Chapter II: Part 2

'Oh! quite so. But your lawyer was very right in leaving a blank for the name in the power-of-attorney; for it appears that I could not have acted in your stead, as women are not eligible in such matters. But, as I wrote and told you, on my arrival I went to consult the parish lawyer who sent us the extract from the will in which you were appointed guardian. He at once inserted his chief clerk's name in the power-of-attorney, which is quite a common course, he tells me. Then we were able to get along. I went before a justice of the peace and nominated as members of the family council three relations on Lisa's side: two young cousins, Octave Mouret and Claude Lantier, and a cousin by marriage, Monsieur Rambaud, who lives at Marseilles; then, on our side, that is Quenu's side, I chose his nephews, Naudet, Liardin, and Delorme. It is a very proper council, you see, and one which we can easily manage as we think best for the child's benefit. At their first meeting they nominated as surrogate-guardian Monsieur Saccard,[3] whom I had chosen, out of necessity, from among Lisa's relations.'

'Hush! hush! She is waking up,' interrupted Lazare.

Pauline had just opened her eyes widely. Without moving, she gazed with some astonishment at the people talking around her, and then, with a smile full of sleepiness, closed her eyes once more, being worn out with fatigue. Again did her motionless little face show a milky camellia-like transparency.

'Isn't that Saccard the speculator?' asked Chanteau.

'Yes,' answered his wife. 'I saw him, and we had a talk together. He is a charming man. He has so many things to look after, he told me, that I must not reckon much on his assistance. But, you know, we really don't want anybody's help. From the moment we take the child--well, we do take her; and we don't want anybody coming and interfering with us. All the other business was got through quickly. Your power-of-attorney conferred all the necessary authority. The seals were removed, an inventory of the property was made, and the business was sold by auction. The sale went off splendidly, for there were two parties bidding hotly one against the other, and so we got ninety thousand francs, cash down. The notary had previously discovered scrip for sixty thousand francs in a desk. I begged him to buy more scrip, and so now we have a hundred and fifty thousand francs securely invested. I have brought the scrip along with me, having first given the chief clerk the full discharge and receipt, which I asked you to send me by return of post. See! here it is!'

She had thrust her hand into her bag and brought out a bulky packet. It was the scrip, tied up between two pieces of thick cardboard which had formed the binding of one of the shop account-books. The green marbled surface was speckled with grease-spots. Both father and son looked attentively at the fortune which lay upon the shabby tablecloth.

'The tea is getting cold, mother,' said Lazare, putting his pen down at last. 'Hadn't I better pour it out?'

He got up from his seat and filled the cups. His mother had returned no answer to his question. Her eyes were still fixed on the scrip.

'Of course,' she continued slowly, 'at a subsequent meeting of the family council which I summoned, I asked to have my travelling expenses reimbursed, and the sum that we are to receive for the child's maintenance was fixed at eight hundred francs a year. We are not so rich as she is, and we cannot afford to take her for nothing. None of us would desire to make a farthing profit out of the girl, but it would have pressed us too much to have kept her out of our own income. The interest of her fortune will be banked and invested, and her capital will be almost doubled by the time she comes of age. Well, it is only our duty that we are doing. We are bound to obey the wishes of the dead. And if it costs us something to do it, perhaps the sacrifice may bring us better fortune, of which, I am sure, we stand in great need----The poor little dear was so cut up, and sobbed so bitterly at leaving her nurse! I trust she will be happy with us here.'

The two men were quite affected.

'Most certainly I shall never be unkind to her,' said Chanteau.

'She is a charming little thing,' added Lazare. 'I love her already.'

Just then Matthew appeared to have smelt the tea in his dreams, for he gave himself a shake, and again came and thrust his big head upon the edge of the table. Minouche, too, got up and stretched herself and yawned, and, when she was quite awake, she craned out her neck to sniff at the packet of papers in the greasy covers. As the Chanteaus glanced at Pauline, they saw that her eyes were also open and fixed upon the scrip and the old ledger binding.

'Ah! she knows very well what is inside there,' said Madame Chanteau. 'Don't you, my dear? I showed them all to you in Paris. That is what your poor father and mother have left you.'

Tears trickled down the child's face. Her grief often recurred in April-like showers. But she soon smiled again through her tears, feeling amused at Minouche, who had for a long time smelt at the papers and was doubtless attracted by their odour, for she began to purr and rub her head against the corners of the ledger.

'Come away, Minouche!' cried Madame Chanteau. 'Money isn't to be made a plaything of!'

Chanteau laughed, and so did Lazare. With his head resting on the edge of the table, Matthew was becoming quite excited. Looking eagerly with his flaming eyes at the packet of papers which he must have taken for some great delicacy, he began to bark at the cat. Then all the family grew lively. Pauline caught up Minouche and fondled her in her arms as though she were a doll.

For fear the girl should drop off to sleep again, Madame Chanteau made her drink her tea at once. Then she called Véronique.

'Bring us our candles. Here we are sitting and talking and never going to bed. Why! it is actually ten o'clock, and I am so tired that I half fell asleep at dinner!'

But a man's voice sounded from the kitchen, and when the cook returned with four lighted candles her mistress asked her:

'Whom were you talking to?'

