“Give her some bouillon,” said Fargeas. “She will probably refuse it in her present condition; but try. She can be cured,” he added; “but she must be taken away from her present surroundings. Solitude is necessary, not this here, but—”
“But?” asked Vogotzine, as the doctor paused.
“But, perhaps, that of an asylum. Poor woman!” turning again to Marsa, who had not stirred. “How beautiful she is!”
The doctor, greatly touched, despite his professional indifference, left the villa, the General accompanying him to the gate. It was decided that he should return the next day with Villandry and arrange for the transportation of the invalid to Dr. Sims’s establishment at Vaugirard. In a new place her stupor might disappear, and her mind be roused from its torpor; but a constant surveillance was necessary. Some pretext must be found to induce Marsa to enter a carriage; but once at Vaugirard, the doctor gave the General his word that she should be watched and taken care of with the utmost devotion.
Vogotzine felt the blood throb in his temples as he listened to the doctor’s decision. The establishment at Vaugirard! His niece, the daughter of Prince Tchereteff, and the wife of Prince Zilah, in an insane asylum!
But he himself had not the right to dispose of Marsa’s liberty; the consent of the Prince was necessary. It was in vain for Andras to refuse to have his life disturbed; it was absolutely necessary to find out from him what should be done with Marsa, who was his wife and Princess Zilah.
The General also felt that he was incapable of understanding anything, ignorant as he was of the reasons of the rupture, of Zilah’s anger against the Tzigana, and of the young girl’s terrible stupor; and, as he drank his cherry cordial or his brandy, wondered if he too were insane, as he repeated, like his niece:
“I do not know! I do not know!”
He felt obliged, however, to go and tell the Prince of the opinion of the illustrious physician of Salpetriere.
Then he asked Zilah: