Then she summoned up her courage again and smiled as she said to him: 'Work hard this year, so that when you come back again we may all be quite happy and satisfied.'
'Oh! there's no good in working hard! Their examinations are nothing but foolery. I didn't pass because I didn't care to. I am going to hurry through with it all now, since my lack of fortune prevents me from living a life of ease and leisure, which is the only satisfactory life a man can lead.'
In the early part of October, after Louise had returned to Caen, Pauline again resumed her lessons with her aunt. The curriculum of her third year's studies embraced bowdlerised French History, and Greek Mythology as 'adapted to the use of young persons.' But the girl, who had shown such diligence in the previous year, now seemed to have become quite sluggish and dull. Sometimes she even went to sleep over her tasks, and her face flushed with a hot surging of blood. A mad outburst of anger against Véronique, who didn't like her, she declared, made her so ill that she had to stop in bed for a couple of days. Then came changes in herself which disquieted and distressed her. About Christmas-time Pauline's health was such as to alarm Madame Chanteau. But that worthy woman, from ridiculous notions of her own, was largely to blame, as she refused to take Doctor Cazenove's advice and talk to the girl as she should have done. And in the result Pauline, at an important period in her youth, narrowly escaped being stricken with an attack of brain-fever.
When she was well again and resumed her studies, she began to affect an enthusiastic interest in the Greek Mythology. She shut herself up in Lazare's big room—which was still used as a schoolroom—and had to be sent for at meal-times. When she came down, she seemed buried in thought and quite indifferent to all that went on. Upstairs, however, the Mythology lay quite neglected on the table, for it was in poring over all the medical books which Lazare had left in the old wardrobe that she now spent her time. There were a good many of those works, and, though at first she failed to understand all the technical terms she met with, she plodded on through anatomy and physiology, and even pathology and clinical medicine. Thus she not only learnt—in all simplicity and purity of mind, saved from all vicious thought by a healthy craving for knowledge—many things of which girls of her age are usually ignorant; but her researches extended to the symptoms and treatment of all sorts of disease and ailment. Superfluous subjects she passed by unheeded. She seemed to know intuitively what knowledge was necessary to enable her to be of assistance to those who suffered. Her heart melted with pity as she read on, and she gave herself up again to her old dream of learning everything so that she might be able to cure all that went amiss.
Knowledge rendered Pauline grave and thoughtful. She felt surprised and annoyed at her aunt's silence towards her, which had resulted in such terror and serious illness. And when one day Madame Chanteau did see fit to refer to the matter, the girl quietly intimated that she needed no information. At this the other was alarmed, and Pauline then told her all about Lazare's books. There was a scene, but the girl, with her outspoken frankness, quite routed her aunt. 'How can there be harm in knowledge of the normal conditions of life?' she asked. Her enthusiasm was perfectly mental, and never did a single wrong thought disturb the pure depths of her clear, child-like eyes. On the same shelf with the medical books she had found novels which had repelled her and bored her, so that she had thrown them aside after glancing at the first few pages. Her aunt, growing more and more disconcerted, though she had recovered a little from her first shock, contented herself with locking the wardrobe and taking away the key. But a week later it was there again, and Pauline indulged herself in reading at intervals, by way of recreation, either a chapter on neurosis, with her mind fixed the while upon her cousin, or one relating to the treatment of gout, with the idea of undertaking her uncle's cure.
Each day increasing love of life and its various manifestations displayed itself in Pauline and made of her, to use her aunt's phrase, a general mother. Everything that lived, everything that suffered, aroused in her a feeling of active tenderness and won from her abundant kindliness and thoughtful care. She had now forgotten all about Paris, and began to feel as though she had been born in that wild spot under the pure breezes from the sea. She had developed, too, into a well-formed young woman, and with her healthy mind and love of knowledge it was with delight that she found herself reaching full growth and sunny ripeness. On her part there was a full acceptance of life, life beloved in all its functions, welcomed with the triumphant greeting of vigorous health and soundness of nature.
That year Lazare remained for six months without writing home, with the exception, that is, of a very brief note now and then to tell them he was all right. Then all at once he began to deluge his mother with letters. He had again been plucked at the November examination, and had become more disgusted than ever with the study of medicine, which dealt with too gloomy matters for his taste, so that he had now enthusiastically turned to chemistry. He had chanced to make the acquaintance of the illustrious Herbelin, whose discoveries were then revolutionising the science, and had entered his laboratory as an assistant, without owning, however, that he was relinquishing medicine. But his letters were soon full of a new scheme, which he at first mentioned somewhat timidly, but gradually grew wildly enthusiastic about. It was a plan for turning sea-weed to wonderful profit, by the adoption of some new methods and reagents discovered by the illustrious Herbelin. Lazare dwelt upon the great probability of the scheme's success; the great chemist's assistance; the ease with which raw material could be obtained, and the very small expense that would be incurred for plant. In the end he frankly expressed his disinclination to be a doctor, and jokingly declared that he should prefer to sell remedies to the sick rather than to kill them off himself. He finished all his letters by recapitulating the prospects of speedily acquiring a large fortune, and mentioned as an additional lure to his parents that, if they would consent to his new plans, he should remain with them, as he proposed setting up his works quite close to Bonneville.
The months slipped away, and Lazare did not come home for the vacation. All through the winter he continued to unfold the details of his new scheme in long closely-written letters, which Madame Chanteau used to read aloud in the evening after dinner. One night in May they resolved themselves into a solemn family council to discuss the matter seriously, for Lazare had written to ask for a categorical reply. Véronique was bustling about the room, taking off the dinner-cloth and putting the red one on the table in its place.
'He is his grandfather over again, always running after some fresh scheme and doing no good at anything,' declared Madame Chanteau, glancing up at the former journeyman-carpenter's masterpiece, whose presence on the mantelshelf was a perpetual source of annoyance to her.
'Well, he certainly doesn't get his flighty disposition from me, for I detest all change,' sighed Chanteau between a couple of groans, as he lay back in his arm-chair, where he was just recovering from another attack of gout. 'But you yourself, my dear, you know you are a little given to restlessness.'