the
wounded men; they eat or drink imprudently, or commit excesses in the
way of overexertion; inflammation sets in and gets such a headway that
it cannot be arrested. Indeed, there is blood and pain and danger
enough about the college duel to entitle it to a considerable degree of
respect.

All the customs, all the laws, all the details, pertaining to the
student duel are quaint and naive. The grave, precise, and courtly
ceremony with which the thing is conducted, invests it with a sort of
antique charm.

This dignity and these knightly graces suggest the tournament, not the
prize-fight. The laws are as curious as they are strict. For instance,
the duelist may step forward from the line he is placed upon, if he
chooses, but never back of it. If he steps back of it, or even leans
back, it is considered that he did it to avoid a blow or contrive an
advantage; so he is dismissed from his corps in disgrace. It would seem
natural to step from under a descending sword unconsciously, and against
one's will and intent--yet this unconsciousness is not allowed. Again:
if under the sudden anguish of a wound the receiver of it makes a
grimace, he falls some degrees in the estimation of his fellows; his
corps are ashamed of him: they call him "hare foot," which is the German
equivalent for chicken-hearted.



CHAPTER VII [How Bismark Fought]

In addition to the corps laws, there are some corps usages which have
the force of laws.

Perhaps the president of a corps notices that one of the membership who
is no longer an exempt--that is a freshman--has remained a sophomore
some little time without volunteering to fight; some day, the president,
instead of calling for volunteers, will APPOINT this sophomore
to measure swords with a student of another corps; he is free to
decline--everybody says so--there is no compulsion. This is all
true--but I have not heard of any student who DID decline; to decline
and still remain in the corps would make him unpleasantly conspicuous,
and properly so, since he knew, when he joined, that his main
business, as a member, would be to fight. No, there is no law against
declining--except the law of custom, which is confessedly stronger than
written law, everywhere.

The ten men whose duels I had witnessed did not go away when their hurts
were dressed, as I had supposed they would, but came back, one after
another, as soon as they were free of the surgeon, and mingled with the
assemblage in the dueling-room. The white-cap student who won the second
fight witnessed the remaining three, and talked with us during the
intermissions. He could not talk very well, because his opponent's sword
had cut his under-lip in two, and then the surgeon had sewed it together
and overlaid it with a profusion of white plaster patches; neither could
he eat easily, still he contrived to accomplish a slow and troublesome
luncheon while the last duel was preparing. The man who was the worst
hurt of all played chess while waiting to see this engagement. A good
part of his face was covered with patches and bandages, and all the
rest of his head was covered and concealed by them. It is said that the
student likes to appear on the street and in other public places in
this kind of array, and that this predilection often keeps him out when
exposure to rain or sun is a positive danger for him. Newly bandaged
students are a very common spectacle in the public gardens of
Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad to get wounds in
the face, because the scars they leave will show so well there; and it
is also said that these face wounds are so prized that youths have even
been known to pull them apart from time to time and put red wine in them
to make them heal badly and leave as ugly a scar as possible. It
does not look reasonable, but it is roundly asserted and maintained,
nevertheless; I am sure of one thing--scars are plenty enough in
Germany, among the young men; and very grim ones they are, too.
They crisscross the face in angry red welts, and are permanent and
ineffaceable. Some of these scars are of a very strange and dreadful
aspect; and the effect is striking when several such accent the milder
ones, which form a city map on a man's face; they suggest the "burned
district" then. We had often noticed that many of the students wore
a colored silk band or ribbon diagonally across their breasts. It
transpired that this signifies that the wearer has fought three duels
in which a decision was reached--duels in which he either whipped or
was whipped--for drawn battles do not count. [1] After a student has
received his ribbon, he is "free"; he can cease from fighting, without
reproach--except some one insult him; his president cannot appoint him
to fight; he can volunteer if he wants to, or remain quiescent if he
prefers to do so. Statistics show that he does NOT prefer to remain
quiescent. They show that the duel has a singular fascination about it
somewhere, for these free men, so far from resting upon the privilege
of the badge, are always volunteering. A corps student told me it was of
record that Prince Bismarck fought thirty-two of these duels in a single
summer term when he was in college. So he fought twenty-nine after his
badge had given him the right to retire from the field.

