“Take care!” said Corentin; “you are young, and you must watch against those revengeful emotions.  In our austere profession we love nothing and we hate nothing.  Men are to us mere pawns of wood or ivory, according to their quality—­with which we play our game.  We are like the blade that cuts what is given it to cut, but, careful only to be delicately sharpened, wishes neither harm nor good to any one.  Now let us speak of your cousin, to whom, I suppose, you have some curiosity to be presented.”

La Peyrade was not obliged to pretend to eagerness, that which he felt was genuine.

“Lydie de la Peyrade,” said Corentin, “is nearly thirty, but her innocence, joined to a gentle form of insanity, has kept her apart from all those passions, ideas, and impressions which use up life, and has, if I may say so, embalmed her in a sort of eternal youth.  You would not think her more than twenty.  She is fair and slender; her face, which is very delicate, is especially remarkable for an expression of angelic sweetness.  Deprived of her full reason by a terrible catastrophe, her monomania has something touching about it.  She always carries in her arms or keeps beside her a bundle of linen which she nurses and cares for as though it were a sick child; and, excepting Bruneau and myself, whom she recognizes, she thinks all other men are doctors, whom she consults about the child, and to whom she listens as oracles.  A crisis which lately happened in her malady has convinced Horace Bianchon, that prince of science, that if the reality could be substituted for this long delusion of motherhood, her reason would assert itself.  It is surely a worthy task to bring back light to a soul in which it is scarcely veiled; and the existing bond of relationship has seemed to me to point you out as specially designated to effect this cure, the success of which Bianchon and two other eminent doctors who have consulted with him declare to be beyond a doubt.  Now, I will take you to Lydie’s presence; remember to play the part of doctor; for the only thing that makes her lose her customary serenity is not to enter into her notion of medical consultation.”

After crossing several rooms Corentin was on the point of taking la Peyrade into that usually occupied by Lydie when employed in cradling or dandling her imaginary child, when suddenly they were stopped by the sound of two or three chords struck by the hand of a master on a piano of the finest sonority.

“What is that?” asked la Peyrade.

“That is Lydie,” replied Corentin, with what might be called an expression of paternal pride; “she is an admirable musician, and though she no longer writes down, as in the days when her mind was clear, her delightful melodies, she often improvises them in a way that moves me to the soul—­the soul of Corentin!” added the old man, smiling.  “Is not that the finest praise I can bestow upon her?  But suppose we sit down here and listen to her.  If we go in, the concert will cease and the medical consultation begin.”