'It is Prouane, Madame. He came up to tell the master that things are in a very bad way down yonder. The sea is breaking everything to pieces apparently.'

Chanteau had been prevailed upon to accept office as mayor of Bonneville, and Prouane, the tipsy scamp, who acted as Abbé Horteur's beadle, likewise discharged the duties of mayor's clerk. He had been a non-commissioned officer in the navy, and wrote a copybook hand. When they called to him to come into the room, he made his appearance with his woollen cap in his hand and his jacket and boots streaming with water.

'Well! what's the matter, Prouane?'

'Sure, sir, the Cuches' house is completely flooded. And if it goes on like this much longer it will be the same with the Gonins'. We have all been down there, Tourmal, Houtelard, myself, and the others. But it is no use; we can't do anything against that thievish sea. It's written that it will carry off a slice of the land every year.'

Then they all became silent. The four candles burned with tall flames, and the rush of the devouring sea against the cliffs broke through the night air. It was now high tide, and the house shook as every wave dashed against the rocky barrier. It was like the roaring of giant artillery; thunderous consecutive reports arose amidst the rolling of shingle, which, as it swept over the rocks, sounded like the continuous crackling of a fusillade. And amidst all this uproar the wind raised its howling plaint, and the rain, every now and then increasing in violence, seemed to pelt the walls of the house with a hail of bullets.

'It is like the end of the world,' Madame Chanteau murmured. 'What will the Cuches do? Where are they going to take refuge?'

'They will have to be sheltered,' said Prouane. 'Meantime they are at the Gonins'. What a sight it was! There was a little lad, who is only three years old, perfectly drenched, and his mother with nothing on but a petticoat--begging your pardon for mentioning it--and the father, too, with his hand split open by a falling beam, while madly trying to save their few rags.'

Pauline had risen from the table and returned to the window. She listened to what was being said with all the serious demeanour of a grown-up person. Her expression indicated distressful sympathy and pity, and her full lips trembled with emotion.

'Oh, aunt!' she said, 'how very sad for the poor things!' Then her gaze wandered through the window into that inky darkness where nothing was visible. They could hear that the sea had reached the road, and was sweeping wildly and fiercely over it, but they could see nothing. The little village and the rocks and the whole neighbourhood seemed submerged beneath a flood of ink. For the young girl it was a painful experience and surprise. That sea which she had thought so beautiful hurled itself upon poor folks and ruined them!

'I will go down with you, Prouane,' cried Lazare. 'Perhaps something can be done.'

'Oh yes! do go, cousin!' said Pauline, with flashing eyes. But the man shook his head.

'It is no use troubling yourself, Monsieur Lazare; you couldn't do anything more than the others. We can only stand about and watch the sea work its will, and destroy what it likes, and when it gets tired of that we shall have to be grateful that it has done no worse. I merely came up to inform Monsieur Chanteau.'

Then Chanteau began to grow angry, bothered by this business, which would give him an uneasy night and demand all his attention in the morning.

'I don't believe there ever was a village built in such an idiotic position!' he cried. 'You have buried yourselves right under the waves, and it's no wonder if the sea swallows up your houses one by one. And why ever in the world do you stop in such a place? You should leave it and go elsewhere.'

'Where can we go?' asked Prouane, who listened with an expression of stupefaction. 'We are here, sir, and we have got to stop here. We must be somewhere.'

'Yes, that's true,' said Madame Chanteau, bringing the discussion to an end. 'And wherever you are, here or elsewhere, there will always be trouble----We are just going to bed. Good-night. To-morrow it will be light.'

The man went off bowing, and they heard Véronique bolt the door behind him. They took their candles and gave a parting caress to Matthew and Minouche, who both slept in the kitchen. Lazare collected his music together, and Madame Chanteau put the scrip in its greasy covers beneath her arm, and also took from the table Davoine's balance-sheet, which her husband had forgotten. It was a heart-breaking paper, and the sooner it was put out of sight the better.

'We are going to bed, Véronique,' she cried. 'You need not wander up and down at this time of night.' But, hearing nothing save a grunt in the kitchen, she added in lower tones:

'What is the matter with her? I haven't brought a baby home for her to wean!'

'Leave her alone,' said Chanteau. 'She has her whims, you know. Well! we are all four here: so good-night!'

He himself slept on the ground floor, in a room on the other side of the passage. This arrangement had been made so that, when he was suffering from an attack of gout, he might be readily wheeled in his arm-chair either to table or to the terrace. He opened the door, and then stood still for a moment. His legs were very heavy, as at the approach of a fresh attack, of which, indeed, the stiffness of his joints had been giving him warning since the previous day. Plainly enough, he had acted very foolishly in eating that _foie gras_. The consciousness of his error made him feel anything but happy.

'Good-night,' he repeated in a mournful voice. 'You others can always sleep. Good-night, my little dear. Have a good long rest; you want it at your age.'

'Good-night, uncle,' said Pauline in reply, as she kissed him. Then the door closed. Madame Chanteau went upstairs first with the little girl. Lazare followed behind.

