You are to remember that for close
upon two months now the sword had been Andre-Louis' daily exercise
and almost hourly thought. Protracted concentration upon the subject
was giving him an extraordinary penetration of vision. Swordsmanship
as he learnt and taught 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 limited series. A half-dozen disengages
on either side was, strictly speaking, usually as far as any
engagement went. Then one recommenced. But even so, these
disengages 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 was: what would happen if one so
elaborated Danet's ideas on the triple feint as to merge them into
a series of actual calculated disengages to culminate at the fourth
or fifth or even sixth disengage? That is to say, if one were to
make a series of attacks inviting ripostes again 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 him ultimately, and as
predetermined, for an irresistible lunge.
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