“No. I am only a little bruised—a little crushed.”
“Where did it happen?” she inquired.
“I do not know exactly,” he answered in a very low voice; “it was far away from here.”
The physician rolled up an armchair, and the Countess sank into it. The Count remained standing at the foot of the bed, repeating between his teeth: “Oh, my poor friend! my poor friend! What a frightful misfortune!”
And he was indeed deeply grieved, for he loved Olivier very much.
“But where did it happen?” the Countess repeated.
“I know hardly anything about it myself, or rather I do not understand it at all,” the physician replied. “It was at the Gobelins, almost outside of Paris! At least, the cabman that brought him home declared to me that he took him in at a pharmacy of that quarter, to which someone had carried him, at nine o'clock in the evening!” Then, leaning toward Olivier, he asked: “Did the accident really happen near the Gobelins?”
Bertin closed his eyes, as if to recollect; then murmured: “I do not know.”
“But where were you going?”
“I do not remember now. I was walking straight before me.”