Volume III Part 25 (1/2)
Charlotte Guindal's medical man was Doctor Rabatel, one of those clever , but whom a country bone-setter would reduce to a ”why?” by a few questions; one of those men ish to impress everybody with their apparent value, and who e as if it were some productive commercial house, which carried on a suspicious business; who can scent out those persons whoe as they please, as if they were a piece of soft ho keep the the idea of death constantly before their eyes
They soon e to obtain the mastery over such persons, scrutinize their consciences as well as the cleverest priest could do,well paid for their co anywhere, and drain their patients of their secrets, in order to use the money on occasions He felt sure i of him, as by some extraordinary perversion of taste, he was rather fond of the reot up, and offered to hih flavor which arises froh years of love, froed in its last struggle, and which dreaether, he did not hesitate to become his new patient's lover
When winter cae took place in Charlotte's health, that had hitherto been so good She had no strength left, she felt ill after the slightest exertion, co on the couch, with set eyes and without uttering a word, so that everybody thought that she was dying of one of those mysterious rees, under, lying motionless on her pillohile a mist seemed to have come over her eyes, and her hands lay helplessly on the bed and her er Monsieur de Saint-Juery was in despair; he cried like a child, and he suffered as if soed a knife into him, when the doctor said to him in his unctuous voice:
”I know that you are a brave man, my dear sir, and I may venture to tell you the whole truth Mada but a miracle can save her, and alas! there are no miracles in these days The end is only a question of a few hours, and may come quite suddenly”
Monsieur de Saint-Juery had thrown hi his face with his hands
”My poor dear, h his tears
”Pray co down by his side, ”for I have to say so serious to you, and to convey to you our poor patient's last wishes A few o, she told me the secret of your double life, and of your connection with her And now, in view of death, which she feels approaching so rapidly, for she is under no delusion, the unhappy woman wishes to die at peace with heaven, with the consolation of having regulated her equivocal position, and of having becoht, with a bewildered look, while he rief he was incapable ofthis unexpected attack
”Oh! anything that Charlotte wishes, doctor; anything, and I willtook place discreetly, with so funereal about it, in the darkened rooe sound, al in bed, with her eyes dilated through happiness, had put both tre hands into those of Monsieur de Saint-Juery, and she seemed to expire with the word: ”Yes”
on her lips The doctor looked at the rave and impassive, with his chin buried in his white cravat, and his two ar on the lasses
The next week, Madaet better, and that wonderful recovery about which Monsieur de Saint-Juery tells everybody with effusive gratitude, ill listen to him, has so increased Doctor Rabatel's reputation, that at the next election he will be made a member of the Acade fellow, Rene de Bourneval He was an agreeable h of a rather ainst everything, very skeptical, and able to tear worldly hypocrisies to pieces He often used to say:
”There are no honorable men, or at any rate, they only appear so when compared to low people”
He had two brothers, whoht they were by another father, on account of the difference in the nae had happened in the fareat liking to hi, when I had been dining with him alone, I asked hie?” He grew rather pale, and then flushed, and did not speak for a few moments; he was visibly eentle manner, which was peculiar to him, and said:
”My dear friend, if it will not weary you, I can give you soe particulars about my life I know that you are a sensible man, so I do not fear that our friendshi+p will suffer by my revelations, and should it suffer, I should not care about having you for er
”My mother, Madame de Courcils, was a poor little timid woman, whom her husband had married for the sake of her fortune, and her whole life was one of , delicate ht to have been entle with a servant, and besides that, the wives and daughters of his tenants were histhree children by his wife, or three, if you count , and lived in that noisy house like a little ed, nervous, she looked at people with her bright, uneasy, restless eyes, the eyes of some terrified creature which can never shake off its fear And yet she was pretty, very pretty and fair, a gray-blonde, as if her hair had lost its color through her constant fears
”A Monsieur de Courcil's friends who constantly came to the _chateau_, there was an ex-cavalry officer, a er, a man as feared, as at the saetic resolutions, Monsieur de Bourneval, whose name I bear He was a tall, thin man, with a heavy black moustache, and I areat deal, and whose ideas were not like those of randht have said that he had inherited so of this ancestral connection He knew the _Contrat Social_, and the _Nouvelle Heloise_ by heart, and all those philosophical books which long beforehand prepared the overthrow of our old usages, prejudices, superannuated laws and imbecile morality
”It seems that he loved ue was carried on so secretly, that no one guessed it The poor, neglected, unhappy wo manner, and in her inti, theories of free thought, audacious ideas of independent love; but as she was so timid that she never ventured to speak aloud, it was all driven back, condensed and expressed in her heart, which never opened itself
”My two brothers were very hard towards her, like their father was, and never gave her a caress, and, used to seeing her count for nothing in the house, they treated her rather like a servant, and so I was the only one of her sons who really loved her, and whom she loved
”When she died, I was seventeen, and I must add, in order that you may understand what follows, that there had been a law suit between my father and my mother, and that their property had been separated, to e, as, thanks to the tricks of the law, and the intelligent devotion of a lawyer to her interests, she had preserved the right ofher will in favor of anyone she pleased
”We were told that there was a will lying at the lawyer's, and were invited to be present at the reading of it I can rerand, draht about by the posthumous revolt of that dead woman, by that cry for liberty, that claim from the depths of her tomb, of thather life, and, who, fro appeal for independence