'Well, for my part, I shan't want anyone to rock me to sleep to-night,' said the old lady, 'that's quite certain. And I don't at all object to that uproar. I find it lulling. When I was in Paris I quite missed the shaking of my bed.'

They all went up to the first floor. Pauline, who carefully held her candlestick straight, was somewhat amused by this procession in Indian file, each carrying a lighted candle, which set all their shadows dancing. When she reached the landing she paused, hesitating where to go, till her aunt gently pushed her forward.

'Straight on,' she said. 'That room there is kept for visitors, and this one opposite is mine. Come in for a minute; I want to show you something.'

The bedroom, hung with yellow cretonne with a pattern of green leaves, was very plainly furnished in mahogany. There was a bed, a wardrobe, and a secrétaire. In the middle stood a small table on a square of red carpet. When she had examined every corner carefully with her candle, Madame Chanteau went up to the secrétaire and opened it.

'Come and look!' she said.

She drew out one of the little drawers and placed Davoine's disastrous balance-sheet in it, with a sigh. Then she emptied the drawer above it, pulled it right out and shook it, to clear it of a few old scraps, and, with Pauline looking at her as she prepared to stow the scrip away in it, she said:

'I am going to put it in here, you see. There is nothing else in the drawer, and it will be all by itself. Would you like to put it there yourself?'

Pauline felt a slight sense of shame, which she could not have accounted for. She blushed as she answered, 'Oh! aunt dear, what difference does it make?'

But she had already taken the old ledger-binding in her hand, and she put it in the drawer, while Lazare threw the light of the candle he was holding upon the secrétaire.

'There!' said Madame Chanteau, 'you are quite sure about it now, and you may feel quite easy about it. The drawer is the top one on the left, remember. It will stop there till the day when you are old enough to come and take it out and do what you like with it. Minouche won't be able to come and eat it here, will she?'

The idea of Minouche opening the secrétaire and eating the papers quite tickled the child's fancy, and she broke into a merry laugh. Her momentary embarrassment altogether disappeared, and she began to joke with Lazare, who amused her by purring like a cat and pretending to make an attack upon the secrétaire. He, too, laughed gaily. His mother, however, very solemnly locked the flap, turning the key round twice.

'It is quite safe now,' she said. 'Come, Lazare, don't make yourself ridiculous. Now, Pauline, I will go up with you to your room to see if you have got everything you want.'

They all three filed out into the staircase. When they reached the second floor, Pauline with some hesitation opened the door of the room on her left, but her aunt immediately called out:

'No! no! not that one! That's your cousin's room. Yours is the one opposite.'

Pauline, however, stood where she was, lost in amazement at the size of the room and the state of confusion it was in. It contained a piano, a couch, and a huge table, besides a lot of books and pictures. And when at last she opened the opposite door, she was quite delighted to find that her own room was a very small one in comparison with the other. The wall-paper was of a creamy yellow, flowered with blue roses. The furniture consisted of an iron bedstead hung with muslin curtains, a dressing-table, a chest of drawers, and three chairs.

'Yes; you have everything here, I think,' said Madame Chanteau--'water, sugar, towels, and soap. I hope you will sleep well. Véronique has a little room beside you. If you feel at all frightened, knock on the wall.'

'And I am close to you as well,' added Lazare. 'If a ghost comes, I will fly at him with my sword.'

The doors of both rooms, which faced each other, were open; Pauline's eyes strayed from one to the other.

'There are no ghosts,' she said merrily. 'You must keep your sword for robbers. Good-night, aunt. Good-night, cousin.'

'Good-night, my dear. You know how to undress yourself?'

'Oh! yes. I am getting a big girl, you know, now. I always did everything for myself in Paris.'

They kissed her, and Madame Chanteau told her, as she went off, that she might lock her door. But the child had already sprung to the window, impatient to find out whether it overlooked the sea. The rain was streaming so violently down the panes that she dared not open it. All was pitchy dark outside, but she felt quite happy when she heard the waves beating beneath her. Then, in spite of her fatigue, which almost prevented her from keeping her eyes open, she walked round the room and examined the furniture. The thought that she was to have a room of her own, separate from anyone else, where she might shut herself up entirely alone, quite flattered and pleased her, and made her feel as though she were grown up already. Just as she was about to turn the key in the lock, however, she hesitated, and felt a little uneasy. How should she escape, if she should see anybody in the night? She trembled for a moment, and then, though she was in her petticoats, having taken off her dress, she opened the door. Opposite to her she saw Lazare, standing in the middle of his room and looking at her.

'Well?' he said. 'What's the matter? Do you want anything?'

She turned very red, and felt disposed to tell him a fib, but her natural frankness got the better of that inclination.

'No, nothing,' she replied. 'But I feel afraid, do you know, when the door is locked; so I am not going to fasten it; and if you hear me knock, it will be for you to come. You, mind, and not the cook!'

He had walked out of his room to her door, attracted by the charm of her child-like frankness and innocence.

'Good-night!' he repeated, stretching out his arms to her. She thereupon threw her puny little arms round his neck and pressed him to her, quite regardless of the scantiness of her attire.

'Good-night, cousin!'

