Blood Moon Linny Lawless Rowan St George

download

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moon-linny-lawless-rowan-st-
george-52256248

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Blood Moon Rising Harmony Raines

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moon-rising-harmony-
raines-48338764

Blood Moon Star Touched Wolf Born 1 Michelle Madow

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moon-star-touched-wolf-
born-1-michelle-madow-48604092

Blood Moon Sanctum The Gods Are Dead Its Time For The Reign Of Kings A
Curse Of Obsidian Silver Book 1 Zian Schafer

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moon-sanctum-the-gods-are-dead-
its-time-for-the-reign-of-kings-a-curse-of-obsidian-silver-
book-1-zian-schafer-48610420

Blood Moon Painting The Mists Book 2 Patrick Laplante

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moon-painting-the-mists-
book-2-patrick-laplante-38441488
Blood Moon Pack Legion Of Vidar Serenity Rayne

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moon-pack-legion-of-vidar-
serenity-rayne-44830440

Blood Moons Guide To Gay And Lesbian Film 2nd Edition Darwin Porter

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moons-guide-to-gay-and-lesbian-
film-2nd-edition-darwin-porter-11733258

Blood Moon Rising Mark Dawson

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moon-rising-mark-dawson-219387562

Blood Moon Lucy Cuthew

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moon-lucy-cuthew-46262818

Blood Moon Barbara Catchpole

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moon-barbara-catchpole-46400904
Blood Moon Prophecy Dilani Kahawala

https://ebookbell.com/product/blood-moon-prophecy-dilani-
kahawala-46505138
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
Auvergne. It is one of the loveliest natural curiosities in the district."
But a bell rang behind them. Gontran cried:
"Look here! breakfast-time already!"
They turned back. A tall, young man came up to meet them.
Gontran said: "My dear Christiane, let me introduce to you M. Paul
Bretigny." Then, to his friend: "This is my sister, my dear boy."
She thought him ugly. He had black hair, close-cropped and straight,
big, round eyes, with an expression that was almost hard, a head
also quite round, very strong, one of those heads that make you
think of cannon-balls, herculean shoulders; a rather savage
expression, heavy and brutish. But from his jacket, from his linen,
from his skin perhaps, came a very subtle perfume, with which the
young woman was not familiar, and she asked herself:
"I wonder what odor that is?"
He said to her: "You arrived this morning, Madame?" His voice was a
little hollow.
She replied: "Yes, Monsieur."
But Gontran saw the Marquis and Andermatt making signals to them
to come in quickly to breakfast.
Doctor Honorat took leave of them, asking as he left whether they
really meant to go and see the hill blasted. Christiane declared that
she would go; and, leaning on her brother's arm, she murmured as
she dragged him along toward the hotel:
"I am as hungry as a wolf. I shall be very much ashamed to eat as
much as I feel inclined before your friend."

CHAPTER II.
 THE DISCOVERY

The breakfast was long, as the meals usually are at a table d'hôte.
Christiane, who was not familiar with all the faces of those present,
chatted with her father and her brother. Then she went up to her
room to take a rest till the time for blasting the rock.
She was ready long before the hour fixed, and made the others start
along with her so that they might not miss the explosion. Just
outside the village, at the opening of the glen, stood, as they had
heard, a high knoll, almost a mountain, which they proceeded to
climb under a burning sun, following a little path through the vine-
trees. When they reached the summit the young woman uttered a
cry of astonishment at the sight of the immense horizon displayed
before her eyes. In front of her stretched a limitless plain, which
immediately gave her soul the sensation of an ocean. This plain,
overhung by a veil of light blue vapor, extended as far as the most
distant mountain-ridges, which were scarcely perceptible, some fifty
or sixty kilometers away. And under the transparent haze of delicate
fineness, which floated above this vast stretch, could be
distinguished towns, villages, woods, vast yellow squares of ripe
crops, vast green squares of herbage, factories with long, red
chimneys and blackened steeples and sharp-pointed structures, with
the solidified lava of dead volcanoes.
"Turn around," said her brother.
She turned around. And behind she saw the mountain, the huge
mountain indented with craters. This was the entrance to the
foundation on which Enval stood, a great expanse of greenness in
which one could scarcely trace the hidden gash of the gorge. The
trees in a waving mass scaled the high slope as far as the first crater
and shut out the view of those beyond. But, as they were exactly on
the line that separated the plains from the mountain, the latter
stretched to the left toward Clermont-Ferrand, and, wandering away,
unrolled over the blue sky their strange mutilated tops, like
monstrous blotches—extinct volcanoes, dead volcanoes. And yonder
—over yonder, between two peaks—could be seen another, higher
still, more distant still, round and majestic, and bearing on its
highest pinnacle something of fantastic shape resembling a ruin.
This was the Puy de Dome, the king of the mountains of Auvergne,
strong and unwieldy, wearing on its head, like a crown placed
thereon by the mightiest of peoples, the remains of a Roman
temple.
Christiane exclaimed: "Oh! how happy I shall be here!"
And she felt herself happy already, penetrated by that sense of well-
being which takes possession of the flesh and the heart, makes you
breathe with ease, and renders you sprightly and active when you
find yourself in a spot which enchants your eyes, charms and cheers
you, seems to have been awaiting you, a spot for which you feel
that you were born.
Some one called out to her: "Madame, Madame!" And, at some
distance away, she saw Doctor Honorat, recognizable by his big hat.
He rushed across to them, and conducted the family toward the
opposite side of the hill, over a grassy slope beside a grove of young
trees, where already some thirty persons were waiting, strangers
and peasants mingled together.
Beneath their feet, the steep hillside descended toward the Riom
road, overshadowed by willows that sheltered the shallow river; and
in the midst of a vineyard at the edge of this stream rose a sharp-
pointed rock before which two men on bended knees seemed to be
praying. This was the scene of action.
The Oriols, father and son, were attaching the fuse. On the road, a
crowd of curious spectators had stationed themselves, with a line of
people lower down in front, among whom village brats were
scampering about.
Doctor Honorat chose a convenient place for Christiane to sit down,
and there she waited with a beating heart, as if she were going to
see the entire population blown up along with the rock.
The Marquis, Andermatt, and Paul Bretigny lay down on the grass at
the young woman's side, while Gontran remained standing. He said,
in a bantering tone:
"My dear doctor, you must be much less busy than your brother-
practitioners, who apparently have not an hour to spare to attend
this little fête?"
Honorat replied in a good-humored tone:
"I am not less busy; only my patients occupy less of my time. And
again I prefer to amuse my patients rather than to physic them."
He had a quiet manner which greatly pleased Gontran. Other
persons now arrived, fellow-guests at the table d'hôte—the ladies
Paille, two widows, mother and daughter; the Monecus, father and
daughter; and a very small, fat, man, who was puffing like a boiler
that had burst, M. Aubry-Pasteur, an ex-engineer of mines, who had
made a fortune in Russia.
M. Pasteur and the Marquis were on intimate terms. He seated
himself with much difficulty after some preparatory movements,
circumspect and cautious, which considerably amused Christiane.
Gontran sauntered away from them, in order to have a look at the
other persons whom curiosity had attracted toward the knoll.
Paul Bretigny pointed out to Christiane Andermatt the views, of
which they could catch glimpses in the distance. First of all, Riom
made a red patch with its row of tiles along the plain; then Ennezat,
Maringues, Lezoux, a heap of villages scarcely distinguishable, which
only broke the wide expanse of verdure with a somber indentation
here and there, and, further down, away down below, at the base of
the mountains, he pretended that he could trace out Thiers.
He said, in an animated fashion: "Look, look! Just in front of my
finger, exactly in front of my finger. For my part, I can see it quite
distinctly."
She could see nothing, but she was not surprised at his power of
vision, for he looked like a bird of prey, with his round, piercing eyes,
which appeared to be as powerful as telescopes. He went on:
"The Allier flows in front of us, in the middle of that plain, but it is
impossible to perceive it. It is very far off, thirty kilometers from
here."
She scarcely took the trouble to glance toward the place which he
indicated, for she had riveted her eyes on the rock and given it her
entire attention. She was saying to herself that presently this
enormous stone would no longer exist, that it would disappear in
powder, and she felt herself seized with a vague pity for the stone,
the pity which a little girl would feel for a broken plaything. It had
been there so long, this stone; and then it was imposing—it had a
picturesque look. The two men, who had by this time risen, were
heaping up pebbles at the foot of it, and digging with the rapid
movements of peasants working hurriedly.
The crowd gathered along the road, increasing every moment, had
pushed forward to get a better view. The brats brushed against the
two diggers, and kept rushing and capering round them like young
animals in a state of delight; and from the elevated point at which
Christiane was sitting, these people looked quite small, a crowd of
insects, an anthill in confusion.
The buzz of voices ascended, now slight, scarcely noticeable, then
more lively, a confused mixture of cries and human movements, but
scattered through the air, evaporated already—a dust of sounds, as
it were. On the knoll likewise the crowd was swelling in numbers,
incessantly arriving from the village, and covering up the slope which
looked down on the condemned rock.
They were distinguished from each other, as they gathered together,
according to their hotels, their classes, their castes. The most
clamorous portion of the assemblage was that of the actors and
musicians, presided over and generaled by the conductor, Petrus
Martel of the Odéon, who, under the circumstances, had given up
his incessant game of billiards.
With a Panama flapping over his forehead, a black alpaca jacket
covering his shoulders and allowing his big stomach to protrude in a
semicircle, for he considered a waistcoat useless in the open country,
the actor, with his thick mustache, assumed the airs of a
commander-in-chief, and pointed out, explained, and criticised all
the movements of the two Oriols. His subordinates, the comedian
Lapalme, the young premier Petitnivelle, and the musicians, the
maestro Saint Landri, the pianist Javel, the huge flautist Noirot, the
double-bass Nicordi, gathered round him to listen. In front of them
were seated three women, sheltered by three parasols, a white, a
red, and a blue, which, under the sun of two o'clock, formed a
strange and dazzling French flag. These were Mademoiselle Odelin,
the young actress; her mother,—a mother that she had hired out, as
Gontran put it,—and the female attendant of the coffee-room, three
ladies who were habitual companions. The arrangement of these
three parasols so as to suit the national colors was an invention of
Petrus Martel, who, having noticed at the commencement of the
season the blue and the white in the hands of the ladies Odelin, had
made a present of the red to the coffee-room attendant.
Quite close to them, another group excited interest and observation,
that of the chefs and scullions of the hotels, to the number of eight,
for there was a war of rivalry between the kitchen-folk, who had
attired themselves in linen jackets to make an impression on the
bystanders, extending even to the scullery-maids. Standing all in a
group they let the crude light of day fall on their flat white caps,
presenting, at the same time, the appearance of fantastic staff-
officers of lancers and a deputation of cooks.
The Marquis asked Doctor Honorat: "Where do all these people
come from? I never would have imagined Enval was so thickly
populated!"
"Oh! they come from all parts, from Chatel-Guyon, from Tournoel,
from La Roche-Pradière, from Saint-Hippolyte. For this affair has
