inquire how I was after my fall. Then
for the first time the chevalier heard of my accident; an incident that
had escaped him amid the press of so many more serious matters. He sent
for his doctor at once, and I was overwhelmed with kind attentions,
which seemed to me rather childish, but to which I submitted from a
sense of gratitude.

I had not dared to ask the chevalier for any news of his daughter. With
the abbe, however, I was bolder. He informed me that the length and
uneasiness of her sleep were causing some anxiety; and the doctor, when
he returned in the evening to dress my ankle, told me that she was very
feverish, and that he was afraid she was going to have some serious
illness.

For a few days, indeed, she was ill enough to cause anxiety. In the
terrible experience she had gone through she had displayed great energy;
but the reaction was correspondingly violent. For myself, I was also
kept to my bed. I could not take a step without feeling considerable
pain, and the doctor threatened that I should be laid up for several
months if I did not submit to inaction for a few days. As I was
otherwise in vigorous health, and had never been ill in my life, the
change from any active habits to this sluggish captivity caused me
indescribable _ennui_. Only those who have lived in the depths of woods,
and experienced all the hardships of a rough life, can understand the
kind of horror and despair I felt on finding myself shut up for more
than a week between four silk curtains. The luxuriousness of my room,
the gilding of my bed, the minute attentions of the lackeys, everything,
even to the excellence of the food--trifles which I had somewhat
appreciated the first day--became odious to me at the end of twenty-four
hours. The chevalier paid me affectionate but short visits; for he
was absorbed by the illness of his darling daughter. The abbe was all
kindness. To neither did I dare confess how wretched I felt; but when I
was alone I felt inclined to roar like a caged lion; and at night I had
dreams in which the moss in the woods, the curtain of forest trees, and
even the gloomy battlements of Roche-Mauprat, appeared to me like an
earthly paradise. At other times, the tragic scenes that had accompanied
and followed my escape were reproduced so vividly by my memory that,
even when awake, I was a prey to a sort of delirium.

A visit from M. de la Marche stirred my ideas to still wilder disorder.
He displayed the deepest in