Then murmurs of assent and promises were heard. To everything Proby replied invariably, “Oui, Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général.”
Doctor Coupé got red and confused in trying to express appreciations of the Inspector’s methods that seemed like excuses for his own.
I was watching M. Briavoine: he was nodding his head unceasingly, and murmured in a dignified way:
“Obviously, Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général.... Of course, Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général.”
These words were always being repeated by everybody. They were repeated as a refrain to almost every syllable and pronounced with a mumbling mechanical promptitude, so that every sentence, and every reply, seemed to end with this ritualistic rhythm: “Mossinspecteurjral.”
M. Dufrêne, more and more, gave expression to a kind of triumphant lyric. He spoke of himself, of his works, with a growing volubility and frequency. I thought he was disposed to qualify as “quite French,” or “national,” and sometimes as “a work of genius,” methods and ideas which were strictly his own. But this attempt to objectify things had a very slight connection with modesty.
At one moment this towering personality came towards me without seeing me with such vehemence that I nimbly got out of the way, as I would before a train. I uttered hasty words, which were:
“I beg your pardon, Monsieur le médecin inspecteur-général.”
I had never, in the obscure life of a teacher, had the good fortune to be in the presence of a military man of high rank and hear him speak. I had only imagined, or come across in my reading, the virile outline of the real old soldier. As I looked at this doctor in his military boots and listened to his comments, I repeated to myself: “At last! the real thing!” I was overwhelmed, crushed, but in spite of that I was able to enjoy a feeling of security and confidence, and I always ended by thinking: “The sheer impudence of it! Still, it takes some doing to carry it off like that with such fellows as those doctors.”
The Medical Inspector-General had seized a fountain pen and was covering the walls with prescriptions. He explained in emphatic sentences what decisions ought to have been made and what action must be taken. After each diagnosis, those who attended him chanted the liturgic refrain: “Oui, Mossinspecteurjral.”