The Point Of Honor: A Military Tale

by Joseph Conrad

cafe:

  "Some new villainy of the government, general?"

  "The villainies of these scoundrels," thundered General Feraud, "areinnumerable. One more, one less!..." He lowered his tone. "But I willset good order to one of them at least."

  He looked all round the faces. "There's a pomaded curled staff officer,the darling of some of the marshals who sold their father for a handfulof English gold. He will find out presently that I am alive yet," hedeclared in a dogmatic tone.... "However, this is a private affair.An old affair of honour. Bah! Our honour does not matter. Here we aredriven off with a split ear like a lot of cast troop horses--good onlyfor a knacker's yard. Who cares for our honour now? But it would belike striking a blow for the emperor.... _Messieurs_, I require theassistance of two of you."

  Every man moved forward. General Feraud, deeply touched by thisdemonstration, called with visible emotion upon the one-eyed veterancuirassier and the officer of the _Chasseurs a cheval_, who had left thetip of his nose in Russia. He excused his choice to the others.

  "A cavalry affair this--you know."

  He was answered with a varied chorus of "_Parfaitement mon General...C'est juste... Parbleu c'est connu..._" Everybody was satisfied. Thethree left the cafe together, followed by cries of "_Bonne chance_."

  Outside they linked arms, the general in the middle. The three rustycocked hats worn _en bataille_, with a sinister forward slant, barredthe narrow street nearly right across. The overheated little town ofgray stones and red tiles was drowsing away its provincial afternoonunder a blue sky. Far off the loud blows of some coopers hooping a cask,reverberated regularly between the houses. The general dragged his leftfoot a little in the shade of the walls.

  "That damned winter of 1813 got into my bones for good. Never mind. Wemust 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. Youshould have seen me picking off the dodging Cossacks with a beastly oldinfantry musket. I have a natural gift for firearms."

  In this strain General Feraud ran on, holding up his head with owlisheyes 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 amassed lot of personal contests, a sort of gregarious duelling. And herehe had on hand a war of his own. He revived. The shadow of peace hadpassed away from him like the shadow of death. It was a marvellousresurrection of the named Feraud, Gabriel Florian, _engage volontaire_of 1793, general of 1814, buried without ceremony by means of a serviceorder signed by the War Minister of the Second Restoration.

  IV

  No man succeeds in everything he undertakes. In that sense we are allfailures. The great point is not to fail in ordering and sustaining theeffort of our life. In this matter vanity is what leads us astray. It isour vanity which hurries us into situations from which we must come outdamaged. Whereas pride is our safeguard by the reserve it imposes onthe choice of our endeavour, as much as by the virtue of its sustainingpower.

  General D'Hubert was proud and reserved. He had not been damaged bycasual love affairs successful or otherwise. In his war-scarred bodyhis heart at forty remained unscratched. Entering with reserve into hissister's matrimonial plans, he felt himself falling irremediably in loveas one falls off a roof. He was too proud to be frightened. Indeed, thesensation was too delightful to be alarming.

  The inexperience of a man of forty is a much more serious thing thanthe inexperience of a youth of twenty, for it is not helped out by therashness of hot blood. The girl was mysterious, as all young girlsare, by the mere effect of their guarded ingenuity; and to him themysteriousness of that young girl appeared exceptional and fascinating.But there was nothing mysterious about the arrangements of the matchwhich Madame Leonie had arranged. There was nothing peculiar, either. Itwas a very appropriate match, commending itself extremely to the younglady's mother (her father was dead) and tolerable to the young lady'suncle--an old _emigre_, lately returned from Germany, and pervading canein hand like a lean ghost of the _ancien regime_ in a long-skirted browncoat and powdered hair, the garden walks of the young lady's ancestralhome.

