Then, whilst she supported him to lead him to the bed-room, Duveyrier, who had his throat filled with blood, and whose teeth were dropping out, stuttered between two rattles:
“You never loved me!”
And he burst into sobs, he bewailed the death of poetry, that little blue flower which it had been denied him to pluck. When Clotilde had put him to bed, she at length became softened, seized with a nervous emotion in the midst of her anger. The worst of it was that Clémence and Hippolyte were coming in answer to the bell. She at first talked to them of an accident; their master had fallen on his chin: then she was obliged to abandon this fable, for, on going to wipe up the blood, the footman had found the revolver. The wounded man was still losing a great deal of blood, when the maid remembered that Dr. Juillerat was up-stairs attending to Madame Pichon, and she hastened to him, meeting him on the staircase, on his way home, after a most successful delivery. The doctor immediately reassured Clotilde; perhaps the jaw would be slightly out of its place, but her husband’s life was not in the least danger. He was proceeding to dress the wound, in the midst of basins of water and red stained rags, when the Abbé Mauduit, uneasy at all this commotion, ventured to enter the room.
“Whatever has happened?” asked he.
This question completed upsetting Madame Duveyrier. She burst into tears at the first words of explanation. The priest, fully aware of the hidden miseries of his flock, had moreover quite understood matters. Already, whilst waiting in the drawing-room, he had been taken with a feeling of uneasiness, and almost regretted the success which had attended his efforts, that wretched young woman whom he had once more united to her husband without her showing the slightest remorse. He was filled with a terrible doubt, perhaps God was not with him. And his anguish still further increased as he beheld the counselor’s fractured jaw. He went up to him, bent upon energetically condemning suicide. But the doctor, who was very busy, thrust him aside.
“After me, my dear Abbé Mauduit. By-and-by. You can see very well that he has fainted.”
And indeed, directly the doctor touched him, Duveyrier had lost consciousness. Then Clotilde, to get rid of the servants who were no longer needed, and whose staring eyes embarrassed her very much, murmured, as she wiped her eyes:
“Go into the drawing-room. Abbé Mauduit has something to say to you.”
The priest was obliged to take them there. It was another unpleasant piece of business. Hippolyte and Clémence followed him in profound surprise. When they were alone together, he began preaching them a rather confused sermon: Heaven rewarded good behavior, whereas a single sin led one to hell; moreover, it was time to put a stop to scandal and to think of one’s salvation. Whilst he spoke thus, their surprise turned to bewilderment; with their hands hanging down beside them, she with her slender limbs and tiny mouth, he with his flat face and his big bones like a gendarme, they exchanged anxious glances! Had madame found some of her napkins up-stairs in a trunk? or was it because of the bottle of wine they took up with them every evening?