Pierre, more and more fractious every moment, retorted with a sneer:

"And yet it is perhaps a greater danger for you."

Roland, who was on the point of drinking, set his full glass down on the
table again, and asked:

"Why?"

He had for some time been complaining of his health, of heaviness,
giddiness, frequent and unaccountable discomfort. The doctor replied:

"Because the bullet might very possibly miss you, while the glass of
wine is dead certain to hit you in the stomach."

"And what then?"

"Then it scorches your inside, upsets your nervous system, makes the
circulation sluggish, and leads the way to the apoplectic fit which
always threatens a man of your build."

The jeweller's incipient intoxication had vanished like smoke before the
wind. He looked at his son with fixed, uneasy eyes, trying to discover
whether he was making game of him.

But Beausire exclaimed:

"Oh, these confounded doctors! They all sing the same tune--eat nothing,
drink nothing, never make love or enjoy yourself; it all plays the devil
with your precious health. Well, all I can say is, I have done all these