[CHAPTER IX]
Mocquet's nightmare—His pipe—Mother Durand—Les bêtes fausses et le pierge—M. Collard—My father's remedy—Radical cure of Mocquet.
Mocquet had the nightmare.
Do you know what a nightmare is? I think you must have seen that huge-eyed monster, seated on the chest of a panting and sleeping man.
I do not know how to paint it in words, but I have seen it, even as you have.
Mocquet's nightmare was no monkey with big eyes, or fantastic monster of Hugo's imagination reproduced by the brush of Delacroix, by the pencil of Boulanger, or by the chisel of Feuchères; none of these, it was a little old woman, who lived in the village of Haramont, about a quarter of a league from our château des Fossés, whom Mocquet considered in the light of his personal enemy.
One morning very early Mocquet, came into my father's room before he was up and stood by the bedside.
"Well, Mocquet, what is the matter?" asked my father. "Why that melancholy face?"