cheek bones, on each of which was a bright red spot, while the rest of
his face was of a waxen hue, rose quickly to show how much more
sprightly he felt! And Clotilde was touched by the reception given to
Pascal as a saviour, the awaited Messiah. These poor people pressed
his hands--they would like to have kissed his feet; looking at him
with eyes shining with gratitude. True, the disease was not yet cured:
perhaps this was only the effect of the stimulus, perhaps what he felt
was only the excitement of fever. But was it not something to gain
time? He gave him another injection while Clotilde, standing before
the window, turned her back to them; and when they were leaving she
saw him lay twenty francs upon the table. This often happened to him,
to pay his patients instead of being paid by them.

He made three other visits in the old quarter, and then went to see a
lady in the new town. When they found themselves in the street again,
he said:

"Do you know that, if you were a courageous girl, we should walk to
Seguiranne, to see Sophie at her aunt's. That would give me pleasure."

The distance was scarcely three kilometers; that would be only a
pleasant walk in this delightful weather. And she agreed gaily, not
sulky now, but pressing close to him, happy to hang on his arm. It was
five o'clock. The setting sun spread over the fields a great sheet of
gold. But as soon as they left Plassans they were obliged to cross the
corner of the vast, arid plain, which extended to the right of the
Viorne. The new canal, whose irrigating waters were soon to transform
the face of the country parched with thirst, did not yet water this
quarter, and red fields and yellow fields stretched away into the
distance under the melancholy and blighting glare of the sun, planted