The philosopher, since the visit of Mme. Greslon, went and came, like one who cannot stay in any place, who, as soon as he goes out thinks he will return, and as soon as he has come in, cannot endure his room. In the street, instead of walking along with the methodical step which reveals a nervous machine perfectly balanced, he hurried on, he stopped, he gesticulated, as if disputing with himself. This enervation was betrayed by signs still more strange. Mlle. Trapenard had told to the Carbonnets that her master did not go to bed now, before two or three o’clock in the morning:
“And it is not because he is writing,” insisted the good woman, “for he walks and walks. The first time I thought he was ill. I got up to ask him if he wished some infusion. He, who is always so polite, so gentle, that you would not suspect him to be a man who knows so much, he sent me away in a brutal manner.”
“And I who saw him the other day,” responded Mother Carbonnet, “as I was returning from a course at the café! I would not believe my eyes. He was there, behind the window reading a paper. If I had not known him I should have been afraid. You ought to have seen him—that knit brow and that mouth.”
“At the café!” cried Mlle. Trapenard. “For the fifteen years I have been with him I have never seen him open a paper but once.”
“That man,” concluded Father Carbonnet, “has some trouble which overheats his blood. And trouble you see, Mlle. Mariette, is, so to speak, like the tun of Adelaide, it has no bottom. For a fact, it commenced with the summons of the judge and the visit of the lady in black. And do you know what I think? Perhaps it is about a son of his who is doing badly.”
“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Mariette, “he have a son?”
“And why not?” continued the concierge, winking one eye behind his spectacles; “don’t you think he gallivanted around like other folks when he was young?”
Then he communicated to Mlle. Trapenard the frightful reports which were going about in the rez-de-chaussées concerning poor M. Sixte, since his visible change of habits. All the malicious tongues agreed in attributing the trouble of the philosopher to the citation of the judge. The washerwoman pretended to have it from a countryman of M. Sixte, that his fortune proceeded from a trust which his father had abused, and that he would have to return it. The butcher told those who would listen that the savant was married, and that his wife had made a terrible scene and was going to bring a suit against him. The coal merchant had insinuated, that the worthy man was the brother of an assassin whose execution under the false name of Campi still tormented the popular mind.
“I will never go to their houses again,” moaned Mlle. Trapenard; “is it possible to imagine such horrors!”
And the poor girl left the lodge completely heartbroken. This great creature, high in color, strong as an ox in spite of her fifty-five years, with her big shoulders, her blue wool stockings which she had herself knit, and her cap fitting closely over her compact chignon, felt a strong affection for her master because all the different elements of her frank and simple nature were involved in it.