Part 41 (1/2)
”Take off your coat,” he said, ”and let us see what you can do Nature, at least, designed you for a swordsth of ar of you, teach you enough for ive the elements of the art to new pupils before I take them in hand to finish them Let us try Take that mask and foil, and come over here”
He led him to the end of the roouide the beginner in the ement of his feet
At the end of a ten minutes' bout, M des Amis offered hi the rudi-rooentlemen who caenerally useful His wages for the present were to be forty livres a -roo
The position, you see, had its humiliations But, if Andre-Louis would hope to dine, hehis pride as an hors d'oeuvre
”And so,” he said, controlling a grimace, ”the robe yields not only to the sword, but to the broom as well Be it so I stay”
It is characteristic of hi made that choice, he should have thrown himself into the ith enthusiasm It was ever his way to do whatever he did with all the resources of hisvery young gentle them the elaborate and intricate salute--which with a few days' hard practice he had uards, he was hi eye, wrist, and knees
Perceiving his enthusias the obvious possibilities it opened out of turning him into a really effective assistant, M des Amis presently took him more seriously in hand
”Your application and zeal,of more than forty livres a month,” the master informed him at the end of a week ”For the present, however, I willto you secrets of this noble art Your future depends upon how you profit by your exceptional good fortune in receiving instruction fro of the academy, the master would fence for half an hour with his new assistant Under this really excellent tuition Andre-Louis improved at a rate that both astounded and flattered M des Amis He would have been less flattered and more astounded had he known that at least half the secret of Andre-Louis'
a the contents of the master's library, which was reat 's Acadeustin Rousseau To M des Amis, whose swordsmanshi+p was all based on practice and not at all on theory, as indeed no theorist or student in any sense, that little library was -academy, a proper piece of decorative furniture The books the to him in any other sense He had not the type of mind that could have read them with profit nor could he understand that another should do so Andre-Louis, on the contrary, a man with the habit of study, with the acquired faculty of learning from books, read those works with enormous profit, kept their precepts in ainst those of another, and made for himself a choice which he proceeded to put into practice
At the end of a month it suddenly dawned upon M des Amis that his assistant had developed into a fencer of very considerable force, a man in a bout hom it became necessary to exert himself if he were to escape defeat
”I said froned you for a swordsman See how justified I was, and see also hoell I have kno to mould the material hich Nature has equipped you”
”To the lory,” said Andre-Louis
His relations with M des Amis hadto receive froinners In fact Andre-Louis was beco an assistant in a much fuller sense of the word M des A advantage of what he had guessed to be the young es to four louis a htful study of the theories of others, it followed now--as not uncommonly happens--that Andre-Louis ca on his little truckle bed in the alcove behind the acadeht in Danet on double and triple feints It had see it that Danet had stopped short on the threshold of a great discovery in the art of fencing Essentially a theorist, Andre-Louis perceived the theory suggested, which Danet hi it had not perceived He lay now on his back, surveying the cracks in the ceiling and considering thisoften brings to an acute intelligence You are to remember that for close upon two months now the sword had been Andre-Louis' daily exercise and alht Protracted concentration upon the subject was giving him an extraordinary penetration of vision
Swordsht and saw it daily practised consisted of a series of attacks and parries, a series of disengages from one line into another But always a lies on either side was, strictly speaking, usually as far as any engagees were fortuitous What if from first to last they should be calculated?
That was part of the thought--one of the two legs on which his theory was to stand; the other ould happen if one so elaborated Danet's ideas on the triple feint as to es to cule? That is to say, if one were to ain to be countered, each of which was not intended to go home, but simply to play the opponent's blade into a line that must open hie Each counter of the opponent's would have to be preconsidered in this widening of his guard, a widening so gradual that he should hi home his own point on one of those counters
Andre-Louis had been in his time a chess-player of some force, and at chess he had excelled by virtue of his capacity for thinking ahead That virtue applied to fencing should all but revolutionize the art It was so applied already, of course, but only in an elele, double, or triple But even the triple feint should be a clumsy device compared with this method upon which he theorized
He considered further, and the conviction grew that he held the key of a discovery He was i he was given a pupil of soainst whouard, he e, predetered in tierce, and Andre-Louis led the attack by a beat and a straightening of the arm Came the demi-contre he expected, which he proain, he reentered still lower, and being again correctly parried, as he had calculated, he lunged swirling his point into carte, and got home full upon his opponent's breast The ease of it surprised hio in on the fifth disengage, and in on that he ith the sa the matter further, he decided to try the sixth, and worked out in his ain he succeeded as easily as before
The young gentlee of mortification in his voice
”I a,” he said
”You are not of your usual force,” Andre-Louis politely agreed And then greatly daring, always to test that theory of his to the uttermost: ”Soyou as and when I declare”
The capable pupil looked at him with a half-sneer ”Ah, that, no,” said he