From that day an infernal life began for Phil. Socrate, stretched out by the stove, worried him with advice and made him begin the same thing twenty times over; he encumbered the room, smoking like a locomotive or sleeping until noon. When the thinker’s ferocious snoring quite deafened Phil, he would whistle gently to stop it. But a steamer’s siren would not have awakened Socrate. Then Phil, in his exasperation, would shake him by the shoulder.
“Let me be! I am thinking of something—hum—something,” Socrate would stammer; and the sleeper would begin “thinking” again. It was a continual torture. Phil, moreover, was so weak that he could not even get angry.
One morning Suzanne came in with her arms loaded down with mistletoe and packages. “My friends, to-morrow is Christmas day,” she said, as she entered.
“Ah!” Phil answered.
“What—ah?” Suzanne took him up. “Didn’t you know it, then?”
“No,” said Phil, who was now only a shadow of himself, living on mechanically from day to day.
“But didn’t you see,” asked Suzanne, “this pretty Christmas card that Helia sent you from London?”
“Ah, yes!” said Phil; “true!”
“Phil is sick,” thought Suzanne, “and very sick! He’s losing his memory. It’s high time that Helia came back!”
“Let me prepare the feast,” she said next day. “You’ll see what it will be! Men don’t understand such things! Phil, let me do it, will you? I’ve invited Poufaille. We shall be four at table. There is a fork for each of us!”