1. FROM MY DIARY.--Dined in a hotel a few miles up the Neckar,
in a room whose walls were hung all over with framed
portrait-groups of the Five Corps; some were recent,
but many antedated photography, and were pictured in
lithography--the dates ranged back to forty or fifty
years ago. Nearly every individual wore the ribbon across
his breast. In one portrait-group representing (as each
of these pictures did) an entire Corps, I took pains
to count the ribbons: there were twenty-seven members,
and twenty-one of them wore that significant badge.

The statistics may be found to possess interest in several particulars.
Two days in every week are devoted to dueling. The rule is rigid that
there must be three duels on each of these days; there are generally
more, but there cannot be fewer. There were six the day I was present;
sometimes there are seven or eight. It is insisted that eight duels a
week--four for each of the two days--is too low an average to draw
a calculation from, but I will reckon from that basis, preferring an
understatement to an overstatement of the case. This requires about four
hundred and eighty or five hundred duelists a year--for in summer the
college term is about three and a half months, and in winter it is four
months and sometimes longer. Of the seven hundred and fifty students in
the university at the time I am writing of, only eighty belonged to the
five corps, and it is only these corps that do the dueling; occasionally
other students borrow the arms and battleground of the five corps in
order to settle a quarrel, but this does not happen every dueling-day.
[2] Consequently eighty youths furnish the material for some two hundred
and fifty duels a year. This average gives six fights a year to each
of the eighty. This large work could not be accomplished if the
badge-holders stood upon their privilege and ceased to volunteer.

2. They have to borrow the arms because they could not
get them elsewhere or otherwise. As I understand it,
the public authorities, all over Germany, allow the five
Corps to keep swords, but DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO USE THEM.
This is law is rigid; it is only the execution of it that
is lax.

Of course, where there is so much fighting, the students make it a point
to keep themselves in constant practice with the foil. One often sees
them, at the tables in the Castle grounds, using their whips or canes to
illustrate some new sword trick which they have heard about; and between
the duels, on the day whose history I have been writing, the swords were
not always idle; every now and then we heard a succession of the keen
hissing sounds which the sword makes when it is being put through its
paces in the air, and this informed us that a student was practicing.
Necessarily, this unceasing attention to the art develops an expert
occasionally. He becomes famous in his own university, his renown
spreads to other universities. He is invited to Goettingen, to fight
with a Goettingen expert; if he is victorious, he will be invited
to other colleges, or those colleges will send their experts to him.
Americans and Englishmen often join one or another of the five corps. A
year or two ago, the principal Heidelberg expert was a big Kentuckian;
he was invited to the various universities and left a wake of victory
behind him all about Germany; but at last a little student in Strasburg
defeated him. There was formerly a student in Heidelberg who had picked
up somewhere and mastered a peculiar trick of cutting up under instead
of cleaving down from above. While the trick lasted he won in sixteen
successive duels in his university; but by that time observers had
discovered what his charm was, and how to break it, therefore his
championship ceased.

