visits through the
streets and the environs of Plassans. But the poor old beast was growing
blind, and through gratitude for his past services and affection for
himself they now rarely disturbed him. On this afternoon he was very
drowsy, his gaze wandered, his legs were stiff with rheumatism. So that
the doctor and the young girl, when they went to the stable to see him,
gave him a hearty kiss on either side of his nose, telling him to rest
on a bundle of fresh hay which the servant had brought. And they decided
to walk.

Clotilde, keeping on her spotted white muslin, merely tied on over her
curls a large straw hat adorned with a bunch of lilacs; and she looked
charming, with her large eyes and her complexion of milk-and-roses under
the shadow of its broad brim. When she went out thus on Pascal's arm,
she tall, slender, and youthful, he radiant, his face illuminated, so
to say, by the whiteness of his beard, with a vigor that made him still
lift her across the rivulets, people smiled as they passed, and turned
around to look at them again, they seemed so innocent and so happy. On
this day, as they left the road to Les Fenouilleres to enter Plassans, a
group of gossips stopped short in their talk. It reminded one of one
of those ancient kings one sees in pictures; one of those powerful and
gentle kings who never grew old, resting his hand on the shoulder of a
girl beautiful as the day, whose docile and dazzling youth lends him its
support.

They were turning into the Cours Sauvair to gain the Rue de la Banne,
when a tall, dark young man of about thirty stopped them.

"Ah, master, you have forgotten me. I am still waiting for your notes on
consumption."

It was Dr. Ramond, a young physician, who had settled two years before
at Plassans, where he was building up a fine practise. With a superb
head, in the brilliant prime of a gracious manhood, he was adored by
the women, but he had fortunately a great deal of good sense and a great
deal of prudence.

"Why, Ramond, good day! Not at all, my dear friend; I have not forgotten
you. It is this little girl, to whom I gave the notes yesterday to copy,
and who has not touched them yet."

The two young people shook hands with an air of cordial intimacy.

"Good day, Mlle. Clotilde."

"Good day, M. Ramond."

During a gastric fever, happily mild, which the young girl had had
the preceding year, Dr. Pascal had lost his head to the extent of
distrusting his own skill, and he