Doctor Pascal

ing country. And he was generally accompanied by Clotilde, who went with him

many people, then, must the methods now abandoned have killed! The perspicacity of the physician became everything, the healer was only a happily endowed diviner, himself groping in the dark and effecting cures through his fortunate endowment. And this explained why he had given up his patients almost altogether, after a dozen years of practise, to devote himself entirely to study. Then, when his great labors on heredity had restored to him for a time the hope of intervening and curing disease by his hypodermic injecti

he was absent, that it was she who brought the breath of life, the unknown and necessary force from the Beyond. So that the rich people, the bourgeois, whose houses she did not enter, continued to groan without his being able to relieve them. And this affectionate dispute diverted them; they set out each time as if for new discoveries, they exchanged glances of kindly intelligence with the sick.

order of things," Pascal would often say. "

train which they were waiting for was from the Tulettes. Sainte-Marthe was the first station in the opposite direction, going to Marseilles. When the train arrived, they hurried on board and, opening the door of a c

. "Grandmother is returning from the Tulettes, after making her m

l with his mother, which freed him fro

ople cannot agree it is better

bled and thoughtful. After a few

ally so carefully dressed had only one glove on-a yellow glove, on the r

she was very active, very full of fire still. She was thinking, he said, of bequeathing her fortune to the town of Plassans

the Tulettes to see our patients. And you know tha

he common term of life, until she had become a very prodigy of longevity. What a relief, the fine morning on which they should put under ground this troublesome witness of the past, this specter of expiation and of waiting, who brought living before her the abominations of the family! When so many othe

thing, blooming with health and gaiety. In days past, just after he had settled at the Tulettes, she had made him presents of wines, liqueurs and brandy, in the unavowed hope of ridding the family of a fellow who was really disreputable, and from whom they had nothing to expect but annoyance and shame. But she had soon perceived that all this liquor served, on the contrary, to keep up his health and spirits and his sarcastic humor, and she had left off making him presents, se

the old mother, and the day on which we both make up our minds to die it would be through compliment to

ng through an extraordinary attack of drunkenness, not having drawn a sober breath for a fortnight, and so intoxicated that he was probably unable to leave the house, she was sei

his secrecy and his good behavior. Before her appeared the house, with its pink tiles and its bright yellow walls, looking gay in the sunshine. Under the ancient mulberry trees on the terrace

und the tall marshmallows. And on the terrace there was nothing to be seen but a little yellow dog, stretched at full length on the bare gro

y solitude she was seized with

rt! Mac

. But she did not dare to go in; this empty house with its wid

rt! Mac

d again, but the humming of the bees circling arou

bly in order to shut out the heat. Her first sensation was one of choking, caused by an overpowering odor of alcohol which filled the room; every article of furniture seemed to exude this odor, the whole house was impregnated with it. At last, when her eyes had become accust

le and senseless to put one's self in such

even hear him breathing. In vain she raised h

cquart! Ah, faugh! You

hirst, and she wished to get a glass of water. Her gloves embarrassed her, and she took them off and put them on a corner of the table. Then she succeeded in finding the jug, and she washed a glass

which he wore from one year's end to the other. He had grown stout during the last five or six years, and he looked like a veritable mountain of flesh overlaid with rolls of fat. And she noticed that he must have fallen asleep while smoking, for his pipe-a short black pipe-had fallen int

blue flame issuing from it, lightly dancing, like a flame wandering over the surface of a vessel of lighted alcohol. It was as yet scarcely higher than the flame of a night light,

ry escaped from

rt! Mac

have produced a sort of coma, in which there was an absolute paralysis of sensation, for

rt! Mac

d vaguely that Uncle Macquart was burning before her like a sponge soaked with brandy. He had, indeed, been saturated with it for y

with a little shiver which she could not control. She was choking, and taking up the glass of water again with both hands, she emptied it at a draught. And she was going away on tiptoe, when she remembered her gloves.