A rule which forbids social intercourse between members of different
corps is strict. In the dueling-house, in the parks, on the street,
and anywhere and everywhere that the students go, caps of a color group
themselves together. If all the tables in a public garden were crowded
but one, and that one had two red-cap students at it and ten vacant
places, the yellow-caps, the blue-caps, the white caps, and the green
caps, seeking seats, would go by that table and not seem to see it, nor
seem to be aware that there was such a table in the grounds. The student
by whose courtesy we had been enabled to visit the dueling-place, wore
the white cap--Prussian Corps. He introduced us to many white caps, but
to none of another color. The corps etiquette extended even to us, who
were strangers, and required us to group with the white corps only, and
speak only with the white corps, while we were their guests, and keep
aloof from the caps of the other colors. Once I wished to examine some
of the swords, but an American student said, "It would not be quite
polite; these now in the windows all have red hilts or blue; they will
bring in some with white hilts presently, and those you can handle
freely." When a sword was broken in the first duel, I wanted a piece
of it; but its hilt was the wrong color, so it was considered best and
politest to await a properer season. It was brought to me after the room
was cleared, and I will now make a "life-size" sketch of it by tracing a
line around it with my pen, to show the width of the weapon. [Figure
1] The length of these swords is about three feet, and they are quite
heavy. One's disposition to cheer, during the course of the duels or
at their close, was naturally strong, but corps etiquette forbade any
demonstrations of this sort. However brilliant a contest or a victory
might be, no sign or sound betrayed that any one was moved. A dignified
gravity and repression were maintained at all times.

When the dueling was finished and we were ready to go, the gentlemen of
the Prussian Corps to whom we had been introduced took off their caps
in the courteous German way, and also shook hands; their brethren of the
same order took off their caps and bowed, but without shaking hands; the
gentlemen of the other corps treated us just as they would have treated
white caps--they fell apart, apparently unconsciously, and left us an
unobstructed pathway, but did not seem to see us or know we were there.
If we had gone thither the following week as guests of another corps,
the white caps, without meaning any offense, would have observed the
etiquette of their order and ignored our presence.

[How strangely are comedy and tragedy blended in this life!
I had not been home a full half-hour, after witnessing those
playful sham-duels, when circumstances made it necessary for
me to get ready immediately to assist personally at a real
one--a duel with no effeminate limitation in the matter of
results, but a battle to the death. An account of it, in
the next chapter, will show the reader that duels between
boys, for fun, and duels between men in earnest, are very
different affairs.]



CHAPTER VIII The Great French Duel [I Second Gambetta in a Terrific
Duel]

Much as the modern French duel is ridiculed by certain smart people, it
is in reality one of the most dangerous institutions of our day. Since
it is always fought in the open air, the combatants are nearly sure
to catch cold. M. Paul de Cassagnac, the most inveterate of the French
duelists, had suffered so often in this way that he is at last a
confirmed invalid; and the best physician in Paris has expressed
the opinion that if he goes on dueling for fifteen or twenty years
more--unless he forms the habit of fighting in a comfortable room where
damps and draughts cannot intrude--he will eventually endanger his life.
This ought to moderate the talk of those people who are so stubborn
in maintaining that the French duel is the most health-giving of
recreations because of the open-air exercise it affords. And it
ought also to moderate that foolish talk about French duelists and
socialist-hated monarchs being the only people who are immoral.

But it is time to get at my subject. As soon as I heard of the late
fiery outbreak between M. Gambetta and M. Fourtou in the French
Assembly, I knew that trouble must follow. I knew it because a long
personal friendship with M. Gambetta revealed to me the desperate and
implacable nature of the man. Vast as are his physical proportions,
I knew that the thirst for revenge would penetrate to the remotest
frontiers of his person.

I did not wait for him to call on me, but went at once to him. As I had
expected, I found the brave fellow steeped in a profound French calm.
I say French calm, because French calmness and English calmness have
points of difference. He was moving swiftly back and forth among the
debris of his furniture, now and then staving chance fragments of it
across the room with his foot; grinding a constant grist of curses
through his set teeth; and halting every little while to deposit another
handful of his hair on the pile which he had been building of it on the
table.

He threw his arms around my neck, bent me over his stomach to his
breast, kissed me on both cheeks, hugged me four or five times, and
then placed me in his own arm-chair. As soon as I had got well again, we
began business at once.

