The young girl had also understood. She rose and disappeared. The noise ceased at once, but she did not return immediately. Uncle Bachelard, who had scandalously disturbed “The Banks of the Oise” with reflections uttered out loud, finished putting his sister out of countenance by calling to Gueulin that he felt awfully bored and was going to have a grog. They both returned to the dining-room, banging the door behind them.
“That dear old Narcisse, he is always original!” said Madame Josserand to Madame Juzeur and Valérie, between whom she had gone and seated herself. “His business occupies him so much! You know, he has made almost a hundred thousand francs this year!”
Octave, at length free, had hastened to rejoin Trublot, who was half asleep on the sofa. Near them, a group surrounded Doctor Juillerat, the old medical man of the neighbourhood, not over brilliant, but who had become in course of time a good practitioner, and who had delivered all the mothers in their confinements and had attended all the daughters. He made a speciality of women’s ailments, which caused him to be in great demand of an evening, the husbands all trying to obtain a gratuitous consultation in some corner of the drawing-room. Just then, Théophile was telling him that Valérie had had another attack the day before; she was for ever having a choking fit and complaining of a lump rising in her throat; and he, too, was not very well, but his complaint was not the same. Then he did nothing but speak of himself, and relate his vexations: he had commenced to read for the law, had engaged in manufactures at a foundry, and had tried office management at the Mont-de-Piété; then he had busied himself with photography, and thought he had found a means of making vehicles supply their own motive power; meanwhile, out of kindness, he was travelling some piano-flutes, an invention of one of his friends. And he complained of his wife: it was her fault if nothing went right at home; she was killing him with her perpetual nervous attacks.
“Do pray give her something, doctor!” implored he, coughing and moaning, his eyes lit up with hatred, in the querulous rage of his impotency.
Trublot watched him, full of contempt; and he laughed silently as he glanced at Octave. Doctor Juillerat uttered vague and calming words: no doubt, they would relieve her, the dear lady. At fourteen, she was already stifling, in the shop of the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin; he had attended her for vertigo which always ended by bleeding at the nose; and, as Théophile recalled with despair her languid gentleness when a young girl, whilst now, fantastic and her temper changing twenty times in a day, she absolutely tortured him, the doctor merely shook his head. Marriage did not succeed with all women.
“Of course!” murmured Trublot, “a father who has gone off his chump by passing thirty years of his life in selling needles and thread, a mother who has always had her face covered with pimples, and that in an airless hole of old Paris, no one can expect such people to have daughters like other folks!”
Octave was surprised. He was losing some of his respect for that drawing-room which he had entered with a provincial’s emotion. Curiosity was awakened within him, when he observed Campardon consulting the doctor in his turn, but in whispers, like a sedate person desirous of letting no one become acquainted with his family mishaps.
“By the way, as you appear to know everything,” said Octave to Trublot, “tell me what it is that Madame Campardon is suffering from. Every one puts on a very sad face whenever it is mentioned.”
“Why, my dear fellow,” replied the young man, “she has—”
And he whispered in Octave’s ear. Whilst he listened, the latter’s face first assumed a smile, and then became very long with a look of profound astonishment.