The strong man was hungry despite all his troubles.  He was served under a veranda with glazed walls backed by shrubs, and facing the great porch of the Palais de l’Industrie, where the duke, in the presence of a thousand people, had greeted him as a deputy.  The refined, aristocratic face rose before his memory in the darkness of the sky, while he could see it also as it lay over yonder on the funereal whiteness of the pillow; and suddenly, as he ran his eye over the bill of fare presented to him by the waiter, he noticed with stupefaction that it bore the date of the 20th of May.  So a month had not elapsed since the opening of the exhibition.  It seemed to him like ten years ago.  Gradually, however, the warmth of the meal cheered him.  In the corridor he could hear waiters talking: 

“Has anybody heard news of Mora?  It appears he is very ill.”

“Nonsense!  He will get over it, you will see.  Men like him get all the luck.”

And so deeply is hope implanted in the human soul, that, despite what Jansoulet had himself seen and heard, these few words, helped by two bottles of burgundy and a few glasses of cognac, sufficed to restore his courage.  After all, people had been known to recover from illnesses quite as desperate.  Doctors often exaggerate the ill in order to get more credit afterward for curing it.  “Suppose I called to inquire.”  He made his way back towards the house, full of illusion, trusting to that chance which had served him so many times in his life.  And indeed the aspect of the princely abode had something about it to fortify his hope.  It presented the reassuring and tranquil appearance of ordinary evenings, from the avenue with its lights at long intervals, majestic and deserted, to the steps where stood waiting a huge carriage of old-fashioned shape.

In the antechamber, peaceful also, two enormous lamps were burning.  A footman slept in a corner; the porter was reading before the fireplace.  He looked at the new arrival over his spectacles, made no remark, and Jansoulet dared ask no question.  Piles of newspapers lying on the table in their wrappers, addressed to the duke, seemed to have been thrown there as useless.  The Nabob took up one of them, opened it, and tried to read, but quick and gliding steps, a muttered chanting, made him lift his eyes, and he saw a white-haired and bent old man, decked out in lace as though he had been an altar, who was praying aloud as he departed with a long priestly stride, his ample red cassock spreading in a train over the carpet.  It was the Archbishop of Paris, accompanied by two assistants.  The vision, with its murmur as of an icy north wind, passed quickly before Jansoulet, plunged into the great carriage and disappeared, carrying away with it his last hope.

“Doing the right thing, mon cher,” remarked Monpavon, appearing suddenly at his side.  “Mora is an epicurean, brought up in the ideas of how do you say—­you know—­what is it you call it?  Eighteenth century.  Very bad for the masses, if a man in his position—­ps—­ps—­ps—­Ah, he is the master who sets us all an example—­ps—­ps—­irreproachable manners!”