“The other day I tried an experiment. I
offered her my watch; she took it and looked at it
for some time; then she began to scream terribly, as
if the sight of that little object had suddenly awakened
her memory, which was beginning to grow indistinct.
She is pitiably thin now, with hollow and glittering
eyes, and she walks up and down ceaselessly, like a
wild beast in its cage; I have had gratings put on
the windows, boarded them up half way, and have had
the seats fixed to the floor so as to prevent her
from looking to see whether he is coming.
“Oh! her poor parents! What a life they
must lead!”
We had got to the top of the hill, and the doctor
turned round and said to me:
“Look at Riom from here.”
The gloomy town looked like some ancient city.
Behind it a green, wooded plain studded with towns
and villages, and bathed in a soft blue haze, extended
until it was lost in the distance. Far away, on
my right, there was a range of lofty mountains with
round summits, or else cut off flat, as if with a
sword, and the doctor began to enumerate the villages,
towns and hills, and to give me the history of all
of them. But I did not listen to him; I was thinking
of nothing but the madwoman, and I only saw her.
She seemed to be hovering over that vast extent of
country like a mournful ghost, and I asked him abruptly:
“What has become of the husband?”
My friend seemed rather surprised, but after a few
moments’ hesitation, he replied:
“He is living at Royat, on an allowance that
they made him, and is quite happy; he leads a very
fast life.”
As we were slowly going back, both of us silent and
rather low-spirited, an English dogcart, drawn by
a thoroughbred horse, came up behind us and passed
us rapidly. The doctor took me by the arm.
“There he is,” he said.
I saw nothing except a gray felt hat, cocked over
one ear above a pair of broad shoulders, driving off
in a cloud of dust.
We never dreamed of such good fortune! The son
of a provincial bailiff, Jean Marin had come, as do
so many others, to study law in the Quartier Latin.
In the various beer-houses that he had frequented he
had made friends with several talkative students who
spouted politics as they drank their beer. He
had a great admiration for them and followed them
persistently from cafe to cafe, even paying for their
drinks when he had the money.
He became a lawyer and pleaded causes, which he lost.
However, one morning he read in the papers that one
of his former comrades of the Quartier had just been
appointed deputy.
He again became his faithful hound, the friend who
does the drudgery, the unpleasant tasks, for whom
one sends when one has need of him and with whom one
does not stand on ceremony. But it chanced through
some parliamentary incident that the deputy became
a minister. Six months later Jean Marin was appointed
a state councillor.
