ed her eyes and she at last hazarded the
opinion that monsieur must be possessed with a devil, and that it would
be well to notify the cure of St. Saturnin.

"So good a man," she said, "a man for whom one would let one's self be
cut in pieces! How unfortunate it is that one cannot get him to go to
church, for that would certainly cure him at once."

Clotilde, who had heard her grandmother's voice, entered at this moment.
She, too, wandered through the empty rooms, spending most of her time in
the deserted apartment on the ground floor. She did not speak, however,
but only listened with her thoughtful and expectant air.

"Ah, goodday! It is you, my dear. Martine tells me that Pascal is
possessed with a devil. That is indeed my opinion also; only the devil
is called pride. He thinks that he knows everything. He is Pope and
Emperor in one, and naturally it exasperates him when people don't agree
with him."

She shrugged her shoulders with supreme disdain.

"As for me, all that would only make me laugh if it were not so sad. A
fellow who knows nothing about anything; who has always been wrapped up
in his books; who has not lived. Put him in a drawing-room, and he would
know as little how to act as a new-born babe. And as for women, he does
not even know what they are."

Forgetting to whom she was speaking, a young girl and a servant, she
lowered her voice, and said confidentially:

"Well, one pays for being too sensible, too. Neither a wife nor a
sweetheart nor anything. That is what has finally turned his brain."

Clotilde did not move. She only lowered her eyelids slowly over her
large thoughtful eyes; then she raised them again, maintaining her
impenetrable countenance, unwilling, unable, perhaps, to give expression
to what was passing within her. This was no doubt all still confused, a
complete evolution, a great change which was taking place, and which she
herself did not clearly understand.

"He is upstairs, is he not?" resumed Felicite. "I have come to see him,
for this must end; it is too stupid."

And she went upstairs, while Martine returned to her saucepans, and
Clotilde went to wander again through the empty house.

Upstairs in the study Pascal sat seemingly in a stupor, his face bent
over a large open book. He could no longer read, the words danced before
his eyes, conveying no meaning to his mind. But he persisted, for it
was death to him to lose his faculty for work, hitherto so powerful.
His mot