I said I supposed he would wish me to act as his second, and he said,
"Of course." I said I must be allowed to act under a French name, so
that I might be shielded from obloquy in my country, in case of fatal
results. He winced here, probably at the suggestion that dueling was not
regarded with respect in America. However, he agreed to my requirement.
This accounts for the fact that in all the newspaper reports M.
Gambetta's second was apparently a Frenchman.

First, we drew up my principal's will. I insisted upon this, and stuck
to my point. I said I had never heard of a man in his right mind going
out to fight a duel without first making his will. He said he had never
heard of a man in his right mind doing anything of the kind. When he had
finished the will, he wished to proceed to a choice of his "last words."
He wanted to know how the following words, as a dying exclamation,
struck me:

"I die for my God, for my country, for freedom of speech, for progress,
and the universal brotherhood of man!"

I objected that this would require too lingering a death; it was a good
speech for a consumptive, but not suited to the exigencies of the field
of honor. We wrangled over a good many ante-mortem outbursts, but I
finally got him to cut his obituary down to this, which he copied into
his memorandum-book, purposing to get it by heart:

"I DIE THAT FRANCE MIGHT LIVE."

I said that this remark seemed to lack relevancy; but he said relevancy
was a matter of no consequence in last words, what you wanted was
thrill.

The next thing in order was the choice of weapons. My principal said he
was not feeling well, and would leave that and the other details of the
proposed meeting to me. Therefore I wrote the following note and carried
it to M. Fourtou's friend:

Sir: M. Gambetta accepts M. Fourtou's challenge, and authorizes me to
propose Plessis-Piquet as the place of meeting; tomorrow morning at
daybreak as the time; and axes as the weapons.

I am, sir, with great respect,

Mark Twain.

M. Fourtou's friend read this note, and shuddered. Then he turned to me,
and said, with a suggestion of severity in his tone:

"Have you considered, sir, what would be the inevitable result of such a
meeting as this?"

"Well, for instance, what WOULD it be?"

"Bloodshed!"

"That's about the size of it," I said. "Now, if it is a fair question,
what was your side proposing to shed?"

I had him there. He saw he had made a blunder, so he hastened to explain
it away. He said he had spoken jestingly. Then he added that he and his
principal would enjoy axes, and indeed prefer them, but such weapons
were barred by the French code, and so I must change my proposal.

I walked the floor, turning the thing over in my mind, and finally it
occurred to me that Gatling-guns at fifteen paces would be a likely way
to get a verdict on the field of honor. So I framed this idea into a
proposition.

But it was not accepted. The code was in the way again. I proposed
rifles; then double-barreled shotguns; then Colt's navy revolvers. These
being all rejected, I reflected awhile, and sarcastically suggested
brickbats at three-quarters of a mile. I always hate to fool away a
humorous thing on a person who has no perception of humor; and it filled
me with bitterness when this man went soberly away to submit the last
proposition to his principal.

He came back presently and said his principal was charmed with the idea
of brickbats at three-quarters of a mile, but must decline on account of
the danger to disinterested parties passing between them. Then I said:

"Well, I am at the end of my string, now. Perhaps YOU would be good
enough to suggest a weapon? Perhaps you have even had one in your mind
all the time?"

His countenance brightened, and he said with alacrity:

"Oh, without doubt, monsieur!"

So he fell to hunting in his pockets--pocket after pocket, and he had
plenty of them--muttering all the while, "Now, what could I have done
with them?"

At last he was successful. He fished out of his vest pocket a couple
of little things which I carried to the light and ascertained to be
pistols. They were single-barreled and silver-mounted, and very dainty
and pretty. I was not able to speak for emotion. I silently hung one of
them on my watch-chain, and returned the other. My companion in crime
now unrolled a postage-stamp containing several cartridges, and gave me
one of them. I asked if he meant to signify by this that our men were
to be allowed but one shot apiece. He replied that the French code
permitted no more. I then begged him to go and suggest a distance, for
my mind was growing weak and confused under the strain which had been
put upon it. He named sixty-five yards. I nearly lost my patience. I
said: