he did
not move; one eye was closed, while the other was open, and he was pale
with fear, while his long limbs were stretched out in the dust, and when
they touched his right leg he began to scream, and when they tried to
make him stand up, he immediately fell down.

"I think one of his legs is broken," one of the men said.

And so it really was. Harivan, therefore, had him laid on a table and
sent off a man on horseback to Rouville to fetch the doctor, who came an
hour later.

The farmer was very generous and said that he would pay for the man's
treatment in the hospital, so that the doctor carried Pavilly off in his
carriage to the hospital, and had him put into a white-washed ward, where
his fracture was reduced.

As soon as he knew that it would not kill him, and that he would be taken
care of, cuddled, cured, and fed without having anything to do except to
lie on his back between the sheets, Pavilly's joy was unbounded, and he
began to laugh silently and continuously, so as to show his decayed
teeth.

Whenever one of the Sisters of Mercy came near his bed he made grimaces
of satisfaction, winking, twisting his mouth awry and moving his nose,
which was very long and mobile. His neighbors in the ward, ill as they
were, could not help laughing, and the Mother-Superior often came to his
bedside, to be amused for a quarter of an hour, and he invented all kinds
of jokes and stories for her, and as he had all the makings of a
strolling actor in him, he would be devout in order to please her, and
spoke of religion with the serious air of a man who knows that there are
times when jokes are out of place.

One day, he took it into his head to sing to her. She was delighted and
came to see him more frequently, and then she brought him a hymn-book, so
as to utilize his voice. Then he might be seen sitting up in bed, for he
was beginning to be able to move, singing the praises of the Almighty and
of Mary, in a falsetto voice, while the kind, stout sister stood by him
and beat time with her finger. When he could walk, the Superior offered
to keep him for some time longer to sing in chapel, to serve at Mass and
to fulfill the duties of sacristan, and he accepted. For a whole month he
might be seen in his surplice, limping and singing the psalms and the
responses, with such movements of his head, that the number of the
faithful increased, and that people deserted the parish Church to attend
Vespers at the hospital.

But a