LUCIE. You wanted to speak to him. Is there something about the children?
HOURTIN. If you see that the children are treated as your own doctor and I have prescribed in our consultation, I am confident that their condition will improve. But I have something more to say to you yourself. Not long ago I was called in to a married couple, one of whom was a victim to morphia and refused to give up the use of the poison. The children of the marriage were degenerate, and there was every reason to think that should others be born they would be even less healthy than the first. I had to inform the other parent concerned of the facts, in order, if possible, to discover some means of cure. Towards you I have the same duty. With the difference that here the poison is alcohol instead of morphia, the cases are identical. Like my other patient, M. Brignac refused to listen to me; and although his obstinacy is due to his poisoned condition, I confess I was unable, in spite of a physician’s philosophy, to see without irritation the way in which he is rushing to ruin, intellectual and physical. Now your nerves are strong. I was unwilling to go away without speaking to you.
LUCIE. My children?
HOURTIN. Your children are suffering from a nervous complaint which was born with them.
LUCIE. As the result, you mean, of their father’s intemperance? Our own doctor and another besides have already told me the same thing.
HOURTIN. They should have begun by telling M. Brignac.
LUCIE. They did.
HOURTIN. Well?
LUCIE. He listened no more to them than he did to you.
HOURTIN. Is he not fond of the children?