"Could you not, monsieur, tell us of a nice walk to take, short,
pretty, and not steep; and pardon my troubling you?"
I offered to show them the way toward the valley through which the
little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall,
craggy, wooded slopes.
They gladly accepted my offer.
And we talked, naturally, about the virtue of the waters.
"Oh," he said, "my daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is
unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous attacks. At one
time the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another
time they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another
they declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day this protean
malady, that assumes a thousand forms and a thousand modes of attack,
is attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and regulator
of the body. This is why we have come here. For my part, I am rather
inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case it is very sad."
Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his
hand came back to my mind, and I asked him:
"But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves
somewhat affected?"
He replied calmly:
"Mine? Oh, no--my nerves have always been very steady."
Then, suddenly, after a pause, he went on: