"This sort of joke has been perpetrated before, sir, in garrison towns
at the time of the Empire; but nowadays it is exceedingly bad form,"

said Raphael drily.
"I am not joking," the young man answered; "and I repeat it: your

health will be considerably the worse for a stay here; the heat and
light, the air of the saloon, and the company are all bad for your

complaint."
"Where did you study medicine?" Raphael inquired.

"I took my bachelor's degree on Lepage's shooting-ground in Paris, and
was made a doctor at Cerizier's, the king of foils."

"There is one last degree left for you to take," said Valentin; "study
the ordinary rules of politeness, and you will be a perfect

gentlemen."
The young men all came out of the billiard-room just then, some

disposed to laugh, some silent. The attention of other players was
drawn to the matter; they left their cards to watch a quarrel that

rejoiced their instincts. Raphael, alone among this hostile crowd, did
his best to keep cool, and not to put himself in any way in the wrong;

but his adversary having ventured a sarcasm containing an insult
couched in unusually keen language, he replied gravely:

"We cannot box men's ears, sir, in these days, but I am at a loss for
any word by which to stigmatize such cowardlybehavior as yours."

"That's enough, that's enough. You can come to an explanation to-
morrow," several young men exclaimed, interposing between the two

champions.
Raphael left the room in the character of aggressor, after he had

accepted a proposal to meet near the Chateau de Bordeau, in a little
sloping meadow, not very far from the newly made road, by which the

man who came off victorious could reach Lyons. Raphael must now either
take to his bed or leave the baths. The visitors had gained their

point. At eight o'clock next morning his antagonist, followed by two
seconds and a surgeon, arrived first on the ground.

"We shall do very nicely here; glorious weather for a duel!" he cried
gaily, looking at the blue vault of sky above, at the waters of the

lake, and the rocks, without a single melancholy presentiment or doubt
of the issue. "If I wing him," he went on, "I shall send him to bed

for a month; eh, doctor?"
"At the very least," the surgeon replied; "but let that willow twig

alone, or you will weary your wrist, and then you will not fire
steadily. You might kill your man instead of wounding him."

The noise of a carriage was heard approaching.
"Here he is," said the seconds, who soon descried a caleche coming

along the road; it was drawn by four horses, and there were two
postilions.

"What a queer proceeding!" said Valentin's antagonist; "here he comes
post-haste to be shot."

The slightest incident about a duel, as about a stake at cards, makes
an impression on the minds of those deeply concerned in the results of

the affair; so the young man awaited the arrival of the carriage with
a kind of uneasiness. It stopped in the road; old Jonathan laboriously

descended from it, in the first place, to assist Raphael to alight; he
supported him with his feeble arms, and showed him all the minute

attentions that a lover lavishes upon his mistress. Both became lost
to sight in the footpath that lay between the highroad and the field

where the duel was to take place; they were walking slowly, and did
not appear again for some time after. The four onlookers at this

strange spectacle felt deeply moved by the sight of Valentin as he
leaned on his servant's arm; he was wasted and pale; he limped as if

he had the gout, went with his head bowed down, and said not a word.
You might have taken them for a couple of old men, one broken with

years, the other worn out with thought; the elder bore his age visibly
written in his white hair, the younger was of no age.

"I have not slept all night, sir;" so Raphael greeted his antagonist.
The icy tone and terrible glance that went with the words made the

real aggressor shudder; he know that he was in the wrong, and felt in
secret ashamed of his behavior. There was something strange in

Raphael's bearing, tone, and gesture; the Marquis stopped, and every
one else was likewise silent. The uneasy and constrained feeling grew

to a height.
"There is yet time," he went on, "to offer me some slight apology; and

offer it you must, or you will die sir! You rely even now on your
dexterity, and do not shrink from an encounter in which you believe

all the advantage to be upon your side. Very good, sir; I am generous,
I am letting you know my superioritybeforehand. I possess a terrible

power. I have only to wish to do so, and I can neutralize your skill,
dim your eyesight, make your hand and pulse unsteady, and even kill

you outright. I have no wish to be compelled to exercise my power; the
use of it costs me too dear. You would not be the only one to die. So

if you refuse to apologize to me, not matter what your experience in
murder, your ball will go into the waterfall there, and mine will

speed straight to your heart though I do not aim it at you."
Confused voices interrupted Raphael at this point. All the time that

he was speaking, the Marquis had kept his intolerably keen gaze fixed
upon his antagonist; now he drew himself up and showed an impassive

face, like that of a dangerous madman.
"Make him hold his tongue," the young man had said to one of his

seconds; "that voice of his is tearing the heart out of me."
"Say no more, sir; it is quite useless," cried the seconds and the

surgeon, addressing Raphael.
"Gentlemen, I am fulfilling a duty. Has this young gentleman any final

arrangements to make?"
"That is enough; that will do."

The Marquis remained standingsteadily, never for a moment losing
sight of his antagonist; and the latter seemed, like a bird before a

snake, to be overwhelmed by a well-nigh magical power. He was
compelled to endure that homicidal gaze; he met and shunned it

incessantly.
"I am thirsty; give me some water----" he said again to the second.

"Are you nervous?"
"Yes," he answered. "There is a fascination about that man's glowing

eyes."
"Will you apologize?"

"It is too late now."
The two antagonists were placed at fifteen paces' distance from each

other. Each of them had a brace of pistols at hand, and, according to
the programme prescribed for them, each was to fire twice when and how

he pleased, but after the signal had been given by the seconds.
"What are you doing, Charles?" exclaimed the young man who acted as

second to Raphael's antagonist; "you are putting in the ball before
the powder!"

"I am a dead man," he muttered, by way of answer; "you have put me
facing the sun----"

"The sun lies behind you," said Valentin sternly and solemnly, while
he coolly loaded his pistol without heeding the fact that the signal

had been given, or that his antagonist was carefully taking aim.
There was something so appalling in this supernatural unconcern, that

it affected even the two postilions, brought thither by a cruel
curiosity. Raphael was either trying his power or playing with it, for

he talked to Jonathan, and looked towards him as he received his
adversary's fire. Charles' bullet broke a branch of willow, and

ricocheted over the surface of the water; Raphael fired at random, and
shot his antagonist through the heart. He did not heed the young man

as he dropped; he hurriedly sought the Magic Skin to see what another
man's life had cost him. The talisman was no larger than a small oak-

leaf.
"What are you gaping at, you postilions over there? Let us be off,"

said the Marquis.
That same evening he crossed the French border, immediately set out

for Auvergne, and reached the springs of Mont Dore. As he traveled,
there surged up in his heart, all at once, one of those thoughts that

come to us as a ray of sunlight pierces through the thick mists in
some dark valley--a sad enlightenment, a pitilesssagacity that lights

up the accomplished fact for us, that lays our errors bare, and leaves
us without excuse in our own eyes. It suddenly struck him that the

possession of power, no matter how enormous, did not bring with it the
knowledge how to use it. The sceptre is a plaything for a child, an

axe for a Richelieu, and for a Napoleon a lever by which to move the
world. Power leaves us just as it finds us; only great natures grow