Conscience — Volume 4

This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
By HECTOR MALOT
During the first years of his sojourn in Paris, Saniel had published in a Latin Quarter review an article on the Pharmacy of Shakespeare —the poison of Hamlet, and of Romeo and Juliet; and although since his choice of medicine he read but little besides books of science, at that time he was obliged to study the plays of his author. From this study there lingered in his memory a phrase that for ten years had not risen to his lips, and which all at once forced itself uppermost in his mind with exasperating persistency. It was the words of Macbeth:
Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds.
He also had lost it, the innocent sleep, sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds. He had never been a great sleeper; at least he had accustomed himself to the habit, hard at first, of passing only a few hours in bed. But he employed these few hours well, sleeping as the weary sleep, hands clenched, without dreaming, waking, or moving; and the thought that occupied his mind in the evening was with him on waking in the morning, not having been put to flight by others, any more than by dreams.
After Caffie's death this tranquil and refreshing sleep continued the same; but suddenly, after Madame Dammauville's death, it became broken.
At first it did not bother him. He did not sleep, so much the better! He would work more. But one can no more work all the time than one can live without eating. Saniel knew better than any one that the life of every organ is composed of alternate periods of repose and activity, and he did not suppose that he would be able to work indefinitely without sleep. He only hoped that after some days of twenty hours of work daily, overcome by fatigue, he would have, in spite of everything, four hours of solid sleep, that Shakespeare called sore labor's bath.