In fact, so obedient and willing we found him, that when for the third time he had inverted himself, no persuasion short of picking him up by his tail, a proceeding which I deemed necessary to avert asphyxia, could induce him to resume his normal position.  But that which rendered the entertainment specially fascinating and ludicrous was the inimitable and unbroken gravity of Pepin’s expression.  No matter what his attitude, his eyes retained always the solemnity one observes in the eyes of an infant to whom everything in the world is serious and nothing grotesque.

“But now for the engraving on wood!” cried Jules Leuret, when we had exhausted ourselves with laughing.  “What a pity you have no implements of the art here, Gervais!”

“That’s Eugene’s chaff!” I cried.  “Noemi never said anything of the sort, I warrant!”

“On my honour she did,” said he, emphatically.  “Come and see her tomorrow; she’s quite sane now, no fever left at all.  She’ll be delighted to hear that you have her dog, and will tell you all about him, no doubt.”

“After the chefs visit, then, and we’ll breakfast together at noon.”

“Agreed.  Laughing makes one dry, mon ami; let me have some more of your wine.  We can’t afford good wine like that, nous autres!”

II.

When the following morning arrived, I rose sooner than my wont:  Eugene’s service was an early one, and by half-past ten o’clock he and I were alone in the wards of his hospital.  He led me to a bed in one of the little spaces partitioned off from the common salle for the reception of special cases or refractory patients.  There, propped up on her pillows, her arm bandaged and supported by a cushion, lay a young girl with fair braided hair and the sweetest face I had ever seen out of a picture.  Something in the childish and wistful look of her deep eyes and serious mouth reminded me strangely of Pepin; it was Pepin’s plaintive expression refined and intensified by spiritual influence, a look such as one might imagine on the face of some young novice, brought up in a convent and innocent of all evil,—­an ingenue untainted by the world and ignorant of its ways.  Could such a creature as this come out of the foul and sin-reeking quartier I had visited four days ago, with its filthy houses, its fetid alleys, its coarse blaspheming women and drunken men?  My mind misgave me:  surely, after all, this could not be Noemi Bergeron!

I put the question to her fearfully, for I dreaded to hear her deny it.  She was so beautiful; if she should say “no” I should be in despair.

A voice as sweet as the face answered me, with jus’ a faint inflexion of surprise in it, and as she spoke a slight blush suffused her cheeks and showed the delicate transparency of her skin.

“Yes, that is my name.  Does monsieur know me, then?”