been talked of a long time in the country, and then Père Oriol is a
celebrity, an important personage on account of his influence and his
wealth, besides a true Auvergnat, remaining still a peasant, working
himself, hoarding, piling up gold on gold, intelligent, full of ideas and
plans for his children's future."
Gontran came back, excited, his eyes sparkling.
He said, in a low tone: "Paul, Paul, pray come along with me; I'm
going to show you two pretty girls; yes, indeed, nice girls, you
know!"
The other raised his head, and replied: "My dear fellow, I'm in very
good quarters here; I'll not budge."
"You're wrong. They are charming!" Then, in a louder tone: "But the
doctor is going to tell me who they are. Two little girls of eighteen or
nineteen, rustic ladies, oddly dressed, with black silk dresses that
have close-fitting sleeves, some kind of uniform dresses, convent-
gowns—two brunettes——"
Doctor Honorat interrupted him: "That's enough. They are Père
Oriol's daughters, two pretty young girls indeed, educated at the
Benedictine Convent at Clermont, and sure to make very good
matches. They are two types, but simply types of our race, of the
fine race of women of Auvergne, Marquis. I will show you these two
little lasses——"
Gontran here slyly interposed: "You are the medical adviser of the
Oriol family, doctor?"
The other appreciated this sly question, and simply responded with a
"By Jove, I am!" uttered in a tone of the utmost good-humor.
The young man went on: "How did you come to win the confidence
of this rich patient?"
"By ordering him to drink a great deal of good wine." And he told a
number of anecdotes about the Oriols. Moreover, he was distantly
related to them, and had known them for a considerable time. The
old fellow, the father, quite an original, was very proud of his wine;
and above all he had one vine-garden, the produce of which was
reserved for the use of the family, solely for the family and their
guests. In certain years they happened to empty the casks filled with
the growth of this aristocratic vineyard, but in other years they
scarcely succeeded in doing so. About the month of May or June,
when the father saw that it would be hard to drink all that was still
left, he would proceed to encourage his big son, Colosse, and would
repeat: "Come on, son, we must finish it." Then they would go on
pouring down their throats pints of red wine from morning till night.
Twenty times during every meal, the old chap would say in a grave
tone, while he held the jug over his son's glass: "We must finish it."
And, as all this liquor with its mixture of alcohol heated his blood
and prevented him from sleeping, he would rise up in the middle of
the night, draw on his breeches, light a lantern, wake up Colosse,
and off they would go to the cellar, after snatching a crust of bread
each out of the cupboard, in order to steep it in their glasses, filled
up again and again out of the same cask. Then, when they had
swallowed so much wine that they could feel it rolling about in their
stomachs, the father would tap the resounding wood of the cask to
find out whether the level of the liquor had gone down.
The Marquis asked: "Are these the same people that are working at
the hillock?"
"Yes, yes, exactly."
Just at that moment the two men hurried off with giant strides from
the rock charged with powder, and all the crowd that surrounded
them down below began to run away like a retreating army. They
fled in the direction of Riom and Enval, leaving behind them by itself
the huge rock on the top of the hillock covered with thin grass and
pebbles, for it divided the vineyard into two sections, and its
immediate surroundings had not been grubbed up yet.
The crowd assembled on the slope above, now as dense as that
below, waited in trembling expectancy; and the loud voice of Petrus
Martel exclaimed:
"Attention! the fuse is lit!"
Christiane shivered at the thought of what was about to happen, but
the doctor murmured behind her back:
"Ho! if they left there all the fuse I saw them buying, we'll have ten
minutes of it!"
All eyes were fixed on the stone, and suddenly a dog, a little black
dog, a kind of pug, was seen approaching it. He ran round it, began
smelling, and no doubt, discovered a suspicious odor, for he
commenced yelping as loudly as ever he could, his paws stiff, the
hair on his back standing on end, his tail sticking out, and his ears
erect.
A burst of laughter came from the spectators, a cruel burst of
laughter; people expressed a hope that he would not keep riveted to
the spot up to the time of the blast. Then voices called out to him to
make him come back; some men whistled to him; they tried to hit
him with stones to prevent him from going on the whole way. But
the pug did not budge an inch, and kept barking furiously at the
rock.
Christiane began to tremble. A horrible fear of seeing the animal
disemboweled took possession of her; all her enjoyment was at an
