The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki Read Free Book Online Page B

was across the road from the post house, and asked for a room.
    When they were alone my father said to the traveller, ‘Señor, your carriage overtook mine and arrived at the post house before me. This act, which does not itself constitute an insult, none the less has something disobliging about it for which I feel obliged to ask you for an explanation.’
    The colonel was very taken aback by this and placed the blame on his postilions, assuring my father that he had no part in it.
    â€˜Señor caballero,’ continued my father, ‘I also do not wish to make anything serious of this. And so I shall be satisfied by first blood.’ In saying this he drew his sword.
    â€˜One moment,’ said the Frenchman. ‘It seems to me that it was not my postilions who overtook yours but rather yours who by lingering fell behind mine.’
    My father thought about this for a moment and then said to the colonel, ‘Señor, I think you are quite right. If you had made this observation to me earlier, before I had drawn my sword, I think we would not have had to fight each other. But you must realize that now things have gone this far some blood must be drawn.’
    The colonel, who probably thought this last argument good enough, also drew his sword. The duel did not last long. On feeling himself wounded my father at once lowered the point of his sword and apologized to the colonel for the trouble to which he had put him. He replied in turn by offering my father his services and gave anaddress in Paris where he could be found. Then he stepped back into his chaise and left.
    My father first thought that he was only lightly wounded, but he was so covered with scars that any new cut could not fail to open up an old one. In this case the colonel’s blow had reopened an old musket wound from which the bullet had not been extracted. The lead ball began to work its way to the surface and came out after the wound had been treated for two months. Only then could the journey continue.
    On arriving in Paris my father’s first thought was to present his compliments to the colonel, whose name was the Marquis d’Urfé. He was one of the most respected members of the French court. He received my father with great kindness and offered to introduce him to the minister as well as to the best circles. My father thanked him but asked only to be presented to the Duc de Tavannes, who was then the doyen of the maréchaux, because he wanted to be apprised of all that concerned this tribunal, which he held in the highest regard and about which he had often spoken as a very judicious institution that he would have liked to see introduced into Spain. The duke received my father with great civility and recommended him in turn to the Chevalier de Belièvre, the senior officer of the maréchaux and recorder of their tribunal.
    In the course of his frequent visits to my father the chevalier came to hear of his chronicle of duels. This work seemed to have no precedent in its kind and he asked permission to show it to the maréchaux who, like their senior officer, thought it unique and asked my father for the favour of a copy that would be kept in the registry of their tribunal. No request could have flattered my father more or given him greater pleasure.
    To my father, such marks of esteem made the stay in Paris highly agreeable, but my mother took a different view of it. She had made it a rule not only not to learn French but also never to listen to it when it was spoken. Her confessor, Iñigo Vélez, repeatedly passed acerbic comments about the freedoms of the Gallican Church and Garcías Hierro ended all conversations by declaring the French to be miserable worms.
    At last they left Paris and after four days’ journey arrived inBouillon. My father made himself known to the magistrate and went to take possession of his fief.
    On being abandoned by its masters, the ancestral roof had also been abandoned by a