Liechtenstein, 1892
The seconds are in place. This big garden's petite parterre
holds only a small crowd, all ladies, on its walks.
Princess Pauline von Metter niche loosens a button on her petticoat
and remembers that on her death, her money goes to music.
The flowerbeds of the parterre are tended in the three
temperate seasons, but none of the ladies are here to see flowers.
Across the lawn, Countess Anastasia Koelmannsegg has replied
to the Princesses words of reconciliation, which are required
in the French rules of honor, with the prescribed demand for blood.
Each woman's second takes her combatants velvet coat.
Baroness Lubinska, the physician who will tend to any wounds,
calls for each combatant to prepare. At this, both the Princess
and the Countess take a long moment to unbuttoned their chemisettes,
while their seconds pull the laces from their corsets. It is August,
but both combatants shiver when the last layer falls away
from their backs. Fighting sans the danger of silk filling a wound,
says the Baroness, will prevent infection. The seconds lift
rapiers from hard pillows and hold them up for all to see.
The Princess feels unlike herself. The rapier isn't new to her--
she'd learned to use it as a girl. It isn't the duel itself,
either. She'd brawler enough with her brothers and cousins,
also as a girl. She guesses it is both the August air
and the reason for the duel. She and the Countess had disagreed,
with a shocking difference of opinion, over a flower arrangement
for the Vienna Musical and Theatrical Exhibition. It's almost
the new century, thinks the Princess, and the world
might finally see her spill or draw men's blood--the blood of honor.
The combat commences. The Princess misses one wild parry
and retreats just too slowly to feel the bite of vanishing steel
Across her nose. When the Countess, realizing she has
truly slashed her friend with a sword, pauses in amazement,
the Princess stabs her through the bicep. The Baroness rushes in
and the combatants part. Honor drips into a flowerbed
as the Countess stares down, curious. The winner is unclear:
the Countess drew first blood, but the Princess, who smiles in a way
she never has in front of a mirror, made the better wound.