end. She cried repeatedly, with nerves unstrung, stammering,
vibrating all over with anguish:
"Oh! good heavens! Oh! good heavens! it will be killed. I don't want
to look at it! I don't want to look at it! I will not wait to see it! Come
away!"
Paul Bretigny, who had been sitting by her side, arose, and, without
saying one word, began to descend toward the hillock with all the
speed of which his long legs were capable.
Cries of terror escaped from many lips; a panic agitated the crowd;
and the pug, seeing this big man coming toward him, took refuge
behind the rock. Paul pursued him; the dog ran off to the other side;
and, for a minute or two, they kept rushing round the stone, now to
right, now to left, as if they were playing a game of hide and seek.
Seeing at last that he could not overtake the animal, the young man
proceeded to reascend the slope, and the dog, seized once more
with fury, renewed his barking.
Vociferations of anger greeted the return of the imprudent youth,
who was quite out of breath, for people do not forgive those who
excite terror in their breasts. Christiane was suffocating with
emotion, her two hands pressed against her palpitating heart. She
had lost her head so completely that she sobbed: "At least you are
not hurt?" while Gontran cried angrily:
"He is mad, that idiot; he never does anything but tomfooleries of
this kind. I never met a greater donkey!"
But the soil was now shaking; it rose in air. A formidable detonation
made the entire country all around vibrate, and for a full minute
thundered over the mountain, while all the echoes repeated it, like
so many cannon-shots.
Christiane saw nothing but a shower of stones falling, and a high
column of light clay sinking in a heap. And immediately afterward
the crowd from above rushed down like a wave, uttering wild
shouts. The battalion of kitchen-drudges came racing down in the
direction of the knoll, leaving behind them the regiment of theatrical
performers, who descended more slowly, with Petrus Martel at their
head. The three parasols forming a tricolor were nearly carried away
in this descent.
And all ran, men, women, peasants, and villagers. They could be
seen falling, getting up again, starting on afresh, while in long
procession the two streams of people, which had till now been kept
back by fear, rolled along so as to knock against one another and get
mixed up on the very spot where the explosion had taken place.
"Let us wait a while," said the Marquis, "till all this curiosity is
satisfied, so that we may go and look in our turn."
The engineer, M. Aubry-Pasteur, who had just arisen with very great
difficulty, replied:
"For my part, I am going back to the village by the footpaths. There
is nothing further to keep me here."
He shook hands, bowed, and went away.
Doctor Honorat had disappeared. The party talked about him, and
the Marquis said to his son:
"You have only known him three days, and all the time you have
been laughing at him. You will end by offending him."
But Gontran shrugged his shoulders: "Oh! he's a wise man, a good
sceptic, that doctor. I tell you in reply that he will not bother himself.
When we are both alone together, he laughs at all the world and
everything, commencing with his patients and his waters. I will give
you a free thermal course if you ever see him annoyed by my
nonsense."
Meanwhile, there was considerable agitation further down around
the site of the vanished hillock. The enormous crowd, swelling, rising
up, and sinking down like billows, broke out into exclamations,
manifestly swayed by some emotion, some astonishing occurrence
which nobody had foreseen. Andermatt, ever eager and inquisitive,
was repeating:
"What is the matter with them now? What can be the matter with
them?"
Gontran announced that he was going to find out, and walked off.
Christiane, who had now sunk into a state of indifference, was
reflecting that if the igniting substance had been only a little shorter,
it would have been sufficient to have caused the death of their
foolish companion or led to his being mutilated by the blasting of the
rock, and all because she was afraid of a dog losing its life. She
could not help thinking that he must, indeed, be very violent and
passionate—this man—to expose himself to such a risk in this way
without any good reason for it—simply owing to the fact that a
woman who was a stranger to him had given expression to a desire.
People could be observed running along the road toward the village.
The Marquis now asked, in his turn: "What is the matter with them?"
And Andermatt, unable to stand it any longer, began to run down
the side of the hill. Gontran, from below, made a sign to him to
come on.
Paul Bretigny asked: "Will you take my arm, Madame?" She took his
arm, which seemed to her as immovable as iron, and, as her feet
glided along the warm grass, she leaned on it as she would have
