But the bell-ringer did not know. Doubtless to spare him the expense, Des Hermies himself always brought the bottle.
"Isn't it tiresome lying in bed?"
"I should say! I am obliged to entrust my bells to an assistant who is no good. Ah, if you heard him ring! It makes me shudder, it sets my teeth on edge."
"Now you mustn't work yourself up," said his wife. "In two days you will be able to ring your bells yourself."
But he went on complaining. "You two don't understand. My bells are used to being well treated. They're like domestic animals, those instruments, and they obey only their master. Now they won't harmonize, they jangle. I can hardly recognize their voices."
"What are you reading?" asked Durtal, wishing to change a subject which he judged to be dangerous.
"Books about bells! Ah, Monsieur Durtal, I have some inscriptions here of truly rare beauty. Listen," and he opened a worm-bored book, "listen to this motto printed in raised letters on the bronze robe of the great bell of Schaffhausen, 'I call the living, I mourn the dead, I break the thunder.' And this other which figured on an old bell in the belfry of Ghent, 'My name is Roland. When I toll, there is a fire; when I peal, there is a tempest in Flanders.'"
"Yes," Durtal agreed, "there is a certain vigour about that one."
"Ah," said Carhaix, seeming not to have heard the other's remark, "it's ridiculous. Now the rich have their names and titles inscribed on the bells which they give to the churches, but they have so many qualities and titles that there is no room for a motto. Truly, humility is a forgotten virtue in our day."
"If that were the only forgotten virtue!" sighed Durtal.