Ange Pitou by Alexandre Dumas part one

The conditions were agreed on as Pitou had proposed. A circle was soon formed round the place of combat, and the champions, the one having thrown off his jacket, the other his coat, advanced towards each other.

We have already spoken of Pitou’s hands. These hands, which were by no means agreeable to look at, were still less agreeable to feel. Pitou at the end of each arm whirled round a fist equal in size to a child’s head, and although boxing had not at that time been introduced into France, and consequently Pitou had not studied the elementary principles of the science, he managed to apply to one of the eyes of his adversary a blow so well directed that the eye he struck was instantly surrounded by a dark bistre-colored circle, so geometrically drawn that the most skilful mathematician could not have formed it more correctly with his compasses.

The second then presented himself. If Pitou had against him the fatigue occasioned by his first combat, on the other side, his adversary was visibly less powerful than his former antagonist. The battle did not last long. Pitou aimed a straightforward blow at his enemy’s nose, and his formidable fist fell with such weight that instantly his opponent’s two nostrils gave evidence of the validity of the blow by spouting forth a double stream of blood.

The third got off with merely a broken tooth; he received much less damage than the two former. The other three declared that they were satisfied.

Pitou then pressed through the crowd, which opened as he approached with the respect due to a conqueror, and he withdrew safe and sound to his own fireside, or rather to that of his aunt.

The next morning, when the three pupils reached the school, the one with his eye poached, the second with a fearfully lacerated nose, and the third with his lips swelled, the Abbé Fortier instituted an inquiry. But young collegians have their good points too. Not one of the wounded whispered a word against Pitou, and it was only through an indirect channel, that is to say, from a person who had been a witness of the fight, but who was altogether unconnected with the school, that the Abbé Fortier learned, the following day, that it was Pitou who had done the damage to the faces of his pupils, which had caused him so much uneasiness the day before.

And, in fact, the Abbé Fortier was responsible to the parents, not only for the morals, but for the physical state of his pupils. He had received complaints from the three families. A reparation was absolutely necessary. Pitou was kept in school three days: one day for the eye, one day for the bloody nose, and one day for the tooth.

This three days’ detention suggested an ingenious idea to Mademoiselle Angélique. It was to deprive Pitou of his dinner every time that the Abbé Fortier kept him in school. This determination must necessarily have an advantageous effect on Pitou’s education, since it would naturally induce him to think twice before committing a fault which would subject him to this double punishment.

Only, Pitou could never rightly comprehend why it was that he had been called a tale-bearer, when he had not opened his lips, and why it was he had been punished for beating those who had wished to beat him; but if people were to comprehend everything that happens in this world, they would lose one of the principal charms of life,—that of mystery and the unforeseen.

Pitou was therefore detained three days in school, and during those three days he contented himself with his breakfast and supper.

Contented himself is not the word, for Pitou was by no means content; but our language is so poor, and the Academy so severe, that we must content ourselves with what we have.

Only that this punishment submitted to by Pitou, without saying a word of the aggression to which he had been subjected, and to which he had only properly replied, won him the esteem of the whole school. It is true that the three majestic blows he had been seen to deliver might also have had some little influence on his schoolfellows.

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