I don't know
what ailed him; he walked up and down his room all night."
This simple answer drew forth such exclamations of horror that the
woman came over, curious to know what they were carrying to old
Rouget's house.
"A precious fellow he is, that painter of yours!" they said to her.
And the procession entered the house, leaving Gritte open-mouthed with
amazement at the sight of Max in his bloody shirt, stretched
half-fainting on a mattress.
Artists will readily guess what ailed Joseph, and kept him restless
all night. He imagined the tale the bourgeoisie of Issoudun would tell
of him. They would say he had fleeced his uncle; that he was
everything but what he had tried to be,--a loyal fellow and an honest
artist! Ah! he would have given his great picture to have flown like a
swallow to Paris, and thrown his uncle's paintings at Max's nose. To
be the one robbed, and to be thought the robber!--what irony! So at
the earliest dawn, he had started for the poplar avenue which led to
Tivoli, to give free course to his agitation.
While the innocent fellow was vowing, by way of consolation, never to
return to Issoudun, Max was preparing a horrible outrage for his
sensitive spirit. When Monsieur Goddet had probed the wound and
discovered that the knife, turned aside by a little pocket-book, had
happily spared Max's life (though making a serious wound), he did as
all doctors, and particularly country surgeons, do; he paved the way
for his own credit by "not answering for the patient's life"; and
then, after dressing the soldier's wound, and stating the verdict of
science to the Rabouilleuse, Jean-Jacques Rouget, Kouski, and the
Vedie, he left the house.
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