And the landau, still rolling on, turned into the Rue de Rome. Justine had disappeared; this vision of the past—a past so different from the present—had sunk into the shadowy twilight, with Thomas, the children, and the shop.
At La Souleiade the table was set; Martine had an eel from the Viorne, a sautéd rabbit, and a leg of mutton. Seven o’clock was striking, and they had plenty of time to dine quietly.
“Don’t be uneasy,” said Dr. Pascal to his nephew. “We will accompany you to the station; it is not ten minutes’ walk from here. As you left your trunk, you have nothing to do but to get your ticket and jump on board the train.”
Then, meeting Clotilde in the vestibule, where she was hanging up her hat and her umbrella, he said to her in an undertone:
“Do you know that I am uneasy about your brother?”
“Why so?”
“I have observed him attentively. I don’t like the way in which he walks; and have you noticed what an anxious look he has at times? That has never deceived me. In short, your brother is threatened with ataxia.”
“Ataxia!” she repeated turning very pale.
A cruel image rose before her, that of a neighbor, a man still young, whom for the past ten years she had seen driven about in a little carriage by a servant. Was not this infirmity the worst of all ills, the ax stroke that separates a living being from social and active life?
“But,” she murmured, “he complains only of rheumatism.”