His eyes became restless. « I am very well, godmother, » said he. « Truly? It has all disappeared? » she inquired again. « That pain boring into your skull behind the ears, and the abrupt strokes of fever, and those periods of sadness, which made you hide yourself like an animal at the bottom of a hole? » As she proceeded, he became more and more troubled, and got so dreadfully uneasy that, at last, he interrupted her, saying in a brief tone: « I assure you I am very well. I feel nothing of all that. Nothing at all. » « Well, so much the better, my lad, » said she. « The fact of you being ill would not cure me. And then, you’re of an age to enjoy good health. Ah! health! there is nothing like it. It is all the same very kind of you to have come to see me, when you could have been enjoying yourself somewhere else. You’ll have dinner with us, won’t you? And you’ll sleep up there in the loft, next to the room Flore occupies? » But another blare of the horn interrupted her. Night had closed in, and, turning towards the window, they could only confusedly distinguish Misard talking with another man. Six o’clock had just struck, and he was giving over his service to the night watchman. At length he was about to be free after twelve hours passed in this hut, furnished only with a small table under the shelf supporting the apparatus, a stool, and a stove which threw out so much heat, that he was obliged to almost constantly keep the door open. « Ah! here he is, he is returning home, » murmured Aunt Phasie, in a fright again. The train signalled was coming, very heavy, very long, roaring louder and louder as it approached, and the young man had to bend forward to hear what the invalid said, feeling pained at the wretched state she was putting herself in, and anxious to relieve her. « Listen, godmother, if he really has bad intentions, perhaps it would stop him if he was to know that I have taken up the matter. You would do well to entrust your 1,000 frcs. to me. » She gave a final outburst. « My 1,000 frcs.! » she exclaimed. « Not to you any more than to him! I tell you I’d sooner die! » At this moment the train passed in its storm-like violence, as if it would sweep everything before it. The house shook, enveloped in a gust of wind. This particular train, on its way to Havre, was very crowded, for there was to be a fête on the following day, a Sunday, in connection with a launch. Notwithstanding the speed, by the lit-up glass of the doors one caught sight of the full compartments, of the lines of heads side by side, close together, each with its particular profile. They followed one another and disappeared. What a multitude! The crowd again, the crowd without end, amidst the rolling of the carriages, the whistling of the locomotives, the tinkling of the telegraph, the ringing of bells! It was like a huge body, a gigantic being stretched across the earth, the head at Paris, the vertebræ all along the line, the limbs expanding with the embranchments, the feet and hands at Havre and at the other termini. And it passed, passed, mechanically, triumphant, advancing to the future with mathematical precision, careless as to what remained of man on either side of it, who, although concealed, was still replete with life, the embodiment of eternal passion and eternal love. Flore came in first, and lit the lamp, a small petroleum lamp without a shade, and laid the table. Not a word did they exchange. She barely threw a glance at Jacques, who stood before the window with his back turned.

 

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