He gradually fell into a state of deep depression.
The poor man lived only to suffer. He repeated from time to time, “The third of a line!” and wrung his hands, while I kept saying, in an undertone, “Confusion to books and typhus fever!”
“Calm yourself, my friend,” I whispered gently in his ear, each time the paroxysm was renewed. “A third of a line is not much, even in the most particular things of life.”
“Not much?” he cried; “a third of a line in the 1676 Virgil! It was the third of a line that raised the price of the Nerli Homer at M. de Cotte’s[10] a hundred louis. A third of a line! Ah! would you count the third of a line nothing in the length of a dagger that pierced your heart?”
His expression again wholly changed, his arms became rigid, his legs were seized with cramps as in a vise. The typhus was visibly reaching the extremities. I did not desire to lengthen by even the third of a line the short distance that separated us from the house.
At last we arrived there.
“A third of a line,” he said to the concierge.
“A third of a line,” he said to the cook, who opened the door.
“A third of a line,” he said to his wife, with a flood of tears.
“My parrot has flown away!” cried his little girl, likewise weeping.