leaned on a baluster with a sense of absolute security. Gontran, who
had just come back after making inquiries, exclaimed: "It is a spring.
The explosion has made a spring gush out!"
And they fell in with the crowd. Then, the two young men, Paul and
Gontran, moving on in front, scattered the spectators by jostling
against them, and without paying any heed to their gruntings,
opened a way for Christiane and her father. They walked through a
chaos of sharp stones, broken, and blackened with powder, and
arrived in front of a hole full of muddy water which bubbled up and
then flowed away toward the river over the feet of the bystanders.
Andermatt was there already, having effected a passage through the
multitude by insinuating ways peculiar to himself, as Gontran used to
say, and was watching with rapt attention the water escaping
through the broken soil.
Doctor Honorat, facing him at the opposite side of the hole, was
observing him with an air of mingled surprise and boredom.
Andermatt said to him: "It might be desirable to taste it; it is
perhaps a mineral spring."
The physician returned: "No doubt it is mineral. There are any
number of mineral waters here. There will soon be more springs
than invalids."
The other in reply said: "But it is necessary to taste it."
The physician displayed little or no interest in the matter: "It is
necessary at least to wait till we see whether it is clean."
And everyone wanted to see. Those in the second row pushed those
in front almost into the muddy water. A child fell in, and caused a
laugh. The Oriols, father and son, were there, contemplating gravely
this unexpected phenomenon, not knowing yet what they ought to
think about it. The father was a spare man, with a long, thin frame,
and a bony head—the hard head of a beardless peasant; and the
son, taller still, a giant, thin also, and wearing a mustache, had the
look at the same time of a trooper and a vinedresser.
The bubblings of the water appeared to increase, its volume to grow
larger, and it was beginning to get clearer. A movement took place
among the people, and Doctor Latonne appeared with a glass in his
hand. He perspired, panted, and stood quite stupefied at the sight of
his brother-physician, Doctor Honorat, with one foot planted at the
side of the newly discovered spring, like a general who has been the
first to enter a fortress.
He asked, breathlessly: "Have you tasted it?"
"No, I am waiting to see whether 'tis clear."
Then Doctor Latonne thrust his glass into it, and drank with that
solemnity of visage which experts assume when tasting wines. After
that, he exclaimed, "Excellent!" which in no way compromised him,
and extending the glass toward his rival said: "Do you wish to taste
it?"
But Doctor Honorat, decidedly, had no love for mineral waters, for he
smilingly replied:
"Many thanks! 'Tis quite sufficient that you have appreciated it. I
know the taste of them."
He did know the taste of them all, and he appreciated it, too, though
in quite a different fashion. Then, turning toward Père Oriol said:
"'Tisn't as good as your excellent vine-growth."
The old man was flattered. Christiane had seen enough, and wanted
to go away. Her brother and Paul once more forced a path for her
through the populace. She followed them, leaning on her father's
arm. Suddenly she slipped and was near falling, and glancing down
at her feet she saw that she had stepped on a piece of bleeding
flesh, covered with black hairs and sticky with mud. It was a portion
of the pug-dog, who had been mangled by the explosion and
trampled underfoot by the crowd. She felt a choking sensation, and
was so much moved that she could not restrain her tears. And she
murmured, as she dried her eyes with her handkerchief: "Poor little
animal! poor little animal!"
She wanted to know nothing more about it. She wished to go back,
to shut herself up in her room. That day, which had begun so
pleasantly, had ended sadly for her. Was it an omen? Her heart,
shriveling up, beat with violent palpitations. They were now alone on
the road, and in front of them they saw a tall hat and the two skirts
of a frock-coat flapping like wings. It was Doctor Bonnefille, who had
been the last to hear the news, and who was now rushing to the
spot, glass in hand, like Doctor Latonne.
When he recognized the Marquis, he drew up.
"What is this I hear, Marquis? They tell me it is a spring—a mineral
spring?"
"Yes, my dear doctor."
"Abundant?"
"Why, yes."
"Is it true that—that they are there?"
Gontran replied with an air of gravity: "Why, yes, certainly; Doctor
Latonne has even made the analysis already."
Then Doctor Bonnefille began to run, while Christiane, a little tickled
and enlivened by his face, said:
"Well, no, I am not going back yet to the hotel. Let us go and sit
down in the park."
Andermatt had remained at the site of the knoll, watching the
flowing of the water.
 CHAPTER III.

