uite lost his old liability to sudden freaks and fits of noisy
fractiousness about trifles--when he would stamp and rave and curse and
swear, and be quite pacified in a moment: "_Soupe-au-lait_," as he was
nicknamed in Troplong's studio!

* * * * *

Besides his seton and his cuppings, dry and wet, and his blisters on
his arms and back, and his mustard poultices on his feet and legs,
and his doses of mercury and alteratives, he had also to deplete
himself of blood three times a week by a dozen or twenty leeches
behind his left ear and on his temple. All this softens and relaxes
the heart towards others, as a good tonic will harden it.

So that he looked a mere shadow of his former self when I went over
to spend my Christmas with him.

And his eye was getting worse instead of better; at night he couldn't
sleep for the fireworks it let off in the dark. By day the trouble
was even worse, as it so interfered with the sight of the other
eye--even if he wore a patch, which he hated. He never knew peace
but when his aunt was reading to him in the dimly lighted room, and
he forgot himself in listening.

Yet he was as lively and droll as ever, with a wan face as eloquent
of grief as any face I ever saw; he had it in his head that the
right eye would go the same way as the left. He could no longer see
the satellites of Jupiter with it: hardly Jupiter itself, except as
a luminous blur; indeed, it was getting quite near-sighted, and full
of spots and specks and little movable clouds--_muscae volitantes_,
as I believe they are called by the faculty. He was always on the
lookout for new symptoms, and never in vain; and his burden was as
much as he could bear.

He would half sincerely long for death, of which he yet had such a
horror that he was often tempted to kill himself to get the bother
of it well over at once. The idea of death _in the dark_, however
remote--an idea that constantly haunted him as his own most probable
end--so appalled him that it would stir the roots of his hair!

Lady Caroline confided to me her terrible anxiety, which she managed
to hide from him. She herself had been to see M. Noiret, who was no
longer so confident and cocksure about recovery.

I went to see him too, without letting Barty know. I did not like
the man--he was stealthy in look and manner, and priestly and feline
and sleek: but he seemed very intelligent, and managed to persuade
me that no other treatment