This revelation caused Uncle Cyprien to forget himself. What! Madame Rhâm-Bâhan had an abbé, a curé, a black-robed one! Ah! that was really pretty good! What morals! What a century! What a muddle! And Uncle Cyprien laughed outright.
He only calmed down when Thérèse gave him a severe look to remind him of his promises.
“I am laughing,” he declared, “I am laughing, because ... you understand....”
He gave up the explanation.
“I laughed without malice.... You may rest assured that if I meet the abbé Tour... Tour what?—well, never mind!—I shall make myself agreeable ... most agreeable.... Go on, write, my dear fellow!”
Thérèse was exhausted. A mad impulse to laugh was overcoming her. Under the pretext of going to look for a pamphlet, she went to her room and ran to her armchair, bursting out in guffaws.
“Poor father!... What a woeful face! And my uncle wants to join the band now!... Ah! life is really funny!”
She was in a jocular mood, ready to find everything amusing and grotesque; at heart, she had an impression of being at last cured and delivered from the crisis. She had a spontaneous feeling of gratitude for Boerzell. Was it not to a certain extent to this worthy young man that she owed this miracle? Had he not consoled her, distracted her, as if she had been a weeping child, with the sparkle of his conjugal thesis, the unusualness of his speeches and the insistent warmth of his voice? But for him, for that blend of comic and sound reason which emanated from his person and which now survived their conversation, she would probably still be desperately fighting the fever of evil, and exhausting herself in the dangerous nightmares of her unsatisfied desires. Could she have been, but for Boerzell, even amused by the worldly ambitions of her uncle, or by his sly waggery, or by anything at all? Poor Boerzell! She could never bring herself to accept him, to overcome the repulsion which his bearded old schoolbo face inspired in her. Nevertheless, who knew but that he might help her in the hours of her distress, might become a friend, a faithful comrade who would render her solitude less mournful, less forsaken?
She walked up and down her room, working herself up with such hopes. Brigitte had to knock twice at the door before she could inform her that dinner was served.