BARGAINING

The table d'hôte was noisy that evening at the Hotel Splendid. The
blasting of the hillock and the discovery of the new spring gave a
brisk impetus to conversation. The diners were not numerous,
however,—a score all told,—people usually taciturn and quiet,
patients who, after having vainly tried all the well-known waters, had
now turned to the new stations. At the end of the table occupied by
the Ravenels and the Andermatts were, first, the Monecus, a little
man with white hair and face and his daughter, a very pale, big girl,
who sometimes rose up and went out in the middle of a meal,
leaving her plate half full; fat M. Aubry-Pasteur, the ex-engineer; the
Chaufours, a family in black, who might be met every day in the
walks of the park behind a little vehicle which carried their deformed
child, and the ladies Paille, mother and daughter, both of them
widows, big and strong, strong everywhere, before and behind. "You
may easily see," said Gontran, "that they ate up their husbands;
that's how their stomachs got affected." It was, indeed, for a
stomach affection that they had come to the station.
Further on, a man of extremely red complexion, brick-colored, M.
Riquier, whose digestion was also very indifferent, and then other
persons with bad complexions, travelers of that mute class who
usually enter the dining-rooms of hotels with slow steps, the wife in
front, the husband behind, bow as soon as they have passed the
door, and then take their seats with a timid and modest air.
All the other end of the table was empty, although the plates and
the covers were laid there for the guests of the future.
Andermatt talked in an animated fashion. He had spent the
afternoon chatting with Doctor Latonne, giving vent in a flood of
words to vast schemes with reference to Enval. The doctor had
enumerated to him, with burning conviction, the wonderful qualities
of his water, far superior to those of Chatel-Guyon, whose reputation
nevertheless had been definitely established for the last ten years.
Then, at the right, they had that hole of a place, Royat, at the height
of success, and at the left, that other hole, Chatel-Guyon, which had
lately been set afloat. What could they not do with Enval, if they
knew how to set about it properly?
He said, addressing the engineer: "Yes, Monsieur, there's where it all
is, to know the way to set about it. It is all a matter of skill, of tact,
of opportunism, and of audacity. In order to establish a spa, it is
necessary to know how to launch it, nothing more, and in order to
launch it, it is necessary to interest the great medical body of Paris
in the matter. I, Monsieur, always succeed in what I undertake,
because I always seek the practical method, the only one that
should determine success in every particular case with which I
occupy myself; and, as long as I have not discovered it, I do nothing
—I wait. It is not enough to have the water, it is necessary to get
people to drink it; and to get people to drink it, it is not enough to
get it cried up as unrivaled in the newspapers and elsewhere; it is
necessary to know how to get this discreetly said by the only men
who have influence on the public that will drink it, on the invalids
whom we require, on the peculiarly credulous public that pays for
drugs—in short, by the physicians. You can only address a Court of
Justice through the mouths of advocates; it will only hear them, and
understands only them. So you can only address the patient through
the doctors—he listens only to them."
The Marquis, who greatly admired the practical common sense of his
son-in-law, exclaimed:
"Ah! how true this is! Apart from this, my dear boy, you are unique
for giving the right touch."
Andermatt, who was excited, went on: "There is a fortune to be
made here. The country is admirable, the climate excellent. One
thing alone disturbs my mind—would we have water enough for a
large establishment?—for things that are only half done always
miscarry. We would require a very large establishment, and
consequently a great deal of water, enough of water to supply two
hundred baths at the same time, with a rapid and continuous
current; and the new spring added to the old one, would not supply
fifty, whatever Doctor Latonne may say about it——"
M. Aubry-Pasteur interrupted him. "Oh! as for water, I will give you
as much as you want of it."
Andermatt was stupefied. "You?"
"Yes, I. That astonishes you? Let me explain myself. Last year, I was
here about the same time as this year, for I really find myself
improved by the Enval baths. Now one morning, I lay asleep in my
own room, when a stout gentleman arrived. He was the president of
the governing body of the establishment. He was in a state of great
agitation, and the cause of it was this: the Bonnefille Spring had
lowered so much that there were some apprehensions lest it might
entirely disappear. Knowing that I was a mining engineer, he had
come to ask me if I could not find a means of saving the
establishment.
"I accordingly set about studying the geological system of the
country. You know that in each stratum of the soil original
disturbances have led to different changes and conditions in the
surface of the ground. The question, therefore, was to discover how
the mineral water came—by what fissures—and what were the
direction, the origin, and the nature of these fissures. I first
inspected the establishment with great care, and, noticing in a
corner an old disused pipe of a bath, I observed that it was already
almost stopped up with limestone. Now the water, by depositing the
salts which it contained on the coatings of the ducts, had rapidly led
to an obstruction of the passage. It would inevitably happen likewise
in the natural passages in the soil, this soil being granitic. So it was
that the Bonnefille Spring had stopped up. Nothing more. It was
necessary to get at it again farther on.
"Most people would have searched above its original point of egress.
As for me, after a month of study, observation, and reasoning, I
sought for and found it fifty meters lower down. And this was the
explanation of the matter: I told you before that it was first
necessary to determine the origin, nature, and direction of the
