“I hear the sound of rain.”
“It does not rain,” said Garnier in a heart-broken voice as he watched her eyes wandering about the room as if pursuing some fugitive vision. “Can you not see the sun shining at the window?”
Célestin sighed.
“Désiré has gone out. When did he go? Ah, yes, I remember now; he would not be a moment, he said.”
“He will not be a moment,” said Garnier, stumbling to his feet. “I will run and see if I can fetch him. I will not be absent one little moment.”
He stole out of the bedroom, through the atelier, and rushed down the stairs, hatless and as if the top of the house were on fire. There was, fortunately, a doctor in the street; he lived but a few doors away, and by good luck had just returned from his round of morning visits.
He was a depressed-looking young man with a pointed beard, somewhat like Gaillard in face, but not nearly so well dressed. He came at once with Garnier, and as he took his seat beside Célestin he laid his polished silk hat, crown downwards, upon the floor.
Garnier stood at the end of the bed looking on. He suddenly felt a strong belief in doctors. Dr. Fénélon seemed to him a god; his manner was so assured, and he had the air of one who knew, coupled with the gravity of a judge. He noticed that the doctor wore a bone stud in his white shirt front, and every little detail of his dress, to the patent-leather toecaps of his dull kid boots.
The doctor spoke to Célestin, just a few words by way of introducing himself, and then drew out a watch to assist him in feeling her pulse. The watch had a large spider hand which went hopping along, making sixty hops to the minute. This spider hand deepened Garnier’s confidence, as did the binaural stethoscope which the doctor drew out of his breast pocket and swung about his neck.
Garnier turned his face away whilst the physician unbuttoned Célestin’s nightdress at the neck. A moment he paused, as if undecided as to stripping her to the waist, Hôtel Dieu fashion, then shook his head, and, slipping the ear-pieces in his ears, began his auscultation.