Five minutes later she bravely blew her candle out, and buried herself in her muslin-curtained bed. For a long time her slumber was light and broken, from her very weariness. She heard Véronique come upstairs, without the least care to hush her footsteps, and then push her furniture about with noise enough to waken everybody. After a while, however, there was nothing to be heard save the tumult of the storm outside. The rain beat down upon the slates; the wind shook the windows and whistled under the doors, and the girl long listened to that cannonading, and trembled and quivered as each wave broke against the cliff. It seemed to her that the house, now silent and lifeless, was being carried out to sea like a ship. Then, as she grew warm and snug beneath her blankets, her wandering thoughts strayed, with sympathetic pity, to the poor people down in the village, whom the sea was driving from their beds. But at last everything faded from her mind, and she slept soundly, scarce breathing.

II

From the first week Pauline's presence in the house proved a source of joy and pleasure to the family. Her cheerful healthiness and her calm, tranquil smile spread a softening influence over the asperities of the Chanteau household. In her the father found a nurse, while the mother was made happy by the fact that her son now spent more of his time at home. It was only Véronique who went on grumbling and growling. The knowledge that there were a hundred and fifty thousand francs locked up in the secrétaire, although they were to remain scrupulously untouched, seemed also to give the family a semblance of wealth. There was a new influence in their midst, and fresh hopes arose, though what they were it would have been difficult to say.

On the third night after Pauline's arrival, the attack of gout, which Chanteau had foreseen, broke out in all its violence. For a week past he had been experiencing prickings in his joints, tremblings and quiverings in his legs, and an utter distaste for all exercise. He had gone to bed feeling somewhat easier, but about three o'clock in the morning had been seized with a frightful pain in the big toe of his left foot. Thence it had quickly spread to his heel, and then risen to his ankle. He endured the agony as well as he could till morning, sweating beneath his blankets, anxious as he was to disturb nobody. His attacks were the dread of the whole house, and he always put off calling for assistance till the last possible minute, feeling ashamed of his helplessness, and dreading the angry reception which awaited the announcement of each fresh attack. But when he heard Véronique go past his door, about eight o'clock in the morning, he could no longer restrain a groan, as a sharper spasm of pain than previously shot through his foot.

'There we are again!' growled the cook. 'Just listen to him bellowing!'

She came into the room and watched him as he lay moaning and tossing his head about. And her only attempt at consolation was to say: 'You don't suppose this will please Madame when she hears of it, do you?'

As soon as Madame Chanteau heard of her husband's fresh attack she bounced into the room, and, letting her hands drop by her sides in angry desperation, cried out: 'What, again! No sooner do I get back than this begins afresh!'

For the last fifteen years she had harboured intense hatred against gout. She cursed it as an enemy, a thief that had blighted her existence, ruined her son, blasted all her hopes. If it had not been for that gout, would they have all been living a life of exile in that forsaken hole? Thus, in spite of all her natural kindness, she always manifested a petulant, hostile disposition towards her husband in his attacks, declaring, too, that she was quite incapable of nursing him.

'Oh! what agony I suffer!' groaned the unhappy man. 'I know it is going to be much worse this time than it was the last. Don't stop there, as it puts you out so, but send for Doctor Cazenove at once.'

The house was immediately in a state of commotion. Lazare set off to Arromanches, though the family retained but little confidence in medical help. During the last fifteen years Chanteau had tried all sorts of medicines, and with each fresh kind he had only grown worse. His attacks, which at first had been slight and infrequent, had quickly multiplied and become much more violent. He was racked with pain in both feet, and one of his knees was threatened also. Three times already had he seen his system of treatment changed, and his wretched body had become a mere basis for experimenting with competing nostrums. After being copiously bled, he had been scoured with purgatives, and now they crammed him with colchicum and lithium. The draining-away of his blood and the weakening of his frame had turned what had been intermittent into chronic gout. Local treatment had been no more successful. Leeches had left his joints in a state of painful stiffness; opium only prolonged his attacks, and blisters brought on ulceration. Wiesbaden and Carlsbad had done him no good, and a season at Vichy had all but killed him.

'Oh dear! oh dear! what agony I am suffering!' repeated poor Chanteau. 'It is just as though a lot of dogs were gnawing at my feet.'

He was perpetually altering the position of his leg, hoping to gain some relief by the change, but he was still racked with agony, and each fresh movement drew another groan from him. Presently, as the paroxysms of his pain grew sharper, a continuous howl came from his lips. He shivered and grew quite feverish, and his throat was parched with a burning thirst.

Pauline had just glided into his room. She stood by his bed and gazed at him gravely, but did not give way to tears; though Madame Chanteau lost her head, distracted by her husband's cries and groans. Véronique wished to arrange the bed-clothes differently, as the sufferer found their weight intolerable, but as she was about to lay hold of them with her big awkward hands he screamed yet more loudly and forbade her to touch him. He was quite frightened of her, and said that she shook him as roughly as though he were a bundle of linen.

'Don't call for me again then, sir,' she said as she bounced angrily out of the room. 'If you won't let anybody help you, you must attend to yourself!'

Thereupon Pauline gently glided up to the bedside, and with delicate skilfulness lightened the pressure of the bed-clothes with her childish fingers. The sufferer felt a short respite from his agony, and accepted the girl's help with a smile.

