Back in the town again, he once more wondered what he should do, being disappointed of his walk and deprived of the company of the sea by his brother’s presence. He had an inspiration. “I will go and take a glass of liqueur with old Marowsko,” and he went off towards the quarter of the town known as Ingouville.
He had known old Marowsko-le père Marowsko, he called him—in the hospitals in Paris. He was a Pole, an old refugee, it was said, who had gone through terrible things out there, and who had come to ply his calling as a chemist and druggist in France after passing a fresh examination. Nothing was known of his early life, and all sorts of legends had been current among the indoor and outdoor patients and afterward among his neighbours. This reputation as a terrible conspirator, a nihilist, a regicide, a patriot ready for anything and everything, who had escaped death by a miracle, had bewitched Pierre Roland’s lively and bold imagination; he had made friends with the old Pole, without, however, having ever extracted from him any revelation as to his former career. It was owing to the young doctor that this worthy had come to settle at Havre, counting on the large custom which the rising practitioner would secure him. Meanwhile he lived very poorly in his little shop, selling medicines to the small tradesmen and workmen in his part of the town.
Pierre often went to see him and chat with him for an hour after dinner, for he liked Marowsko’s calm look and rare speech, and attributed great depth to his long spells of silence.
A simple gas-burner was alight over the counter crowded with phials. Those in the window were not lighted, from motives of economy. Behind the counter, sitting on a chair with his legs stretched out and crossed, an old man, quite bald, with a large beak of a nose which, as a prolongation of his hairless forehead, gave him a melancholy likeness to a parrot, was sleeping soundly, his chin resting on his breast. He woke at the sound of the shop-bell, and recognising the doctor, came forward to meet him, holding out both hands.
His black frock-coat, streaked with stains of acids and sirups, was much too wide for his lean little person, and looked like a shabby old cassock; and the man spoke with a strong Polish accent which gave the childlike character to his thin voice, the lisping note and intonations of a young thing learning to speak.
Pierre sat down, and Marowsko asked him: “What news, dear doctor?”
“None. Everything as usual, everywhere.”
“You do not look very gay this evening.”
“I am not often gay.”
“Come, come, you must shake that off. Will you try a glass of liqueur?”