Berm. Dear Lazarus. (Aside.) I have fascinated him, decidedly. (Aloud.) Your mother explained to me with great lucidity all the antecedents of the patient: his sufferings when a child, his character, his studies, his excitable imagination, the first symptoms of the illness, a fainting attack, another more violent.
Laz. (somewhat drily). All that I know already. Go on. (With extreme cordiality.) Go on, my dear Bermudez.
Berm. The doctor is rather like a confessor, and your mother did not object to letting me know of the youthful days of the father—of the father of the young man.
Laz. Ah! his youthful days—yes—his youthful days—yes—yes—and what else?
Berm. His vicious conduct; his unbridled libertinism——
Laz. (excitedly). Libertinism! (Controlling himself.) Yes. (With a forced laugh.) Follies of youth. A lady always exaggerates these things. I have not been a saint myself; neither have you. Doctor, doctor, you with all your science and all your gravity. God knows. God knows! Oh! these doctors! (Giving him a slap on the back.) And what more?
Berm. (laughing). We are mortals and sinners, friend Lazarus.
Laz. And we take for fine gold little lenses of talc. Come, come to the talc.
Berm. Thus stands the case—that that good gentleman, the father of the patient, reached the age of gravity, and he was not a steady man, and he did not correct his faults. His wife seems to have suffered very much. Is all this exact which your mother told me? Because if it is exact it must be taken into account. That’s the reason I ask.
Laz. (aside). My head! Oh my head! (Succeeds in commanding himself, and speaks naturally. Aloud.) See, doctor, those are details of which I know nothing. But if my mother told you so, it will be true. My mother is a superior spirit, a most pure soul, a mother beyond comparison. But let us not speak of the mother, only of the son, that’s to say of the son of the other mother. Therefore let’s see, let’s see. What more did she tell you?