"Monsieur Goulden," she would say, "you are not reasonable; you have an ugly cold, and yet you go out every evening."
"Ah! my child, what would you have? I have got the habit of reading the gazette, and it is stronger than I. I want to know what Benjamin Constant and the rest of them say, it is like a second life to me and I often think 'they ought to have spoken further of such or such a thing. If Melchior Goulden had been there he would have opposed this or that, and it would not have failed to produce a great effect.'"
Then he would laugh and shake his head and say:
"Every one thinks he has more wit and good sense than the others, but Benjamin Constant always pleases me."
We could say nothing more, his desire to read the gazette was so great. One day Catherine said to him:
"If you wish to hear the news, that is no reason why you should make yourself sick, you have only to do as the old carpenter Carabin does, he arranged last week with Father Hoffman, and he sends him the journal every night at seven o'clock, after the others have read it, for which he pays him three francs a month. In this way, without any trouble to himself, Carabin knows everything that goes on, and his wife, old Bevel, also; they sit by the fire and talk about all these things and discuss them together, and that is what you should do."
"Ah! Catherine, that is an excellent idea, but—the three francs?"
"The three francs are nothing," said I, "the principal thing is not to be sick, you cough very badly and that cannot go on."
These words, far from offending, pleased him, as they proved our affection for him and that he ought to listen to us.
"Very well! we will try to arrange it as you wish, and the rather as the café is filled with half-pay officers from morning till night, and they pass the journals from one to the other so that sometimes we must wait two hours before we can catch one. Yes, Catherine is right."