FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91  
92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   >>   >|  
y interrupting herself, Louise exclaimed with alarm: "Sir, sir, look at my father! what can be the matter with him?" Morel had heard the latter part of this narration with a dull indifference, which Rodolph had accounted for by attributing it to the heavy additional misfortune which had occurred to him. After such violent and repeated shocks, his tears must have dried up, his sensibility have become lost; he had not even the strength left to feel anger, as Rodolph thought; but Rodolph was mistaken. As the flame of a candle which is nearly extinguished dies away and recovers, so Morel's reason, already much shaken, wavered for some time, throwing out now and then some small rays of intelligence, and then suddenly all was darkness. Absolutely unconscious of what was said or passing around him, for some time the lapidary had become quite insane. Although his hand-wheel was placed on the other side of his working-table, and he had not in his hands either stones or tools, yet the occupied artisan was feigning the operations of his daily labour, and affecting to use his implements. He accompanied this pantomime with a sort of noise with his tongue against the roof of his mouth, in imitation of the noise of his lathe in its rotatory motions. "But, sir," said Louise again, with increasing fright, "look, pray look at my father!" Then, approaching the artisan, she said to him: "Father! father!" Morel gazed on his daughter with that troubled, vague, distracted, wandering look which characterises the insane, and without discontinuing his assumed labour, he replied, in a low and melancholy tone: "I owe the notary thirteen hundred francs; it is the price of Louise's blood,--so I must work, work, work!--oh, I'll pay, I'll pay, I'll pay!" "Can it be possible? This cannot be,--he is not mad,--no, no!" exclaimed Louise, in a heart-rending voice. "He will recover,--it is but a momentary fit of absence!" "Morel, my good fellow," said Rodolph to him, "we are here. Your daughter is near you,--she is innocent." "Thirteen hundred francs!" said the lapidary, not attending to Rodolph, but going on with his sham employment. "My father!" exclaimed Louise, throwing herself at his feet, and clasping his hands in her own, in spite of his resistance, "it is I--it is your Louise!" "Thirteen hundred francs," he repeated, wresting his hands from the grasp of his daughter. "Thirteen hundred francs,--and if not," he added, in
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91  
92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Louise

 

Rodolph

 

francs

 
hundred
 
father
 

Thirteen

 

daughter

 

exclaimed

 

throwing

 

lapidary


labour

 

artisan

 

insane

 
repeated
 
troubled
 

Father

 
discontinuing
 

characterises

 

wandering

 
distracted

rotatory

 

innocent

 

clasping

 

imitation

 

attending

 

motions

 
approaching
 

fright

 

increasing

 
assumed

resistance

 

rending

 
momentary
 

recover

 
notary
 

thirteen

 

absence

 

melancholy

 

employment

 

fellow


wresting

 

replied

 

sensibility

 

strength

 

violent

 
shocks
 
candle
 

extinguished

 

mistaken

 
thought