CHAPTER XII
LERNE CHANGES HIS METHOD OF ATTACK
When I was in the black hide of the bull, I had sworn to myself, if my original shape were ever restored to me, to flee away at once, with or without Emma; and yet the autumn was growing old, and I had not yet left Fonval.
The fact was, my treatment was now the exact reverse of what it had been. To begin with, I disposed of my time as I liked.
The first use that I made of that liberty was to go to the shambles in the forest-clearing, and there efface all traces of my visit. A favoring god had not decreed that during the time I had lived a bucolic life in the meadow, somebody should come there, and the assistants should remark the violation of the sepulcher.
Either they had changed their cemetery, or my uncle no longer dissected anything, except tiny creatures, of which the dogs left no trace, or else experiments in animâ vili were completely abandoned.
Let me say that I proved to my satisfaction a detail which lifted a great weight from my heart. I had been afraid that the soul of the unhappy Klotz had been transferred into some animal carefully kept in hiding; but his remains themselves, although marvelously recalling Baudelaire’s famous poem, refuted me. The brain of the dead man, marked as it was with numerous and deep sinuosities, still visible, whilst bearing witness to his humanity, was proof of a murder pure and simple, thank Heaven!
So I enjoyed a large measure of freedom, and besides, an affectionate and repentant Lerne had shown himself at my bedside while I was convalescent. Oh, not the Lerne of long ago, the companion of my Aunt Lidivine; no, but he was no longer the grim and bloodthirsty host, who had received me in the manner in which one shows people the door.
When he saw me up and about, my uncle brought Emma in, and said to her in my presence, that I was cured of a passing touch of lunacy, and that she might now adore me as much as she liked.
“For my part,” he continued, “I give up emotions no longer suitable to my age. You shall have Emma. All I ask of you is not to leave me. A sudden solitude would increase my distress, which you can easily understand, and which both of you will pardon. This distress will pass. Work will get the better of it. Do not be afraid, my dear; the chief part of my profit shall be for you! Nothing has been changed with regard to that, and Nicolas shall be mentioned in the partnership deed and in my will. You may love one another in peace.”