'Thank you, my dear. Stay! stay! Ah! that fold there weighs five hundred pounds! Oh! not so quickly, my dear, you quite frightened me.'

Then his agony returned in full force again; and as his wife, trying to find some occupation in the room, first drew up the blinds and then bustled to his bedside and placed a cup on the little table, he grew still more querulous.

'Oh! do keep still; don't rush about so! You make everything shake and tremble. Every step you take is just like a blow on my head with a hammer.'

She made no attempt at apologising or soothing him. Matters always ended in this fashion, and he was left to suffer in solitude.

'Come along, Pauline,' she said, quite unconcernedly. 'You see that your uncle can't endure to have any of us near him.'

But Pauline stayed behind in the sick-room. She glided about with such a light step that her feet scarcely seemed to touch the floor. From that moment she installed herself there as the sick man's nurse, and she was the only person whose presence in the room he could endure. She seemed able to read his thoughts, and she anticipated all his wants, softening the light as occasion seemed to require, and giving him his gruel, which Véronique brought as far as the door. But what the poor man found especially soothing and comforting was to see her constantly before him, sitting thoughtfully and quietly on her chair, with her big sympathetic eyes ever fixed upon him. He tried to find some distraction from his weariness in telling her of his sufferings.

'Just now I feel as if someone were sawing away at the joints of my toes with a jagged knife, and at the same time I could almost swear that I was being drenched with warm water.'

Then the character of his agony changed. It seemed as though a steel wire were twisted tightly round his ankle, and he could feel his muscles being strained till they were on the point of breaking. Pauline listened with affectionate complaisance and seemed to fully understand all he told her, remaining ever placid amongst all his groanings, with no other thought than to do what she could to alleviate his pain. She even forced herself to appear gay, and actually succeeded in making him laugh between his paroxysms.

When Doctor Cazenove at last arrived, he was filled with admiration of the little nurse, and gave her a hearty kiss upon her head. The Doctor was a man of fifty-four, vigorous and lean, who, after thirty years' service in the navy, had just settled down at Arromanches, where an uncle had left him a house. He had been a friend of the Chanteaus ever since he had cured Madame Chanteau of an awkward sprain.

'Well! well! here I am again!' he said. 'I have just come in to shake hands; but, you know, I can do nothing more for you than the little girl is already doing. When one has inherited gout, and has got past one's fiftieth year, one must reconcile oneself to it. And then, you know, you ruined your constitution with the shopful of drugs you swallowed. The only remedies are patience and flannel!'

The Doctor affected utter scepticism of the power of medicine in such a case. In thirty years he had seen so many poor sufferers racked with pain and disease, in all sorts of climates and in all kinds of surroundings, that he had grown very modest about his power to afford any actual relief. He generally preferred to let Nature work out its own cure. However, he carefully examined Chanteau's swollen toe, whose gleaming skin had turned a deep red, went on to look at the knee which was threatened with inflammation, and finally took note of the presence of a little pearl-like deposit, white and hard, at the edge of the patient's right ear.

'But, Doctor,' groaned the sufferer, 'you are not going to leave me suffering like this?'

Cazenove's demeanour had become quite serious. That chalky bead interested him, and his faith in medical science returned at the sight of this new symptom. 'Dear me' he murmured half to himself, 'I had better try what salts and alkalies will do. It is evidently becoming chronic.'

Then in a louder and angry tone he said: 'It is your own fault, you know. You won't follow the directions I have given you. You are always glued to your arm-chair, and you never think of taking any exercise. And then I dare say you have been drinking wine and eating too much meat. Eh! haven't you, now? Confess that you have been taking something heating!'

'Nothing but a tiny bit of _foie gras_,' murmured Chanteau, very humbly.

The Doctor raised both his arms, as though to call the elements to witness his patient's folly. Then he took some little phials from the pockets of his overcoat, and began to prepare a draught. By way of local treatment he simply wrapped the foot and knee in cotton-wool, which he kept in its place by twisting some waxed thread round it. When he went away, it was to Pauline that he gave his directions. The invalid was to have a tablespoonful of the draught every two hours, and as much gruel as he liked, but he must observe the greatest strictness in the matter of diet.

'If you suppose that anybody can keep him from eating anything he chooses, you are very much mistaken,' said Madame Chanteau, as she went with the Doctor to the door.

'No! no! aunt dear; he will be very good, you will see,' Pauline ventured to assert. 'I will make him do what is right.'

Cazenove looked at her, and was amused by her serious manner. He kissed her again, on both her cheeks this time.

'There's a good little girl,' he said, 'who came into the world on purpose to help others.'

For a whole week Chanteau lay groaning. Just when the attack seemed over, his right foot was seized by the foe, and all his agony returned with increased violence. The whole house rang with his cries. Véronique kept in the depths of her kitchen so as to escape the sound of them, and Madame Chanteau and Lazare sometimes actually ran out of the house, quite overcome by nervous excitement. It was only Pauline who remained with the sick man, and she indeed never left his room. She was ever struggling with his foolish whims and fancies; as, for instance, when he furiously insisted upon having a cutlet cooked, saying that he was very hungry, and roundly declaring that Doctor Cazenove was an ass and didn't know what was good for him. The night was the worst time, for then the attacks seemed to come on with increased violence. Pauline could only snatch some two or three hours' sleep. But, in spite of it all, she retained her spirits, and her health did not seem in any way to suffer. Madame Chanteau readily accepted her services, until, when Chanteau was again convalescent, the girl at last regained her liberty; and then a close companionship sprang up between her and Lazare.