have seen her entering or leaving the house. Only the yellow dog was still stretched there, and he did not even deign to look up. And she went away with her quick, short step, her youthful figure lightly s

sed that it had fallen on the platform at the station as she was getting into the car. She believed herself to be quite c

gold braid, like a young lord, a page of former times going to court. And during the quarter of an hour which the journey lasted, Clotilde amused herself in the compartment, in which they were alone, by taking off his cap and smoothing his beautiful blond locks, his royal hair that fell in curls over his shoulders. She had a ring on her finger, and as she passed her hand over his neck she was startled to perceive that her caress had left behind it a trace of blood. One could not touch the boy's skin without the red dew exuding from it; the tissues had become so lax throu

e, as it had looked on the day before, with its yellow walls and its green mulberry trees extending their twisted branches and covering the terrace with a thick, leafy roof. A

uncle!" said Pascal, sm

alone, and was astonished when he reached the top to see no one. The blinds were closed, the hill door yawned wide open. Only the yellow dog was at the threshold, his legs stiff, his hair bristling, howl

on, could not keep back the un

rt! Mac

the house, with its door yawning wide open, like

impatient, and

rt! Mac

ed flesh and bones. When he entered the room he could hardly breathe, so filled was it by a thick vapor, a stagnant and nauseous cloud, which choked and blinded him. The sunbeams that filtered through the cracks made only a dim light. He hurried to the fireplace, thinking that

e straw was partially consumed. What had become of Macquart? Where could he have disappeared? In front of the chair, on the brick floor, which was saturated with grease, there was a little heap of ashes, beside which lay the pipe-a black pipe, which had not even broken in falling.

e spontaneously and consuming the flesh and the bones. But he denied the truth of them no longer; besides, everything became clear to him as he reconstructed the scene-the coma of drunkenness producing absolute insensibility; the pipe falling on the clothes, which had taken fire; the flesh, saturated with liquor, burning and cracking; the fat melting, part of it running over the ground and part of it aiding the combustion, and all, at last-muscles, organs, and bones-co

remaining outside, his attention attra

a smell!" she cried.

to examine it, but she put it down again with horror, feeling it moist and sticky with Uncle Macquart's flesh. Nothin

sgust passed through her, and s

ath! What a ho

om his first shock, and

remember his envelope; he had some very terrible and vile things upon his conscience, which did not prevent him, however, from settling down later and growing old, surrounded by every comfort, like a

waved his han

rting on his journey through space; first diffused through the four corners of the room, dissolved in air and floating about, bathing all that belonged to him; then escaping in a cloud of dust through the wi

thought she perceived a touch of bitter mockery in his eulogistic rhapsody, shuddered anew with ho

hat fragme

d up with surprise a woma

dmother's glove; the glove th

seen Uncle Macquart burning and that she had not quenched him. Various indications pointed to this-the state of complete coolness in which he found the room, the number of hours which he calculated to have been necessary f

her way back from the asylum, to say good day

!" cried Clotilde. "I am stifli

e key in his pocket. Outside, they heard the little yellow dog still howling. He had taken refuge between Charles

and so much to be pitied. M. Maurin, horrified at the news, went at once with the doctor to draw up a statement of the accident, and promised to make out the death certificate in due form. As for religious ceremonies, funeral obsequies, they seemed scarcely possible. When they entered the kitchen the draught from the door scattered the ashes about, and when they piously attempted to collect them again

ing; for he thought he might tell the doctor at once that Uncle Macquart had chosen him as his executor. And he ended by offering, like a kindhearted man, to keep Charles with him until then

turally learned of Macquart's death, and had hurried there on the following day, full of excitement, and making a great show of grief; and she had just made her appearance again to-day, having heard the famous testament spoken of. The reading of the will, however, was a simple matter, unmarked by any incident. Macquart had left all the fortune that he could dispose of for

ng no allusion whatever to the new situation, and giving it to be understood that they might very well meet and appear united before the world, without for that reason entering into an explanation or becoming reconciled. But she committed the mistake of laying too much stress on the great grief which Macquart's death had caused her. Pascal, who susp

expressing her gri

st in living alone-like a wolf in his lair! If

saying, terrified at hearing himself say the wo

ou were there, why di

ow evident. It was an avowal, this terrified silence which had fallen between the mother, the son, and the granddaughter-the shuddering silence in which families bury their domestic tragedies. The doctor, in d

to spend an hour or two with Aunt Dide, he had sent the maid servant to the asylum with orders to bring him back immediately. It was at this juncture that the

