as of Italian origin, married,
but childless; and his wife took care of him with a courage fully
appreciated by the neighborhood. Madame Margaritis was undoubtedly in
real danger from a man who, among other fancies, persisted in carrying
about with him two long-bladed knives with which he sometimes threatened
her. Who has not seen the wonderful self-devotion shown by provincials
who consecrate their lives to the care of sufferers, possibly because
of the disgrace heaped upon a bourgeoise if she allows her husband or
children to be taken to a public hospital? Moreover, who does not know
the repugnance which these people feel to the payment of the two or
three thousand francs required at Charenton or in the private lunatic
asylums? If any one had spoken to Madame Margaritis of Doctors
Dubuisson, Esquirol, Blanche, and others, she would have preferred, with
noble indignation, to keep her thousands and take care of the "good-man"
at home.

As the incomprehensible whims of this lunatic are connected with the
current of our story, we are compelled to exhibit the most striking
of them. Margaritis went out as soon as it rained, and walked about
bare-headed in his vineyard. At home he made incessant inquiries for
newspapers; to satisfy him his wife and the maid-servant used to give
him an old journal called the "Indre-et-Loire," and for seven years he
had never yet perceived that he was reading the same number over and
over again. Perhaps a doctor would have observed with interest the
connection that evidently existed between the recurring and spasmodic
demands for the newspaper and the atmospheric variations of the weather.

Usually when his wife had company, which happened nearly every evening,
for the neighbors, pitying her situation, would frequently come to play
at boston in her salon, Margaritis remained silent in a corner and never
stirred. But the moment ten o'clock began to strike on a clock which he
kept shut up in a large oblong closet, he rose at the stroke with the
mechanical precision of the figures which are made to move by springs in
the German toys. He would then advance slowly towards the players, give
them a glance like the automatic gaze of the Greeks and Turks exhibited
on the Boulevard du Temple, and say sternly, "Go away!" There were days
when he had lucid intervals and could give his wife excellent advice
as to the sale of their wines; but at such times he became extremely
annoying, and would ransack her