The house surgeon nodded his head without answering.

"Isn't he jabbering to himself? Eh! don't you hear? What's it about?

"About things he sees," murmured the young man. "Keep quiet, let me listen."

Coupeau was speaking in a jerky voice. A glimmer of amusement lit up his eyes. He looked on the floor, to the right, to the left, and turned about as though he had been strolling in the Bois de Vincennes, conversing with himself.

"Ah! that's nice, that's grand! There're cottages, a regular fair. And some jolly fine music! What a Balthazar's feast! They're smashing the crockery in there. Awfully swell! Now it's being lit up; red balls in the air, and it jumps, and it flies! Oh! oh! what a lot of lanterns in the trees! It's confoundedly pleasant! There's water flowing everywhere, fountains, cascades, water which sings, oh! with the voice of a chorister. The cascades are grand!"

And he drew himself up, as though the better to hear the delicious song of the water; he sucked in forcibly, fancying he was drinking the fresh spray blown from the fountains. But, little by little, his face resumed an agonized expression. Then he crouched down and flew quicker than ever around the walls of the cell, uttering vague threats.

"More traps, all that! I thought as much. Silence, you set of swindlers!

Yes, you're making a fool of me. It's for that that you're drinking and bawling inside there with your viragoes. I'll demolish you, you and your cottage! Damnation! Will you leave me in peace?"

He clinched his fists; then he uttered a hoarse cry, stooping as he ran.

And he stuttered, his teeth chattering with fright.

"It's so that I may kill myself. No, I won't throw myself in! All that water means that I've no heart. No, I won't throw myself in!"

The cascades, which fled at his approach, advanced when he retired. And all of a sudden, he looked stupidly around him, mumbling, in a voice which was scarcely audible:

"It isn't possible, they set conjurers against me!"

"I'm off, sir. I've got to go. Good-night!" said Gervaise to the house surgeon. "It upsets me too much; I'll come again."

She was quite white. Coupeau was continuing his breakdown from the window to the mattress and from the mattress to the window, perspiring, toiling, always beating the same rhythm. Then she hurried away. But though she scrambled down the stairs, she still heard her husband's confounded jig until she reached the bottom. Ah! _Mon Dieu!_ how pleasant it was out of doors, one could breathe there!

That evening everyone in the tenement was discussing Coupeau's strange malady. The Boches invited Gervaise to have a drink with them, even though they now considered Clump-clump beneath them, in order to hear all the details. Madame Lorilleux and Madame Poisson were there also.

Boche told of a carpenter he had known who had been a drinker of absinthe. The man shed his clothes, went out in the street and danced the polka until he died. That rather struck the ladies as comic, even though it was very sad.

Gervaise got up in the middle of the room and did an imitation of Coupeau. Yes, that's just how it was. Can anyone feature a man doing that for hours on end? If they didn't believe they could go see for themselves.

On getting up the next morning, Gervaise promised herself she would not return to the Sainte-Anne again. What use would it be? She did not want to go off her head also. However, every ten minutes, she fell to musing and became absent-minded. It would be curious though, if he were still throwing his legs about. When twelve o'clock struck, she could no longer resist; she started off and did not notice how long the walk was, her brain was so full of her desire to go and the dread of what awaited her.

Oh! there was no need for her to ask for news. She heard Coupeau's song the moment she reached the foot of the staircase. Just the same tune, just the same dance. She might have thought herself going up again after having only been down for a minute. The attendant of the day before, who was carrying some jugs of tisane along the corridor, winked his eye as he met her, by way of being amiable.

"Still the same, then?" said she.

"Oh! still the same!" he replied without stopping.

She entered the room, but she remained near the door, because there were some people with Coupeau. The fair, rosy house surgeon was standing up, having given his chair to a bald old gentleman who was decorated and had a pointed face like a weasel. He was no doubt the head doctor, for his glance was as sharp and piercing as a gimlet. All the dealers in sudden death have a glance like that.

No, really, it was not a pretty sight; and Gervaise, all in a tremble, asked herself why she had returned. To think that the evening before they accused her at the Boches' of exaggerating the picture! Now she saw better how Coupeau set about it, his eyes wide open looking into space, and she would never forget it. She overheard a few words between the house surgeon and the head doctor. The former was giving some details of the night: her husband had talked and thrown himself about, that was what it amounted to. Then the bald-headed old gentleman, who was not very polite by the way, at length appeared to become aware of her presence; and when the house surgeon had informed him that she was the patient's wife, he began to question her in the harsh manner of a commissary of the police.