quickly. Master Charle

-haired girl, carried her, fed her, took her up and laid her down as if she had been a bundle. The ancestress, the forgotten one, tall, bony, ghastly, remained motionless, her eyes, only seeming to have life, her eyes shining clear as spring water in her thin withered face. But on this morning, again a sudden rush of tears had streamed down her cheeks, and she had begun to stammer words without any connection; which seemed to prove that in the

ble, in front of his great-great-grandmother. The girl kept a package of pictures for him-soldiers

ave well. You see that to-day grandmoth

mpid eyes, seemed to lose themselves in one another, to be identical. Then it was the physiognomy, the whole face, the worn features of the centenarian, that passed over three generatio

when with her mad charge, "you cannot deny each other. The same hand made you both. You are the

seemed to be interested in his pictures, while Aunt Dide, who had an astonishing power of fixing her attent

ich she had been airing, she arranged the linen on the shelves of the press. But she generally profited by the presence of the boy to

f she stirs, if she should need me, ring for me, call me at once; do yo

loud cry, immediately silenced. But the boy must have been tired by the excessive heat of the day, for sleep gradually stole over him. Soon his head, fair as a lily, drooped, and as if weighed down by the too heavy casque of his royal locks, he let it sink gently on the pictures and fell asleep, with his cheek resting on the gold and purple kings. The lashes of his

thout a bruise, which issued and flowed of itself in the laxity of the degenerate tissues. The drops became a slender thread which flowed over the gold of the pictures. A little pool covered them, and made its way to a corner of the table; then the drops began again, splashing dully one by one upon the floor. And he still sl

s, at one moment, stirred, opened his eyes, and perceived that he was covered with blood. But he was not frightened; he was accustomed to this bloody spring, which issued from him a

a! ma

k possession of him, his head dropped, his eyes closed, and he seemed to fall asleep

a! ma

able lake. A loud cry from the madwoman, a terrified call would have sufficed. But she did not cry, she did not call; motionless, rigid, emaciated, sitting there forgotten of the world, she gazed with the fixed look of the ancestress who sees the destinies of her race being accomplished. She sat there as if dried up, bou

a! ma

dful tumult that had arisen within her had no doubt paralyzed her tongue. She tried to rise, to run, but she had no longer any muscles; she remained fastened to her seat. All her poor body trembled in the superhuman effort w

expire, he opened his large eyes and fixed them on his great-great-grandmother, who watched the light dying in them. All the waxen face was already dead, the eyes only were still living. They still kept their limpidity, their brightness. All at once they became vacant, the light in them was extinguished. This was the end-the death of the eyes, and Charles had died, without a struggle, exhausted, like a fount

e room, followed by Felicite and Clotilde. And when he saw

rhage from the nose! The poor darling,

so fair and so gentle, and on the red sea of blood, beginning to congeal, that was lying around him, kindled with a thought, after a long sleep of twenty-two years. This final lesion of madness, this irremediable darkness of the mind, was evidently not so co

en with a shudder, which made her teeth

arme! the

her terribly-the first, when she was in her ardent prime, when a gendarme shot down her lover Macquart, the smuggler, like a dog; the second, years ago, when another gendarme shattered with a pistol shot the skull of her grandson Silvere, the insurgent, the victim of the hatred and the sanguinary

her life red with passion and suffering, ha

the gendarme!

armchair. They thought she w

r. Pascal had placed Aunt Dide on the bed, he found that the old mother was still alive. She was not to die until the following day, at t

ing to his m

ill be dead. Ah! Uncle Macquart, then she, and this p

d added in a

ut; the old trees fall an

above the horror which she felt there arose a sense of immense relief. Next week, when they should have ceased to weep, what a rest to be

untary accusation made against her by her son at the no

e prevented nothing; it would have been useless for Uncle Macquart to ha

then continued i

s happen as they will. These are great blows that have fallen upon us. We m

h his habitual air o

right,

as praying fervently for the dear ones who were no more. She prayed that God would grant that their sufferings might indeed be ended, their faults pardoned, and that they might li

ate dangerous elements, and to labor only in the supreme work of giving health and strength. But the suffering and the death of those who are dear to us awaken in us a hatred of disease, an irresistible desire to combat and to vanquish it. And the doctor never tasted so great a joy