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The Red Inn by Honoré de Balzac
page 41 of 49 (83%)

At that instant a still more piercing cry echoed through the house,
and froze us with horror.

"There! that is what I listened to all day long last year," said the
banker's wife. "It made me jump in my chair and rasped my nerves
dreadfully. But, strange to say, poor Taillefer, though he suffers
untold agony, is in no danger of dying. He eats and drinks as well as
ever during even short cessations of the pain--nature is so queer! A
German doctor told him it was a form of gout in the head, and that
agrees with Brousson's opinion."

I left the group around the mistress of the house and went away. On
the staircase I met Mademoiselle Taillefer, whom a footman had come to
fetch.

"Oh!" she said to me, weeping, "what has my poor father ever done to
deserve such suffering?--so kind as he is!"

I accompanied her downstairs and assisted her in getting into the
carriage, and there I saw her father bent almost double.

Mademoiselle Taillefer tried to stifle his moans by putting her
handkerchief to his mouth; unhappily he saw me; his face became even
more distorted, a convulsive cry rent the air, and he gave me a
dreadful look as the carriage rolled away.

That dinner, that evening exercised a cruel influence on my life and
on my feelings. I loved Mademoiselle Taillefer, precisely, perhaps,
because honor and decency forbade me to marry the daughter of a
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