"I disposed of my practice a day or two ago, for a large and handsome sum. This money, united with other property, will enable me to found the institution I was speaking to you of, and of which I have entirely sketched out the plan. I am about to lay it before you, and to ask your assistance in improving it where necessary."
"My noble-minded friend," exclaimed the abbé, with the deepest and holiest admiration, "how naturally and unostentatiously you do these things! Ah, well might I say there were but few who resembled you; and upon the heads of such too many blessings can scarcely be prayed for and wished."
"Few persons, like my friend Jacques here," said Polidori, with an ironical smile, which wholly escaped the abbé, "are fortunate enough to possess both piety and riches, charity and discrimination as to the right channel into which to pour their wealth, in order that it may work well for the good of their soul."
At this repetition of sarcastic eulogium, the notary's hand became clenched with internal emotion, while, through his spectacles, he darted a look of deadly hatred on Polidori.
"Do you perceive, M. l'Abbé," said the dear friend of Jacques Ferrand, hastily, "he has these convulsive twitchings of the limbs continually?—and yet he will not have any advice. He really makes me quite wretched to see him, as it were, killing himself! Nay, my excellent friend, spite of those displeased looks, I will persist in declaring, in the presence of M. l'Abbé, that you are destroying yourself by refusing all succour as you do."
As Polidori uttered these words, a convulsive shudder shook the notary's whole frame; but in another instant he had regained the mastery over himself, and was calm as before. A less simple-minded man than the abbé might have perceived, both during this conversation and in that which followed, a something unnatural in the language and forced actions of Jacques Ferrand, for it is scarcely necessary to state that his present proceedings were dictated to him by a will and authority he was powerless to resist, and that it was by the command of Rodolph the wretched man was compelled to adopt words and conduct diametrically the reverse of his own sentiments or inclinations. And so it was that, when sore pressed, the notary seemed half inclined to resist the arbitrary and invisible power he found himself obliged to obey. But a glance at Polidori soon put an end to his indecision, and, restraining all his rage and impotent fury, Jacques Ferrand forbore any further manifestation of futile rage, and bent beneath the yoke he could neither shake off nor break.
"Alas, M. l'Abbé!" resumed Polidori, as though taking an infernal pleasure in thus torturing the miserable notary, "my poor friend wholly neglects his health. Let me entreat of you to join your request to mine, that he will be more careful of his precious self, if not for himself or his friends, at least for the sake of the poor and needy, whose hope and support he is."
"Enough! Enough!" murmured the notary, in a deep, guttural voice.
"No," said the priest, much moved, "'tis not enough! You can never be reminded too frequently that you belong not to yourself, and that you are to blame for neglecting your health. During the ten years I have known you I cannot recollect your ever being ill before the present time, but really the last month has so changed you that you are scarcely like the same person. And I am the more struck with the alteration in your appearance, since for some little time I have not seen you. You may recollect that when you sent for me the other day, I could not conceal my surprise on finding you so changed; during the short space of time that has elapsed since that visit, I find you even more rapidly altered for the worse. You are visibly wasting away, and occasion us all very serious uneasiness. I therefore most earnestly entreat of you to consider and attend to your health."
"Believe me, M. l'Abbé, I feel most grateful for the kind interest you express, but that I cannot bring myself to believe my situation as dangerous as you do."