  General D'Hubert was not the man to be satisfied merely with the girland the fortune--when it came to the point. His pride--and pride aimsalways at true success--would be satisfied with nothing short of love.But as pride excludes vanity, he could not imagine any reason why thismysterious 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 Adele) baffled every attempt at a clear understanding onthat point. It is true that the attempts were clumsy and timidly made,because by then General D'Hubert had become acutely aware of the numberof his years, of his wounds, of his many moral imperfections, of hissecret unworthiness--and had incidentally learned by experience themeaning of the word funk. As far as he could make it out she seemedto imply that with a perfect confidence in her mother's affection andsagacity she had no pronounced antipathy for the person of GeneralD'Hubert; and that this was quite sufficient for a well-brought-updutiful young lady to begin married life upon. This view hurt andtormented the pride of General D'Hubert. And yet, he asked himself witha sort of sweet despair, What more could he expect? She had a quiet andluminous forehead; her violet eyes laughed while the lines of her lipsand chin remained composed in an admirable gravity. All this was set offby such a glorious mass of fair hair, by a complexion so marvellous, bysuch a grace of expression, that General D'Hubert really never found theopportunity to examine, with sufficient detachment, the lofty exigenciesof his pride. In fact, he became shy of that line of inquiry, since ithad led once or twice to a crisis of solitary passion in which it wasborne upon him that he loved her enough to kill her rather than loseher. From such passages, not unknown to men of forty, he would come outbroken, exhausted, remorseful, a little dismayed. He derived, however,considerable comfort from the quietist practice of sitting up now andthen half the night by an open window, and meditating upon the wonder ofher existence, like a believer lost in the mystic contemplation of hisfaith.

  It must not be supposed that all these variations of his inward statewere made manifest to the world. General D'Hubert found no difficultyin appearing wreathed in smiles: because, in fact, he was very happy.He followed the established rules of his condition, sending over flowers(from his sister's garden and hothouses) early every morning, and alittle later following himself to have lunch with his intended, hermother, and her _emigre_ uncle. The middle of the day was spent instrolling or sitting in the shade. A watchful deferential gallantrytrembling on the verge of tenderness, was the note of their intercourseon his side--with a playful turn of the phrase concealing the profoundtrouble of his whole being caused by her inaccessible nearness. Late inthe afternoon General D'Hubert walked home between the fields of vines,sometimes intensely miserable, sometimes supremely happy, sometimespensively sad, but always feeling a special intensity of existence: thatelation common to artists, poets, and lovers, to men haunted by a greatpassion, by a noble thought or a new vision of plastic beauty.

  The outward world at that time did not exist with any specialdistinctness for General D'Hubert. One evening, however, crossing aridge from which he could see both houses, General D'Hubert became awareof two figures far down the road. The day had been divine. The festaldecoration of the inflamed sky cast a gentle glow on the sober tintsof the southern land. The gray rocks, the brown fields, the purpleundulating distances harmonised in luminous accord, exhaled alreadythe scents of the evening. The two figures down the road presentedthemselves like two rigid and wooden silhouettes all black on the ribbonof white dust. General D'Hubert made out the long, straight-cut military_capotes_, buttoned closely right up to the black stocks, the cockedhats, the lean carven brown countenances--old soldiers--_vieillesmoustaches!_ The taller of the two had a black patch over one eye;the other's hard, dry countenance presented some bizarre disquietingpeculiarity which, on nearer approach, proved to be the absence of thetip of the nose. Liftin
g their hands with one movement to salute theslightly lame civilian walking with a thick stick, they inquired for thehouse where the General Baron D'Hubert lived and what was the best wayto get speech with him quietly.

  "If you think this quiet enough," said General D'Hubert, looking roundat the ripening vine-fields framed in purple lines and dominated by thenest of gray and drab walls of a village clustering around the top of asteep, conical hill, so that the blunt church tower seemed but the shapeof a crowning rock--"if you think this quiet enough you can speak tohim at once. And I beg you, comrades, to speak openly with perfectconfidence."

  They stepped back at this and raised again their hands to their hatswith marked ceremoniousness. Then the one with the chipped nose,speaking for both,