Edmond François Valentin About

“ One watches for every chance, the other demands nothing but its own existence; wanting marches straight to its point over hedges and ditches, ravines and mountains; desiring remains seated at home and cries in its sweetest voice:
"Clocher, clocher, arrive, ou ju suis mort!"
Nevertheless, in the August of this very year, four months before pinioning his uncle's arms, François had dared to love face to face. At the Ems Springs, he had met a young girl almost as shy as himself, whose shuddering timidity had given him courage. ”

“ I see it plainly, I do!"
"What do you see?"
"My nephew's money. Take it away, doctor! I'm an honest man; I don't want anybody's property."
While the doctor was listening attentively to these first aberrations of M. Morlot a strange revolution took place in the appearance of Francois. He grew pale and cold, his teeth chattered violently. M. Auvray turned towards him, to ask what had happened.
"Nothing," he replied. "She's coming. I hear her. This is joy . . . but it overcomes me. Happiness falls upon me like snow. The winter will be hard for lovers. Doctor, see what's going on in my head." ”

“ St. Vincent de Paul invented only a uniform, for in every woman, of any rank, or any age, exists the essential material of a sister of charity.
Seated night and day in this chamber, filled with fever, mother and daughter employed their moments of repose in telling over their souvenirs and their hopes. They could not explain François' long silence, his sudden return, or the circumstances that had led him to the Avenue Montaigne. If he loved Claire, why had he forced himself to wait three months? Did he need his uncle's illness to bring him to M. Auvray's? ”

“ There the doctor cares for, and often cures, people who have lost their minds. I would not take you into his establishment, if you ran any risk of meeting all kinds of insanity; but do not be afraid; you will not have the distressing spectacle of imbecility, paralytic insanity, or even utter loss of intelligence. M. Auvray has created for himself what is called a specialty: he treats monomania. He is an excellent man, full of intelligence and learning: a real philosopher and pupil of Esquirol and Laromiguière. ”

“ The doctor came in with apologies for keeping them waiting. François got up, put his hat on the table, and explained matters with great volubility, while striding up and down the room.
"Monsieur," said he, "this is my maternal uncle, whom I am about to confide to your care. You see in him a man of from forty-five to fifty, hardened to manual labor and the privations of a life of hard work; as to the rest, born of healthy parents, in a family where no case of mental aberration has ever been known. You will not, then, have to contend against an hereditary disorder. ”

“ At the end of three months, he got tired of having a crazy man in the house, for he began to feel as if he were at home there himself. François's perpetual drivelling, and his mania for asking Claire in marriage, came to be an intolerable burden to the old man; he resolved to clear the house and shut the sick man up at M. Auvray's. "After all," he said to himself, "my nephew will get better care there, and I shall be more at ease. Science has recognized that it is well to give the insane change of scene to divert them: I'm doing my duty." ”

“ Ask all my friends; they'll tell you that I'm in full possession of my faculties. Feel my pulse; you'll see that I've no fever."
"Poor uncle!" said François. "He does n't know that insanity is madness without fever."
"Monsieur," added the doctor, "if we could only give our patients fever, we'd cure them all."
M. Morlot threw himself on the sofa; his nephew continued to pace the doctor's study.
"Monsieur," said François, "I am deeply afflicted by my uncle's misfortune, but it is a great consolation to be able to entrust him to such a man as yourself. ”

“ If, on the other hand, he looks back upon his disorder without shame or regret, if he speaks of it resignedly, if he meets the people who have been taking care of him without repugnance, I can laugh at the idea of relapses."
"Ah, father, why should he be ashamed of having loved to excess? It is a noble and generous madness which never enters petty souls. And how can he feel repugnance on meeting those who have nursed him? For they are we!"
After six days of delirium., an abundant perspiration carried off the fever, and the patient began to convalesce. ”

“ The poor fellow is certainly the man of the period. After working from childhood, he finds himself poor. My father, starting where he did, left me considerable property. My uncle began by being jealous; then realizing that he was my only relative, and would be my heir in case of death, or my guardian in case of insanity, as a weak mind easily believes what it desires, the unhappy man persuaded himself that I had lost my reason. ”

“ I have read your admirable book on La Monomanie raisonnante; it is the most remarkable book that has been written on the subject since the Traité des Maladies mentales, by the great Esquirol. I know, moreover, that you are a father to your patients, so I will not insult you by recommending M. Morlot to special care. As to the expense of his treatment, I leave that entirely to you." He took a thousand-franc note from his pocket-book, and quietly laid it on the mantel. "I shall have the honor to present myself here in the course of next week. At what hour is access to the patients allowed?" ”

“ It was a necessity of his nature always to be in love with somebody, and if in rubbing his eyes in the morning he saw no gleam of love on the horizon, he got up out of sorts and infallibly put his stockings on wrong side out. ”

“ Fancy a workman dressed in his employer's clothes: such is M. Morlot.
His nephew, François Thomas, is a young man of twenty-three, hard to describe, because he is just like everybody else. He is neither large nor small, handsome nor ugly, developed like a Hercules nor spindled like a dandy, but, maintaining the happy medium throughout, unobtrusive from head to foot, hair of no particular color, and mind and clothes of the same. When he entered M. Auvray's house, he seemed very much agitated ”

“ He made appeals energetic enough to soften rocks, and warm enough to melt ice; but no woman was drawn towards him by his mute aspirations: one must want, to be loved. There is a great difference between desiring and wanting; desiring floats easily upon the clouds: wanting runs on foot among the flints. ”

“ Man is a strange animal: I am not the first who has said so. This excellent M. Marlot, whose super-scrupulous honesty amused the whole faubourg, felt an agreeable tickling at the bottom of his heart, when they came to tell him of his nephew's disorder. He heard an insinuating little voice saying to him, very low, "If François is insane, you'll be his guardian." Probity hastened to reply: "We won't be any richer."—"How?" answered the voice: "Certainly an insane man's board never costs thirty thousand francs a year. Moreover, we shall have all the trouble; we'll have to neglect our business ”

“ François will be well in a couple of days."—"Possibly, however," continued the obstinate voice, "the malady will kill the patient, and we'll inherit without wronging anybody. We've worked thirty years for the sovereign who reigns at Potsdam; who knows but what a blow on a cracked head may make our fortune?" ”

“ Auvray and her daughter took devoted care of François, although the details of the treatment were not always the most agreeable; but the more delicate sex takes naturally to heroism. You may say that the two ladies saw in their patient a son-in-law and a husband. ”