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Page 39
Sir, -- My friend, M. P.-, will hand you this note. I find it
incumbent upon me to request, at your earliest convenience, an
explanation of this evening's occurrences at your chambers. In the
event of your declining this request, Mr. P. will be happy to
arrange, with any friend whom you may appoint, the steps preliminary
to a meeting.
With sentiments of perfect respect,
Your most humble servant,
JOHANN HERMAN.
To the Baron Ritzner von Jung,
Not knowing what better to do, I called upon Ritzner with this
epistle. He bowed as I presented it; then, with a grave countenance,
motioned me to a seat. Having perused the cartel, he wrote the
following reply, which I carried to Hermann.
SIR, -- Through our common friend, Mr. P., I have received your note
of this evening. Upon due reflection I frankly admit the propriety of
the explanation you suggest. This being admitted, I still find great
difficulty, (owing to the refinedly peculiar nature of our
disagreement, and of the personal affront offered on my part,) in so
wording what I have to say by way of apology, as to meet all the
minute exigencies, and all the variable shadows, of the case. I have
great reliance, however, on that extreme delicacy of discrimination,
in matters appertaining to the rules of etiquette, for which you have
been so long and so pre-eminently distinguished. With perfect
certainty, therefore, of being comprehended, I beg leave, in lieu of
offering any sentiments of my own, to refer you to the opinions of
Sieur Hedelin, as set forth in the ninth paragraph of the chapter of
"Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se," in his
"Duelli Lex scripta, et non; aliterque." The nicety of your
discernment in all the matters here treated, will be sufficient, I am
assured, to convince you that the mere circumstance of me referring
you to this admirable passage, ought to satisfy your request, as a
man of honor, for explanation.
With sentiments of profound respect,
Your most obedient servant,
VON JUNG.
The Herr Johann Hermann
Hermann commenced the perusal of this epistle with a scowl, which,
however, was converted into a smile of the most ludicrous
self-complacency as he came to the rigmarole about Injuriae per
applicationem, per constructionem, et per se. Having finished
reading, he begged me, with the blandest of all possible smiles, to
be seated, while he made reference to the treatise in question.
Turning to the passage specified, he read it with great care to
himself, then closed the book, and desired me, in my character of
confidential acquaintance, to express to the Baron von Jung his
exalted sense of his chivalrous behavior, and, in that of second, to
assure him that the explanation offered was of the fullest, the most
honorable, and the most unequivocally satisfactory nature.
Somewhat amazed at all this, I made my retreat to the Baron. He
seemed to receive Hermann's amicable letter as a matter of course,
and after a few words of general conversation, went to an inner room
and brought out the everlasting treatise "Duelli Lex scripta, et non;
aliterque." He handed me the volume and asked me to look over some
portion of it. I did so, but to little purpose, not being able to
gather the least particle of meaning. He then took the book himself,
and read me a chapter aloud. To my surprise, what he read proved to
be a most horribly absurd account of a duel between two baboons. He
now explained the mystery; showing that the volume, as it appeared
prima facie, was written upon the plan of the nonsense verses of Du
Bartas; that is to say, the language was ingeniously framed so as to
present to the ear all the outward signs of intelligibility, and even
of profundity, while in fact not a shadow of meaning existed. The key
to the whole was found in leaving out every second and third word
alternately, when there appeared a series of ludicrous quizzes upon a
single combat as practised in modern times.
The Baron afterwards informed me that he had purposely thrown the
treatise in Hermann's way two or three weeks before the adventure,
and that he was satisfied, from the general tenor of his
conversation, that he had studied it with the deepest attention, and
firmly believed it to be a work of unusual merit. Upon this hint he
proceeded. Hermann would have died a thousand deaths rather than
acknowledge his inability to understand anything and everything in
the universe that had ever been written about the duello.
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