“Now, Captain, settle yourself in this armchair and goodnight!” I said this to myself, and I made an effort to raise my unfortunate foot which I had forgotten, a heroic effort, but it was impossible to accomplish it.  The leg was so benumbed that I could not move it.  As well as I could I hoisted myself upon the other leg, and, hobbling, reached my armchair without appearing too lame.  The room seemed to me twice as wide to cross as the Champ de Mars, for hardly had I taken a step in its chilly atmosphere—­the fire had gone out, it was April, and the chateau overlooked the Loire—­when the cold reminded me of the scantiness of my costume.  What! to cross the room before that angel, who was doubtless watching me, in the most grotesque of costumes, and with a helpless leg into the bargain!  Why had I forgotten my dressing-gown?  However, I reached the armchair, into which I sank.  I seized my dress-coat which was beside me, threw it over my shoulders, twisted my white cravat round my neck, and, like a soldier bivouacking, I sought a comfortable position.

It would have been all very well without the icy cold that assailed my legs, and I saw nothing in reach to cover me.  I said to myself, “Captain, the position is not tenable,” when at length I perceived on the couch—­One sometimes is childishly ashamed, but I really dared not, and I waited for a long minute struggling between a sense of the ridiculous and the cold which I felt was increasing.  At last, when I heard my wife’s breathing become more regular and thought that she must be asleep, I stretched out my arm and pulled toward me her wedding-gown which was on the couch—­the silk rustled enough to wake the dead—­and with the energy which one always finds on an emergency, wrapped it round me savagely like a railway rug.  Then yielding to an involuntary fit of sybaritism, I unhooked the bellows and tried to get the fire to burn.

“After all,” I said to myself, arranging the blackened embers and working the little instrument with a thousand precautions, “after all, I have behaved like a gentleman.  If the General saw me at this moment he would laugh in my face; but no matter, I have acted rightly.”

Had I not sworn to be sincere, I do not know whether I should acknowledge to you that I suddenly felt horrible tinglings in the nasal regions.  I wished to restrain myself, but the laws of nature are those which one can not escape.  My respiration suddenly ceased, I felt a superhuman power contract my facial muscles, my nostrils dilated, my eyes closed, and all at once I sneezed with such violence that the bottle of Eau des Carmes shook again.  God forgive me!  A little cry came from the bed, and immediately afterward the most silvery frank and ringing outbreak of laughter followed.  Then she added in her simple, sweet, musical tones: 

“Have you hurt yourself—­, Georges?” She had said Georges after a brief silence, and in so low a voice that I scarcely heard it.