They soon put everyone to flight, and did not find this sort of existence unpleasant, though Petrus Martel always found himself at the end of the season in a bankrupt condition.
The female attendant, overwhelmed, would have to look on all day at this endless game, listen to the interminable discussion, and carry from morning till night glasses of beer or half-glasses of brandy to the two indefatigable players.
But Gontran carried off his sister: "Come into the park. 'Tis fresher."
At the end of the establishment they suddenly perceived the orchestra under a Chinese kiosque. A fair-haired young man, frantically playing the violin, was conducting with movements of his head. His hair was shaking from one side to the other in the effort to keep time, and his entire torso bent forward and rose up again, swaying from left to right, like the stick of the leader of an orchestra. Facing him sat three strange-looking musicians. This was the maestro, Saint Landri.
He and his assistants—a pianist, whose instrument, mounted on rollers, was wheeled each morning from the vestibule of the baths to the kiosque; an enormous flautist, who presented the appearance of sucking a match while tickling it with his big swollen fingers, and a double-bass of consumptive aspect—produced with much fatigue this perfect imitation of a bad barrel-organ, which had astonished Christiane in the village street.
As she stopped to look at them, a gentleman saluted her brother.
"Good day, my dear Count."
"Good day, doctor."
And Gontran introduced them: "My sister—Doctor Honorat."
She could scarcely restrain her merriment at the sight of this third physician. The latter bowed and made some complimentary remark.