As soon as they were gone, Christophe took to his bed. He was feverish, and could not shake off the fever. He was alone. Emmanuel was ill too, and could not come. Christophe did not call in a doctor. He did not think his condition was serious. Besides, he had no servant to go for a doctor. The housekeeper who came for two hours in the morning took no interest in him, and he dispensed with her services. He had a dozen times begged her not to touch any of his papers when she was dusting his room. She would do it: she thought she had a fine opportunity to do as she liked, now that he was confined to his bed. In the mirror of his wardrobe door he saw her from his bed turning the whole room upside down. He was so furious—(no, assuredly the old Adam was not dead in him!)—that he jumped out of bed, snatched a packet of papers out of her hands, and showed her the door. His anger cost him a bout of fever and the departure of the servant, who lost her temper and never returned, without even taking the trouble to tell the “old madman,” as she called him. So he was left, ill, with no one to look after him. He would get up in the morning to take in the jug of milk left at the door, and to see if the portress had not slipped under the door the promised letter from the lovers. The letter did not come: they had forgotten him in their happiness. He was not angry with them, and thought that in their place he would have done the same. He thought of their careless joy, and that it was he had given it to them.
He was a little better and was able to get up when at last a letter came from Aurora. Georges had been content to add his signature. Aurora asked very little about Christophe and told very little, but, to make up for it, she gave him a commission, begging him to send her a necktie she had left at Colette’s. Although it was not at all important—(Aurora had only thought of it as she sat down to write to Christophe, and then only because she wanted something to say)—Christophe was only too delighted to be of use, and went out at once to fetch it. The weather was cold and gusty. The winter had taken an unpleasant turn. Melting snow, and an icy wind. There were no carriages to be had. Christophe spent some time in a parcels’ office. The rudeness of the clerks and their deliberate slowness made him irritable, which did not help his business on. His illness was partly responsible for his gusts of anger, which the tranquillity of his mind repudiated; they shook his body, like the last tremors of an oak falling under the blows of an ax. He returned chilled and trembling. As he entered, the portress handed him a cutting from a review. He glanced at it. It was a spiteful attack upon himself. They were growing rare in these days. There is no pleasure in attacking a man who never notices the blows dealt him. The most violent of his enemies were reduced to a feeling of respect for him, which exasperated them, for they still detested him.
“We believe,” said Bismarck, almost regretfully, “that nothing is more involuntary than love. Respect is even more so. …”
But the writer of the article was one of those strong men, who, being better armed than Bismarck, escape both respect and love. He spoke of Christophe in insulting terms, and announced a series of attacks during the following fortnight: Christophe began to laugh, and said as he went to bed again:
“He will be surprised! He won’t find me at home!”
They tried to make him have a nurse, but he refused obstinately, saying that he had lived alone so much that he thought he might at least have the benefit of his solitude at such a time.
He was never bored. During these last years he had constantly been engrossed in dialogues with himself; it was as though his soul was twofold; and for some months past his inward company had been considerably augmented: not two souls, but ten, now dwelt in him. They held converse among themselves, though more often they sang. He would take part in their conversation, or he would hold his peace and listen to them. He had always on his bed, or on the table, within reach of his hand, music-paper on which he used to take down their remarks and his own, and laugh at their rejoinders. It was a mechanical habit: the two actions, thinking and writing, had become almost simultaneous with him; writing was thinking out loud to him. Everything that took him away from the company of his many souls exhausted and irritated him, even the friends he loved best, sometimes. He tried hard not to let them see it, but such constraint induced an extreme lassitude. He was very happy when he came to himself again, for he would lose himself: it was impossible to hear the inward voices amid the chattering of human beings. Divine silence! …
He would only allow the portress or one of her children to come three or four times a day to see if he needed anything. He used to give them the notes which, up to the last, he exchanged with Emmanuel. They were almost equally ill, and were under no illusion as to their condition. By different ways the free religious
