Jules Verne

“ Trifulgas is not superstitious. He believes in nothing - not even in his own science, except for what it brings him in. What weather, and also what a road! Pebbles and ashes; the pebbles slippery with seaweed, the ashes crackling with iron refuse. No other light than that from Hurzof’s lantern, vague and uncertain. At times jets of flame from Vauglor uprear themselves, and in the midst of them appear great comical silhouettes. In truth no one knows what is in the depths of those unfathomable craters. Perhaps spirits of the other world, which volatilise themselves as they come forth. ”

“ The dying man is not the herring-salter, Vort Kartif - it is Dr. Trifulgas; it is he, whom congestion has attacked - he himself! Cerebral apoplexy, with sudden accumulation of serosity on the cavities of the brain, with paralysis of the body on the side opposite that of the seat of the lesion.
Yes, it is he, who was sent for, and for whom a hundred and twenty fretzers have been paid. He who, from hardness of heart, refused to attend the herring-salter - he who was dying.
Dr. Trifulgas is like a madman, he knows himself lost. At each moment the symptoms increase. ”

“ The doctor and the old woman follow the curves of the little bays of the littoral. The sea is white with livid whiteness - a mourning white. It sparkles as it throws off the crests of the surf, which seem like outpourings of glow-worms. ”