attuned to such moments. Aloud he said: 'Can you
doubt it, my son?' And his voice was amazingly
clear and courageous, Trance bred you through me, a
servant of France.3 Then he suddenly felt a great,
sickening weakness as though Christophe were being
torn from his flesh, leaving behind an unstanchable
wound. 'Good night. .. God bless you . . . bless you,'
he mumbled.
Christophe slowly mounted the stairs to his attic,
and his heart was heavy because of his parents.
In the neighbouring attic he heard Loup's cough — a
high, irritable, protesting cough that wore on the
nerves of those who must hear it. Then a pause while
Loup sucked a lozenge, he supposed, or sipped his
glass of lemon and water. No good undressing, why
try to sleep when one's eyes would only stare into the
darkness? There it was again — the lozenge had failed
— cough, cough; cough, cough. Christophe frowned,
then sighed, ashamed because he hated that cough,
so high, so irritable, so protesting.
Sitting down he began to consider Loup, thinking
uneasily over his future. They could not control him,
nobody could; he would take his own line if it led to
the devil! What a will, what fortitude, yes, but what
rages — the way he had recently flown at the doctor
who had been so kind to him all his life, and who,
moreover, had spoken so gently: 'It may be, my dear
child, that we always need men, but believe me your
heart and your chronic asthma . . . they would never
accept you, my very dear child . . .' and then the
way Loup had flown at the doctor. Ah, those words.
They had none of them known where to look. He
had flown at the doctor and called him a fool who
did not know a heart from a bladder! Christophe's
lips twitched at this memory —still, it would not
advantage le tout petit Loup to heap insults on those
who wished to befriend him.
432