“I am worn out,” said the doctor. “You all went to bed after the theatre. But I was called up at midnight to go to an old farmer on Duroc hill, who was suffering from strangulated hernia. Says his man to me: ‘He has brought up everything he can. He harps on one note. He is going to die.’ I have the horse put in and I spin out to Duroc hill, over yonder, right at the end of the Faubourg de Tramayes. I find my man a-bed and howling. Corpse-like face, stercoraceous vomiting. Very good! His wife says to me: ‘It’s in his inside that it takes him.’”
“She’s forty-seven, is Pauline Giry,” said M. de Terremondre.
“At least forty-seven,” answered the doctor. “Double hernia, and dangerous it was. Very good! I proceed to reduce it by hand-pressure. Although it is only necessary to exercise a very faint pressure with the hand, after thirty minutes of this business, one’s arms and back are broken. And it was only at the end of five hours, at the tenth repetition, that I was able to effect the reduction.”
At this point in the narrative recounted by Dr. Fornerol, Paillot the bookseller went to serve some ladies who asked for some interesting books to read in the country. And the doctor, addressing himself to M. de Terremondre alone, continued:
“I was one ache. I say to my man: ‘You must keep to your bed, and, if possible, you must remain lying on your back, until the truss-maker has made a truss for you according to my directions. Lie stretched out, or look out for strangulation. And you know whether that’s nice! Without counting that one day or another it’ll carry you off. You understand?’
“Down I go to the yard to wash myself at the pump. You may imagine that after this business I wanted a bit of a wash. I strip myself to the waist, and I rub myself with soft soap for, maybe, a quarter of an hour. I dress myself again. I drink a glass of white wine that they bring me in the yard. I see the grey dawn break, I hear the lark sing, and I go back to the sick man’s room. There it was dark. I shout in the direction of the bed: ‘Hey? That’s understood, isn’t it? Perfect stillness whilst waiting for the new truss. The one you have is no good at all. D’you hear?’ No answer. ‘Are you asleep?’ Then I hear behind me the voice of the old nurse: ‘Doctor, our man’s no longer in the house,’ she tells me. ‘He was wearying to go out to his vines.’”