[II]
From the first week Pauline's presence in the house proved a source of joy and pleasure to the family. Her cheerful healthiness and her calm, tranquil smile spread a softening influence over the asperities of the Chanteau household. In her the father found a nurse, while the mother was made happy by the fact that her son now spent more of his time at home. It was only Véronique who went on grumbling and growling. The knowledge that there were a hundred and fifty thousand francs locked up in the secrétaire, although they were to remain scrupulously untouched, seemed also to give the family a semblance of wealth. There was a new influence in their midst, and fresh hopes arose, though what they were it would have been difficult to say.
On the third night after Pauline's arrival, the attack of gout, which Chanteau had foreseen, broke out in all its violence. For a week past he had been experiencing prickings in his joints, tremblings and quiverings in his legs, and an utter distaste for all exercise. He had gone to bed feeling somewhat easier, but about three o'clock in the morning had been seized with a frightful pain in the big toe of his left foot. Thence it had quickly spread to his heel, and then risen to his ankle. He endured the agony as well as he could till morning, sweating beneath his blankets, anxious as he was to disturb nobody. His attacks were the dread of the whole house, and he always put off calling for assistance till the last possible minute, feeling ashamed of his helplessness, and dreading the angry reception which awaited the announcement of each fresh attack. But when he heard Véronique go past his door, about eight o'clock in the morning, he could no longer restrain a groan, as a sharper spasm of pain than previously shot through his foot.
'There we are again!' growled the cook. 'Just listen to him bellowing!'
She came into the room and watched him as he lay moaning and tossing his head about. And her only attempt at consolation was to say: 'You don't suppose this will please Madame when she hears of it, do you?'
As soon as Madame Chanteau heard of her husband's fresh attack she bounced into the room, and, letting her hands drop by her sides in angry desperation, cried out: 'What, again! No sooner do I get back than this begins afresh!'
For the last fifteen years she had harboured intense hatred against gout. She cursed it as an enemy, a thief that had blighted her existence, ruined her son, blasted all her hopes. If it had not been for that gout, would they have all been living a life of exile in that forsaken hole? Thus, in spite of all her natural kindness, she always manifested a petulant, hostile disposition towards her husband in his attacks, declaring, too, that she was quite incapable of nursing him.
'Oh! what agony I suffer!' groaned the unhappy man. 'I know it is going to be much worse this time than it was the last. Don't stop there, as it puts you out so, but send for Doctor Cazenove at once.'
The house was immediately in a state of commotion. Lazare set off to Arromanches, though the family retained but little confidence in medical help. During the last fifteen years Chanteau had tried all sorts of medicines, and with each fresh kind he had only grown worse. His attacks, which at first had been slight and infrequent, had quickly multiplied and become much more violent. He was racked with pain in both feet, and one of his knees was threatened also. Three times already had he seen his system of treatment changed, and his wretched body had become a mere basis for experimenting with competing nostrums. After being copiously bled, he had been scoured with purgatives, and now they crammed him with colchicum and lithium. The draining-away of his blood and the weakening of his frame had turned what had been intermittent into chronic gout. Local treatment had been no more successful. Leeches had left his joints in a state of painful stiffness; opium only prolonged his attacks, and blisters brought on ulceration. Wiesbaden and Carlsbad had done him no good, and a season at Vichy had all but killed him.