It took its rise in that by-room which the young man occupied upstairs. He had had a partition knocked down, and so this room of his covered half of the second storey. A little iron bedstead was hidden away behind a tattered old screen. Against the wall and on the bare floor-boards were piled a thousand volumes of books, classical works, largely imperfect sets, which had been discovered in a lumber-room at Caen and had been transported to Bonneville. Near the window there was a huge antique Norman wardrobe crammed with all kinds of out-of-the-way objects, specimens of minerals, old and useless tools, and broken toys. There was a piano, also, over which were hung a pair of foils and a fencing-mask; and there was an enormous table in the centre, an old high drawing-table, so completely littered with papers, engravings, tobacco-jars and pipes that it was difficult to find a hand's-breadth of space available for writing.

Pauline was delighted when she was given the freedom of this wild chaos. She spent a month in exploring it thoroughly, and every day she made some new discovery, such as an illustrated 'Robinson Crusoe' which she came upon in rummaging amongst the books, or a doll which she fished out of the miscellaneous collection in the cupboard. As soon as she was dressed of a morning, she sprang out of her own room into her cousin's and settled herself there; and in the afternoon she often returned thither again.

From the day of her first visit Lazare had received her as though she had been a boy, a younger brother, some nine years his junior, but so merry and amusing and with such big intelligent eyes as to be in no wise in his way; and as usual he went on smoking his pipe, lolling in his chair with his legs cocked up in the air, or reading, or writing long letters into which he slipped flowers. Sometimes they made a pretty riot between them, for Pauline had a habit of suddenly springing upon the table or bounding through the split folds of the old screen. One morning as Lazare wondered why he did not hear her, and turned to ascertain what she might be about, he saw her, foil in hand, with her face screened with the fencing-mask as she flourished away at space. Whenever he told her to be still or threatened to turn her out of the room, the result was a tremendous skirmish and a wild pursuit through the disorderly place. Then she would fly at him and throw her arms on his neck, and he twirled her round like a top, with her petticoats circling about her. As the room echoed with their merry child-like laughter, he felt quite a boy again himself.

Next the piano afforded them occupation. It was an old instrument of Érard's make, dating from the year 1810, and upon it, in former times, Mademoiselle Eugénie de la Vignière had given lessons for fifteen years. The strings in its mahogany case, from which most of the polish had departed, sighed out far-away tones of a muffled softness. Lazare, who had never been able to persuade his mother to get him a new piano, strummed away on the old instrument with all his might, without succeeding in eliciting from it the sonorous rhapsodies buzzing in his head; and he had got into the habit of adding the notes of his own voice to the instrument's in order to obtain the required volume of sound. His passion for music soon led him to abuse Pauline's easy complaisance. He had found a listener, and for whole afternoons he kept her there while he went through his _répertoire_, which comprised all that was most complicated in music, and notably the then unacknowledged scores of Berlioz and Wagner. He poured forth his vocal accompaniment, and, as his enthusiasm increased, rendered the piece quite as much with his throat as with his fingers. On these occasions the poor child used to feel dreadfully bored, but she went on listening with an air of rapt attention, so that she might not hurt her cousin's feelings.

Sometimes darkness would surprise them still at the piano, and then Lazare would leave off playing and tell Pauline of his dreams for the future. He would be a great musician in spite of his mother, in spite of everybody. At the college at Caen a professor of the violin, struck by his genius for music, had prophesied a glorious career for him. He had secretly taken private lessons in composition, and now he was working hard by himself. He already had in his head a vague outline of a symphony on the subject of the Earthly Paradise; and, indeed, he had actually written the score of one passage descriptive of Adam and Eve being driven away by the angels, a march of a solemn and mournful character, which he consented to play one evening to Pauline. The child quite approved of it and declared it delightful. Then, however, she began to talk to him; of course it must be very nice, she said, to compose pretty music, but wouldn't it be more prudent if he were to obey the wishes of his parents, who wanted to make him a prefect or a judge? The whole house was made unhappy by the quarrel between the mother and the son; he declaring that he would go to Paris to the Conservatoire, and she replying that she would just give him till next October to make up his mind to embrace some respectable profession. Pauline backed up her aunt's designs, and told her, with an air of tranquil conviction, that she would take upon herself to bring her cousin round to proper views. She indeed argued the matter with Lazare, who grew angry with her and violently closed the piano, telling her that she was 'a horrid _bourgeoise_.'

For three days they sulked with each other, and then made friends again. To win her over to his musical scheme, Lazare wished to teach her to play on the piano. He showed her how to place her fingers on the keys, and kept her for hours running up and down the scales. But she discouraged him very much by her lack of enthusiasm. She was always on the look-out for something to laugh at and make a joke of, and took great delight in making Minouche promenade along the key-board and execute barbaric symphonies with her paws, asserting that the cat was playing the famous banishment from the Earthly Paradise, whereat the composer himself smiled. Then they broke out into boisterous fun again, she threw her arms round his neck, and he spun her round like a top, while Minouche, joining in the merriment, sprang from the table to the top of the cupboard. As for Matthew, he was not admitted into the room, as he was apt to become over-riotous when he felt merry.

