Lazare made a gesture of protest. 'A dog isn't a man,' he said.
'To help for the sake of helping, is not that something?' Pauline resumed. 'It is vexing that they don't improve in conduct, for, if they did, perhaps they would suffer less. But I am content when they have got food and warmth; that is one trouble less for them, at any rate. Why should you want them to recompense us for what we do for them?'
Then she concluded sadly:
'My poor boy, I see that all this only bores you, and it will be better for you not to come and help me in future. I don't want to harden your heart and make you more uncharitable than you already are.'
Thus Lazare eluded all her attempts, and she felt heart-broken at finding how utterly powerless she was to free him from his fear and ennui. When she saw him so nervous and despondent, she could scarcely believe that it was the result merely of his secret trouble; she imagined there must be other causes for his sadness, and the idea of Louise recurred to her. She felt sure that he must still be thinking about the girl, and suffered from not seeing her. A cold chill came upon her at this thought, and she tried to recover her old feeling of proud self-sacrifice, telling herself that she was quite capable of spreading sufficient brightness and joy about her to make them all happy.
One evening Lazare made a remark that hurt her cruelly.
'How lonely it is here!' he said, with a yawn.
She looked at him. Had he got Louise in his mind? But she had not the courage to question him. Her kindliness struggled within her, and life became a torture again.
There was another shock awaiting Lazare. His old dog, Matthew, was far from well. The poor animal, who had completed his fourteenth year in the previous March, was getting more and more paralysed in his hind-quarters. His attacks left him so stiff that he could scarcely crawl along; and he would lie out in the yard, stretching himself in the sun, and watching the members of the family with his melancholy eyes. It was the old dog's eyes, now dimmed by a bluish cloudiness, blank like those of a blind man, that especially wrought upon Lazare's feelings. The poor animal, however, could still see, and used to drag himself along, lay his big head on his master's knee, and look up at him fixedly with a sad expression that seemed to say that he understood all. His beauty had departed. His curly white coat had turned yellowish, and his nose, once so black, was becoming white. His dirtiness, and a kind of expression of shame that hung about him—for they dared not wash him any more on account of his great age—rendered him yet more pitiable. All his playfulness had vanished; he never now rolled on his back, or circled round after his tail, or showed any impulses of pity for Minouche's kittens when Véronique carried them off to drown in the sea. He now spent his days in drowsing like an old man, and he had so much difficulty in getting up on his legs again, and dragged his poor soft feet so heavily, that often one of the household, moved to pity at the sight, stooped to support him for a moment or two in order that he might be able to walk a little.