It was the evening of the 15th of February. It was dreadfully cold. The snow drove against the windows and the wind whistled furiously under the doors. My two aunts, seated at a table in one corner of the drawing-room, gave vent from time to time to deep sighs, and, wriggling in their armchairs, kept casting uneasy glances toward the bedroom door. One of them had taken from a little leather bag placed on the table her blessed rosary and was repeating her prayers, while her sister was reading a volume of Voltaire’s correspondence which she held at a distance from her eyes, her lips moving as she perused it.
For my own part, I was striding up and down the room, gnawing my moustache, a bad habit I have never been able to get rid of, and halting from time to time in front of Dr. C., an old friend of mine, who was quietly reading the paper in the most comfortable of the armchairs. I dared not disturb him, so absorbed did he seem in what he was reading, but in my heart I was furious to see him so quiet when I myself was so agitated.
Suddenly he tossed the paper on to the couch and, passing his hand across his bald and shining head, said:
“Ah! if I were a minister, it would not take long, no, it would not be very long.... You have read that article on Algerian cotton. One of two things, either irrigation.... But you are not listening to me, and yet it is a more serious matter than you think.”
He rose, and with his hands in his pocket, walked across the room humming an old medical student’s song. I followed him closely.
“Jacques,” said I, as he turned round, “tell me frankly, are you satisfied?”
“Yes, yes, I am satisfied... observe my untroubled look,” and he broke into his hearty and somewhat noisy laugh.
“You are not hiding anything from me, my dear fellow?”
“What a donkey you are, old fellow. I tell you that everything is going on well.”
And he resumed his song, jingling the money in his pockets.