The meeting was fixed for noon.
They arranged a bed with a mattress and blankets in the front room, on the green rep couch. Every other hour the Galician, after watching the patient, went to stretch out upon it.
M. Raindal could not sleep. When his regret for his little pupil did not torment him, it was remorse, scruples of his conscience, the need to absolve himself. The halting words of Cyprien rang in his ears, like the repercussion of an endless echo. “All this because I wanted to go to that Mme. Rhâm-Bâhan and met there the ... the marquis!” Surely that was false reasoning! A childish conception of the relation between cause and effect! But the particle of truth which perfumes every error nevertheless spread its venomous aroma in M. Rainda soul. Evidently, he was not responsible for the mortal accident which had struck his brother. Had he been informed in time, he would have made the hardest sacrifices in order to tear the poor fellow away from the wheels of stock-gambling. Yet, who knew if, but for his intervention, for this fatal love which held him, who knew if Uncle Cyprien would have ever met “the ... the marquis?” Who could say but that this love, guilty already of so many faults against sane morality and the sentiments due to others, had not its share also—small but real—in the present calamity?
M. Raindal continued to sigh about it. He was wet with perspiration. At last, fatigue got the better of insomnia. He only awoke at eight, to open the door to Thérèse and Mme. Raindal. Behind them, the bearded head of young Boerzell saluted him.
Summoned by telegram, the women had traveled all night. Their hair in disorder, their faces sprinkled with coal dust, where drying tears had traced white lines, expressed better than their voices the anguish of their night journey. M. Raindal kissed them both with an unusual effusion of tenderness, then led them, himself in tears, to the room of Uncle Cyprien.
The latter was still sleeping, his sleep alternately tumultuous and lethargic; his skin was more purple and blacker in places than the day before, at the beginning of the crisis. Mme. Raindal knelt down beside the bed, her hands crossed. They waited for the doctors, commenting on the drama. The doctors came precisely at noon. The consultation was short. Dr. Gombauld approved his colleagu prescriptions. For the rest, he refused to foretell: nature would decide.
“What did I tell you?” Dr. Chesnard said contemptuously, on reaching the door.
And he promised to return in the course of the evening.
When he did return, the only result of his visit was that their alarm was increased. The physician left, refusing to give an opinion as to the issue of the night.
An hour later, delirium took possession of Uncle Cyprien. At first, there were nothing but vague exclamations, inarticulate complaints. But they soon became more precise. He named people, insulted certain enemies, all the immemorial enemies of Uncle Cyprien, the whole troop of grafters, youpins, calotins and rastas! It was as if they were dancing with triumphant laughter a Satanic round about his cot, breaking his chest with heavy boots, at times, for he took on attitudes of defense or of fear as if he were under the iron shoes of a horse. To exercise this evil rout, he tired his lungs with words of abuse, with insults taken from the vocabulary of his favorite author. His forefinger threatened; his fist hammered the empty space. Suddenly, it seemed that the saraband was scattered. By a chance turn of his memory, one preponderating image effaced the malice of the others: the image of an illustrious statesman, of a minister renowned for his fight against Boulangism. That legendary figure appeared before the bed and, without bending, it reached Uncle Cyprien with the hands that completed its enormous arms.