'You drive me crazy, you wretched little shopkeeper!' Lazare one day broke out, quite impatiently. 'You had better get my mother to teach you, if you can persuade her to do so.'

'All this music of yours will never do you any good, you know,' Pauline answered quite roundly. 'If I were you I would be a doctor.'

He stared at her fiercely. A doctor, indeed! What had put that idea into her head? He worked himself into a state of excitement that made him lose all self-control.

'Listen to me!' he cried. 'If they won't let me be a musician, I'll kill myself!'

The summer completed Chanteau's restoration to health, and Pauline was now able to follow Lazare in his rambles out of doors. The big room was deserted, and they set off on wild adventures together. For some days they confined themselves to the terrace, where vegetated tufts of tamarisks, which the salt winds had nipped and blighted. Then they invaded the yard, broke the chain belonging to the well, terrified the dozen skinny fowls that lived upon grasshoppers, and hid themselves in the empty stable and coach-house and knocked the plaster off the walls. Thence they slipped into the kitchen-garden, a bit of poor dry ground, which Véronique dug and hoed like a peasant. There were four beds sown with tough vegetables and planted with miserable stumps of pear-trees, which were all bent by the north-west gales. And while here, on pushing open a little door, they found themselves on the cliffs, under the broad sky, with the open sea in front of them. Pauline's absorbing interest in that mighty expanse of water, now so soft and pure under the bright July sun, had never diminished. It was always for the sea that she looked from every window in the house. But she had never yet been near it, and a new era in her life commenced when she found herself alone with Lazare in the solitude of the shore.

What happy times they had together! Madame Chanteau grumbled and wanted to keep them in the house, in spite of all her confidence in Pauline's discretion; and so they never went out through the yard, where Véronique would have seen them, but glided stealthily through the kitchen-garden, and so escaped, to appear no more till evening. They soon found their rambles round the church and the graveyard, with its shadowing yews and the priest's salad-beds, a trifle monotonous, and in a week they had quite exhausted the attractions of Bonneville, with its thirty cottages clinging to the side of the cliff and its strip of shingle where the fishermen drew up their boats. When the tide was low it was far more amusing to wander along at the foot of the cliffs. They walked over fine sand, frightening the little crabs that scudded away before them, or jumped from rock to rock among the thick seaweed and the sparkling pools where shrimps were skimming about; to say nothing of the fish they caught, of the mussels they ate, raw and even without bread, or the strange-looking creatures they carried away in their handkerchiefs, or the odd discoveries they sometimes made, such as that of a stranded dab or a little lobster lurking at the bottom of a hole. They would sometimes let themselves be overtaken by the rising tide and rush merrily for refuge to some big rock, to wait there till the ebb allowed them to go their way again. They were perfectly happy as they came back home in the evening wet through and with their hair all tossed about by the wind. And they grew so accustomed to this life in the fresh salt breezes that they found the atmosphere of the lamp-lighted room at night quite suffocating.

But their greatest pleasure of all was bathing. The beach was too rocky to attract the inhabitants of Caen and Bayeux, and, whereas every year new villas rose on the cliffs at Arromanches, never a single bather made his appearance at Bonneville. Lazare and Pauline had discovered, about half a mile from the village, over towards Port-en-Bessin, a delightful spot, a little bay shut in by two rocky cliffs and carpeted with soft glittering sand. They called it the Golden Bay, for its secluded waves seemed to wash up pieces of glittering gold. They were quite alone and undisturbed there, and undressed and slipped on their bathing things without any feeling of shame. Lazare in a week taught Pauline to swim. She was much more enthusiastic about this than she had been about the piano, and in her plucky attempts she often swallowed big mouthfuls of salt water. If a larger wave than usual sent them tottering one against the other, they laughed gleefully; and when they came out of the water, they went romping over the sand till the wind had dried them. This was much more amusing than fishing.

The days slipped away, however, and August came round, and as yet Lazare had come to no decision. In October Pauline was to go to a boarding-school at Bayeux. When bathing had tired them, they would sit on the sand and talk over the state of their affairs gravely and sensibly. Pauline had succeeded in interesting Lazare in medical matters by telling him that if she were a man she should think nothing nobler or more delightful than to be able to cure ailing people. Besides, for the last week or so, the Earthly Paradise had not been getting on satisfactorily, and Lazare was beginning to have doubts about his genius for music. At any rate, there had been great glory won in the practice of medicine, and he bethought him of many illustrious names, Hippocrates, Ambrose Paré, and others.