"Did this man's father drink?"

"Yes, sir; just a little like everyone. He killed himself by falling from a roof one day when he was tipsy."

"Did his mother drink?"

"Well! sir, like everyone else, you know; a drop here, a drop there. Oh!

the family is very respectable! There was a brother who died very young in convulsions."

The doctor looked at her with his piercing eye. He resumed in his rough voice:

"And you, you drink too, don't you?"

Gervaise stammered, protested, and placed her hand upon her heart, as though to take her solemn oath.

"You drink! Take care; see where drink leads to. One day or other you will die thus."

Then she remained close to the wall. The doctor had turned his back to her. He squatted down, without troubling himself as to whether his overcoat trailed in the dust of the matting; for a long while he studied Coupeau's trembling, waiting for its reappearance, following it with his glance. That day the legs were going in their turn, the trembling had descended from the hands to the feet; a regular puppet with his strings being pulled, throwing his limbs about, whilst the trunk of his body remained as stiff as a piece of wood. The disease progressed little by little. It was like a musical box beneath the skin; it started off every three or four seconds and rolled along for an instant; then it stopped and then it started off again, just the same as the little shiver which shakes stray dogs in winter, when cold and standing in some doorway for protection. Already the middle of the body and the shoulders quivered like water on the point of boiling. It was a funny demolition all the same, going off wriggling like a girl being tickled.

Coupeau, meanwhile, was complaining in a hollow voice. He seemed to suffer a great deal more than the day before. His broken murmurs disclosed all sorts of ailments. Thousands of pins were pricking him.

He felt something heavy all about his body; some cold, wet animal was crawling over his thighs and digging its fangs into his flesh. Then there were other animals sticking to his shoulders, tearing his back with their claws.

"I'm thirsty, oh! I'm thirsty!" groaned he continually.

The house surgeon handed him a little lemonade from a small shelf; Coupeau seized the mug in both hands and greedily took a mouthful, spilling half the liquid over himself; but he spat it out at once with furious disgust, exclaiming:

"Damnation! It's brandy!"

Then, on a sign from the doctor, the house surgeon tried to make him drink some water without leaving go of the bottle. This time he swallowed the mouthful, yelling as though he had swallowed fire.

"It's brandy; damnation! It's brandy!"

Since the night before, everything he had had to drink was brandy. It redoubled his thirst and he could no longer drink, because everything burnt him. They had brought him some broth, but they were evidently trying to poison him, for the broth smelt of vitriol. The bread was sour and moldy. There was nothing but poison around him. The cell stank of sulphur. He even accused persons of rubbing matches under his nose to infect him.

All on a sudden he exclaimed:

"Oh! the rats, there're the rats now!"

There were black balls that were changing into rats. These filthy animals got fatter and fatter, then they jumped onto the mattress and disappeared. There was also a monkey which came out of the wall, and went back into the wall, and which approached so near him each time, that he drew back through fear of having his nose bitten off. Suddenly there was another change, the walls were probably cutting capers, for he yelled out, choking with terror and rage:

"That's it, gee up! Shake me, I don't care! Gee up! Tumble down! Yes, ring the bells, you black crows! Play the organ to prevent my calling the police. They've put a bomb behind the wall, the lousy scoundrels!

I can hear it, it snorts, they're going to blow us up! Fire! Damnation, fire! There's a cry of fire! There it blazes. Oh, it's getting lighter, lighter! All the sky's burning, red fires, green fires, yellow fires.

Hi! Help! Fire!"

His cries became lost in a rattle. He now only mumbled disconnected words, foaming at the mouth, his chin wet with saliva. The doctor rubbed his nose with his finger, a movement no doubt habitual with him in the presence of serious cases. He turned to the house surgeon, and asked him in a low voice:

"And the temperature, still the hundred degrees, is it not?"

"Yes, sir."

The doctor pursed his lips. He continued there another two minutes, his eyes fixed on Coupeau. Then he shrugged his shoulders, adding:

"The same treatment, broth, milk, lemonade, and the potion of extract of quinine. Do not leave him, and call me if necessary."