"Oh, yes, my son!" answered Madame Georges; "it makes one's heart ache to behold a fellow creature so heavily afflicted. I know not when anything has so completely shocked me as the sight of this deplorable being."
Scarcely had Madame Georges given utterance to these words than the Schoolmaster started, and his countenance, even despite its cicatrised and disfigured state, became of an ashy paleness. He rose and turned his head in the direction of Madame Georges so suddenly that she could not refrain from faintly screaming, though wholly unsuspicious of who the frightful creature really was; but the Schoolmaster's ear had readily detected the voice of his wife, and her words told him she was addressing her son.
"Mother!" inquired Germain, "what ails you? Are you ill?"
"Nothing, my son; but the sudden movement made by that man terrified me. Indeed, sir," continued she, addressing the doctor, "I begin to feel sorry I allowed my curiosity to bring me hither."
"Nay, dear mother, just for once to see such a place cannot hurt you!"
"I tell you what, Germain," interposed Rigolette, "I don't feel very comfortable myself; and I promise you neither your mother nor I will desire to come here again—it is too affecting!"
"Nonsense! You are a little coward! Is she not, M. le Docteur?"
"Why, really," answered M. Herbin, "I must confess that the sight of this blind lunatic affects even me, who am accustomed to such things."
"What a scarecrow, old ducky! Isn't he?" whispered Anastasie; "but, la! to my eyes every man looks as hideous as this dreadful blind creature in comparison with you, and that is why no one can ever boast of my having granted him the least liberty,—don't you see, Alfred?"