eing about her would reveal all to that mind that can
penetrate everything."
"Monsieur," replied Godefroid, "on Monday next Halpersohn shall
pronounce upon your daughter. He has returned. I myself doubt the
possibility of any science being able to revive that body."
"Oh! I don't expect that," cried the father; "all I ask is that her life
be made supportable. I felt sure, monsieur, of your sympathy, and I see
that you have indeed comprehended everything--Ah! there's the attack
coming on!" he exclaimed, as the sound of a cry came through the
partition; "she went beyond her strength."
Pressing Godefroid's hand, the old man hurriedly returned to his own
rooms.
At eight o'clock the next morning Godefroid knocked at the door of the
celebrated Polish doctor. He was shown by a footman to the first floor
of a little house Godefroid had been examining while the porter was
seeking and informing the footman.
Happily, Godefroid's early arrival saved him the annoyance of being kept
waiting. He was, he supposed, the first comer. From a very plain and
simple antechamber he passed into a large study, where he saw an old
man in a dressing-gown smoking a long pipe. The dressing-gown, of
black bombazine, shiny with use, dated from the period of the Polish
emigration.
"What can I do for you?" said the Jewish doctor, "for I see you are
not ill." And he fixed on his visitor a look which had the inquisitive,
piercing expression of the eyes of a Polish Jew, eyes which seem to have
ears of their own.
Halpersohn was, to Godefroid's great astonishment, a man of fifty-six
years of age, with small bow-legs, and a broad, powerful chest and
shoulders. There was something oriental about the man, and his face in
its youth must have been very handsome. The nose was Hebraic, long and
curved like a Damascus blade. The forehead, truly Polish, broad and
noble, but creased like a bit of crumpled paper, resembled that given by
the old Italian masters to Saint Joseph. The eyes, of a sea-green,
and circled, like those of parrots, with a gray and wrinkled membrane,
expressed slyness and avarice in an eminent degree. The mouth, gashed
into the face like a wound, added to the already sinister expression of
the countenance all the sarcasm of distrust.
That pale, thin face, for Halpersohn's whole person was remarkably thin,
surmounted by ill-kept gray hair, ended in a long and very thick, black
beard, slightly touched with white, which hid fully hal
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