Katya’s fingers were rigid on my arm, but I said to her, “Don’t worry. Paul doesn’t need any help. He’s fine.”

Moving forward with little sliding steps like an advancing fencer, Paul delivered light blows with one foot then the other to each side of the bottle-fighter’s head, and the young man staggered back, more confused and bewildered than hurt, unable to get out of reach. It was obvious that Paul was more intent upon humiliating his opponents than doing them any real harm. Baffled, stung, his greater size and strength neutralized, the Parisian put his head down and charged at Paul with a roar. Paul sidestepped gracefully and gave the lad a loud slap on his buttocks that delighted the onlookers.

Evidently the first kick delivered to the man whom Katya and I arrived to discover already on the ground had been a vigorous one, for he was quite out of the combat. He rose groggily and staggered away into the ring of spectators where he was greeted with hoots and jeers.

The other now advanced on Paul charily, his big fists up before his face in the stance of a conventional boxer.

“Do you remember me?” Paul asked, gliding back to keep distance from him. “I’m the one you forced off the road with your silly motorcar.”

The Parisian lunged forward and struck out, but Paul slapped the fist away with one foot then, with a lightning change-step, tapped the fellow on the side of the face with the other toe hard enough to make his teeth click.

“I have now offered you a little lesson in good manners,” Paul said. “And I’m willing to consider the lesson given and taken, if you are.”

But the Parisian continued to advance, angry and frustrated with not being able to touch Paul with a blow.

“I cannot afford to toy with you forever, son,” Paul warned, giving him a quick kick to the stomach that was just strong enough to make him grunt. “You’re a large beast, and it wouldn’t do for you to get in a lucky blow. Shall we call the contest over?”

I felt that the young man would willingly have abandoned the hopeless struggle, were it not for the young ladies before whom he could not allow himself to be humiliated. There was only one humane thing for Paul to do.

And he did that in the next few seconds. With a shout of desperation, the young man rushed at Paul, his arms flailing. He caught hold of Paul’s sleeve and tore his jacket at the shoulder. Paul tugged away and delivered a quick kick to the stomach that doubled the man up with a snort; then he spun and kicked with all his force to the side of the head. The young man rolled over the cobbles and lay unmoving.

As Paul strolled away with studied nonchalance, more concerned over his torn sleeve than anything else, there was a general mutter of praise and approval from the onlookers, and there were exuberant cris basques from adolescent boys who had climbed up onto second-storey balconies to get a better view of the entertainment. The three Parisian girls rushed into the square to play their Nightingale roles over their fallen swain, who was now sitting dazed on the stones, and whose greatest desire was to disappear from the scene of his embarrassment. I drew Katya along with me and we overtook Paul near one of the buvettes.

“May I offer you a glass?” I asked.

Paul turned to us, his eyes shining with excitement. “By all means, Montjean. It’s thirsty work, this teaching manners to young boors.”

“And you loved it!” Katya reproved sternly. “Men never grow up entirely!” But her anxiety over Paul’s welfare was mixed with a hint of pride.

“Just look at my jacket, will you! I wonder if my contribution to the education of that bourgeois was worth it. Ah, thank you, Montjean.” He accepted the glass I brought him and drained it. “Now, that is ghastly stuff. Still, I suppose there’s a subtle economy in being able to use the same substance for both wine and sheep dip. Nevertheless, I’ll accept another glass, if you’re in a generous mood.”

“May I have one as well?” Katya asked.

“Why yes, of course.” It had not occurred to me to offer her a glass of the coarse local wine, but I supposed she felt the need for it after the suspense and tension of Paul’s encounter.

Because it was for the hero of their recent entertainment, the man who slopped wine into glasses at the buvette refused to accept pay for the three glasses, a rare and significant gesture for a Basque, with whom the virtue of frugality precedes cleanliness in its proximity to godliness.

We found space for ourselves on the worn stone steps of the church, where I spread my coat for Katya to sit upon, and we sipped our wine as we watched a group of boys on the square playing at kicking one another in imitation of the exploits they had just observed. The lad playing the role of Paul did so with extravagant pirouettes and much strutting about, while he held his face in a mask of stretched disdain that looked for all the world as though he were reacting to a barnyard stench. Each time this lad kicked out, a nearby boy did an awkward backwards flip and landed in a comically distorted heap on the ground.

“Did I really look like that?” Paul asked, with an amused frown.

“The boy’s underplaying you a bit,” Katya taunted, “but he has captured the essence of your attitude.” Then she turned suddenly serious. “You frightened me to death, Paul. What if the one with the bottle had hit you?”

“I was frightened myself,” Paul said, rather surprising me with the admission. “There were two of them, and they were healthy-looking specimens. So I struck out rather too vigorously at first, meaning to immobilize at least one of them immediately.” He glanced at me. “A man who’s frightened and has his back to the wall can be very dangerous. He doesn’t dare to moderate his attack.”

I nodded. “Why did you play with the second one so long?”

“My dear fellow, it wasn’t a matter of punishing him. It was a matter of humiliating him. I know their type: second generation arrives merchants imitating the accents and behavior of their betters (people like me) but lacking the innate panache to pull it off. Paris is full of them. And humiliating them is a popular indoor sport with men of my class. So far as punishment goes, I had already accomplished that. I rearranged certain features of the motorcar they were so proud of.”

“Yes. We saw the effects of your repairs.”

“Hm-m. Well, I confess to having no technical gifts. But I left them all the bits, so they could have someone more skillful correct any little errors I may have made.”

“You devil!” Katya said, and again the reproval was mock. Then she put her hand on my arm. “Did you know that Jean-Marc spoke out and prevented your little display from becoming what we call a ‘bagarre basque.’ “

“What we call a ‘bagarre’?” Paul taunted. He turned to me. “Was that you shouting out in that comic imitation of a language?”

“It was.”

“Ah, I see. When I saw those belt buckles flashing out of the corner of my eye, I thought for a moment I was for it. I suppose it was a good thing for me that those young buffoons were also outlanders.”

“Indeed it was.”

Having taken advantage of Paul’s distraction to refresh themselves at one of the bars, the band now struck up a high-tempo Kax Karot, and soon there were twenty or more couples dancing and leaping in the square. Most of the candles in the paper lanterns had guttered out, but the dented moon high above filled the square with its pallid light.

Paul rose and offered his hand to Katya. “Are you willing to join your brother in this primitive hopping about?”

She stood and dropped a little curtsy. “We call it a Kax Karot.”

“Oh we do, do we? You will excuse us, Doctor?”

They joined the general swirl of dancers, where Paul’s strong legs, trained in kick-boxing, stood him in good stead when the challenge lines formed to leap against one another. As I watched them I was struck anew by how much they resembled one another, not only in appearance, but in energy and articulation, in idioms of body movement.