“I shook hands with them and told my coachman to start, and during the whole drive the dead man kept falling against me. When we got to his house I said that he had become unconscious on the way home, and helped to carry him upstairs, where I certified that he was dead, and acted another comedy to his distracted family, and at last I got back to bed, not without swearing at lovers.”
The doctor ceased, though he was still smiling, and the young woman, who was in a very nervous state, said: “Why have you told me that terrible story?”
He gave her a gallant bow, and replied:
“So that I may offer you my services if they should be needed.”
DREAMS
They had just dined together, five old friends, a writer, a doctor and three rich bachelors without any profession.
They had talked about everything, and a feeling of lassitude came over them, that feeling which precedes and leads to the departure of guests after festive gatherings. One of those present, who had for the last five minutes been gazing silently at the surging boulevard dotted with gas-lamps, with its rattling vehicles, said suddenly:
“When you've nothing to do from morning till night, the days are long.”
“And the nights too,” assented the guest who sat next to him. “I sleep very little; pleasures fatigue me; conversation is monotonous. Never do I come across a new idea, and I feel, before talking to any one, a violent longing to say nothing and to listen to nothing. I don't know what to do with my evenings.”