en baize. On the bare wall was a crucifix of no
value, with a dry palm over it. That was all. Carhaix was sitting up in
bed reading, with books and papers piled all around him. His eyes were
more watery and his face paler than usual. His beard, which had not been
shaved for several days, grew in grey clumps on his hollow cheeks, but
his poor features were radiant with an affectionate, affable smile.

To Durtal's questions he replied, "It is nothing. Des Hermies gives me
permission to get up tomorrow. But what a frightful medicine!" and he
showed Durtal a potion of which he had to take a teaspoonful every hour.

"What is it he's making you take?"

But the bell-ringer did not know. Doubtless to spare him the expense,
Des Hermies himself always brought the bottle.

"Isn't it tiresome lying in bed?"

"I should say! I am obliged to entrust my bells to an assistant who is
no good. Ah, if you heard him ring! It makes me shudder, it sets my
teeth on edge."

"Now you mustn't work yourself up," said his wife. "In two days you will
be able to ring your bells yourself."

But he went on complaining. "You two don't understand. My bells are used
to being well treated. They're like domestic animals, those instruments,
and they obey only their master. Now they won't harmonize, they jangle.
I can hardly recognize their voices."

"What are you reading?" asked Durtal, wishing to change a subject which
he judged to be dangerous.

"Books about bells! Ah, Monsieur Durtal, I have some inscriptions here
of truly rare beauty. Listen," and he opened a worm-bored book, "listen
to this motto printed in raised letters on the bronze robe of the great
bell of Schaffhausen, 'I call the living, I mourn the dead, I break the
thunder.' And this other which figured on an old bell in the belfry of
Ghent, 'My name is Roland. When I toll, there is a fire; when I peal,
there is a tempest in Flanders.'"

"Yes," Durtal agreed, "there is a certain vigour about that one."

"Ah," said Carhaix, seeming not to have heard the other's remark, "it's
ridiculous. Now the rich have their names and titles inscribed on the
bells which they give to the churches, but they have so many qualities
and titles that there is no room for a motto. Truly, humility is a
forgotten virtue in our day."

"If that were the only forgotten virtue!" sighed Durtal.

"Ah!" replied Carhaix, not to be turned from his favourite subject, "and
if this were the only abuse! But bells now