One afternoon, however, he burst out into a loud cry of delight. He had the score of his masterpiece in his hand at the time. It was all rubbish, he said, that Paradise of his, and could not be worked out. He would destroy it all, and write quite a new symphony on Grief, which should describe in sublime harmonies the hopeless despair of Humanity groaning beneath the skies. He retained the march of Adam and Eve, and boldly transferred it to his new work as the 'March of Death.' For a week his enthusiasm increased every hour, and the whole universe entered into the scheme of his symphony. But, when another week had passed away, Pauline was very much astonished to hear him say one evening that he was quite willing to go and study medicine in Paris. He was really thinking that by doing so he would be near the Conservatoire, and would then be able to see what could be done. Madame Chanteau, however, was delighted. She would certainly have preferred seeing her son hold some judicial or administrative office, but, at any rate, doctors were very respectable persons and sometimes made a good deal of money. 'You must be a little witch!' she said, kissing Pauline; 'you have more than repaid us, my dear, for taking you.'

Everything was settled. Lazare was to leave on the 1st of October. During the month of September that remained to them they gave themselves up with greater fervour than ever to their romps and rambles, resolved to finish their term of freedom in a worthy manner. They sported about in the Golden Bay at times till darkness surprised them there.

One evening they were sitting on the beach, watching the stars appear like fiery beads in the paling sky. Pauline gazed at them with the placid admiration of a healthy child, whereas Lazare, who had become feverish ever since he had been preparing for his departure, blinked nervously, while in his mind revolved all kinds of schemes and ambitions for the future.

'How lovely the stars are!' said Pauline quietly, after a long interval of silence.

He made no reply. All his cheerfulness had left him; his gaze seemed disturbed by some inward anxiety. Up in the sky the stars were growing thicker every minute, as if sparks were being cast by the handful across the heavens.

'You have never learned anything about them, have you?' he said at last. 'Each star up yonder is a sun, round which there are planets wheeling like the earth. There are thousands and thousands of them; and far away beyond those you can see are legions of others. There is no end to them.' Then he became silent for a moment. By-and-by he resumed in a voice that quivered with emotion: 'I don't like to look at them; they make me feel afraid.'

The rising tide was raising a distant wail, like the mournful cry of a multitude lamenting its wretchedness. Over the horizon, black now with fallen night, glittered the gold-dust of wheeling worlds. And amid that sad wail that echoed round them from the world, pressed low beneath the countless stars, Pauline thought she detected a sound of bitter sobbing beside her.

'What is the matter with you? Are you ill?'

Lazare made no answer. He was indeed sobbing, with his face hidden in his convulsively twitching hands, as though he wanted to blot out the sight of everything. And as soon as he was able to speak, he gasped: 'Oh, to die! to die!'

The scene filled Pauline with long-lasting astonishment. Lazare rose to his feet with difficulty, and they went back to Bonneville through the darkness, the rising tide pressing closely upon them. Neither spoke a word to the other. As Pauline watched the young man go on in front of her, he seemed to grow shorter, to bend beneath the breeze from the west.

That evening they found a new-comer waiting for them in the dining-room, talking to Chanteau. For a week past they had been expecting the arrival of a young girl called Louise, who was eleven years and a half old, and came to spend a fortnight every year at Bonneville. They had twice gone to meet her at Arromanches, without finding her, and now, that evening, when no one was looking for her, she had turned up quite unexpectedly. Louise's mother had died in Madame Chanteau's arms, recommending her daughter to the other's care. Her father, Monsieur Thibaudier, a banker at Caen, had married again six months afterwards, and had already three children by his present wife. Absorbed by his new family and business matters, he had sent Louise to a boarding-school, and was only too glad when he could get her off his hands during the holidays by sending her upon a round of visits to her friends. He gave himself as little trouble about her as possible, and she had come to the Chanteaus' a week behind her time, in the charge of a servant. 'The master had so much to worry him,' said the latter, who returned home immediately she had deposited her charge at Bonneville, with an intimation that Mademoiselle's father would do his best to come and fetch her himself when her time was up.

'Come along, Lazare!' cried Chanteau. 'Here she is at last!'

Louise smiled and kissed the young man on both his cheeks, though the acquaintance between them was slight, for she had been constantly shut up in school, and it was barely a year since he had left college. Their knowledge of each other really dated from their last holidays, and Lazare had hitherto treated the girl somewhat ceremoniously, fancying that she already considered herself grown-up, and despised any youthful display of boisterousness.

'Well, Pauline, aren't you going to kiss her?' said Chanteau, entering the room. 'She is older than you by a year and a half, you know. You must be very fond of each other; it will please me very much to see you so.'

Pauline looked keenly at Louise, who was slight and delicate, with somewhat irregular though very pleasing features. Her hair was thick and fair, and was curled and arranged like that of a young woman. Pauline turned a little pale on seeing Louise kiss Lazare; and when she herself was kissed by her with a smile, it was with quivering lips that she returned the salute.

'What is the matter with you?' asked her aunt. 'Are you cold?'

'Yes, I think I am a little. The wind was rather chilly,' she answered, blushing at the falsehood she was telling.

When they sat down to dinner she ate nothing. Her eyes never strayed from the faces of those who were present, and became very black whenever her uncle or her cousin or even Véronique paid any attention to Louise. But she seemed to be especially pained when Matthew, making his customary round of the table, went and laid his huge head upon the new-comer's knee. It was quite in vain that she called him to her. He would not leave Louise, who gorged him with sugar.