fissures in the granite which enabled the water to spring forth. It
was easy for me to satisfy myself that these fissures ran from the
plain toward the mountain and not from the mountain toward the
plain, inclined like a roof undoubtedly, in consequence of a
depression of this plain which in breaking up had carried along with
it the primitive buttresses of the mountains. Accordingly, the water,
in place of descending, rose up again between the different
interstices of the granitic layers. And I then discovered the cause of
this unexpected phenomenon.
"Formerly the Limagne, that vast expanse of sandy and argillaceous
soil, of which you can scarcely see the limits, was on a level with the
first table-land of the mountains; but owing to the geological
character of its lower portions, it subsided, so as to tear away the
edge of the mountain, as I explained to you a moment ago. Now
this immense sinking produced, at the point of separating the earth
and the granite, an immense barrier of clay of great depth and
impenetrable by liquids. And this is what happens: The mineral
water comes from the beds of old volcanoes. That which comes from
the greatest distance gets cooled on its way, and rises up perfectly
cold like ordinary springs; that which comes from the volcanic beds
that are nearer gushes up still warm, at varying degrees of heat,
according to the distance of the subterranean fire.
"Here is the course it pursues. It is expelled from some unknown
depths, up to the moment when it meets the clay barrier of the
Limagne. Not being able to pass through it, and pushed on by
enormous pressure, it seeks a vent. Finding then the inclined gaps of
granite, it gets in there, and reascends to the point at which they
reach the level of the soil. Then, resuming its original direction, it
again proceeds to flow toward the plain along the ordinary bed of
the streams. I may add that we do not see the hundredth part of the
mineral waters of these glens. We can only discover those whose
point of egress is open. As for the others, arriving as they do at the
side of the fissures in the granite under a thick layer of vegetable
and cultivated soil, they are lost in the earth, which absorbs them.
"From this I draw the conclusion: first, that to have the water, it is
sufficient to search by following the inclination and the direction of
the superimposed strips of granite; secondly, that in order to
preserve it, it is enough to prevent the fissures from being stopped
up by calcareous deposits, that is to say, to maintain carefully the
little artificial wells by digging; thirdly, that in order to obtain the
adjoining spring, it is necessary to get at it by means of a practical
sounding as far as the same fissure of granite below, and not above,
it being well understood that you must place yourself at the side of
the barrier of clay which forces the waters to reascend. From this
point of view, the spring discovered to-day is admirably situated only
some meters away from this barrier. If you want to set up a new
establishment, it is here you should erect it."
When he ceased speaking, there was an interval of silence.
Andermatt, ravished, said merely: "That's it! When you see the
curtain drawn, the entire mystery vanishes. You are a most valuable
man, M. Aubry-Pasteur."
Besides him, the Marquis and Paul Bretigny alone had understood
what he was talking about. Gontran had not heard a single word.
The others, with their ears and mouths open, while the engineer
was talking, were simply stupefied with amazement. The ladies Paille
especially, being very religious women, asked themselves if this
explanation of a phenomenon ordained by God and accomplished by
mysterious means had not in it something profane. The mother
thought she ought to say: "Providence is very wonderful." The ladies
seated at the center of the table conveyed their approval by nods of
the head, disturbed also by listening to these unintelligible remarks.
M. Riquier, the brick-colored man, observed: "They may well come
from volcanoes or from the moon, these Enval waters—here have I
been taking them ten days, and as yet I experience no effect from
them!"
M. and Madame Chaufour protested in the name of their child, who
was beginning to move the right leg, a thing that had not happened
during the six years they had been nursing him.
Riquier replied: "That proves, by Jove, that we have not the same
ailment; it doesn't prove that the Enval water cures affections of the
stomach." He seemed in a rage, exasperated by this fresh, useless
experiment.
But M. Monecu also spoke in the name of his daughter, declaring
that for the last eight days she was beginning to be able to retain
food without being obliged to go out at every meal. And his big
daughter blushed, with her nose in her plate. The ladies Paille
likewise thought they had improved.
Then Riquier was vexed, and abruptly turning toward the two
women said:
"Your stomachs are affected, Mesdames."
They replied together: "Why, yes, Monsieur. We can digest nothing."
He nearly leaped out of his chair, stammering: "You—you! Why, 'tis
enough to look at you. Your stomachs are affected, Mesdames. That
is to say, you eat too much."
Madame Paille, the mother, became very angry, and she retorted:
"As for you, Monsieur, there is no doubt about it, you exhibit
certainly the appearance of persons whose stomachs are destroyed.
It has been well said that good stomachs make nice men."
A very thin, old lady, whose name was not known, said
authoritatively: "I am sure everyone would find the waters of Enval
better if the hotel chef would only bear in mind a little that he is
cooking for invalids. Truly, he sends us up things that it is impossible
to digest."
And suddenly the entire table agreed on the point, and indignation
was expressed against the hotel-keeper, who served them with
crayfish, porksteaks, salt eels, cabbage, yes, cabbage and sausages,
all the most indigestible kinds of food in the world for persons for
whom Doctors Bonnefille, Latonne, and Honorat had prescribed only
white meats, lean and tender, fresh vegetables, and milk diet.
Riquier was shaking with fury: "Why should not the physicians
inspect the table at thermal stations without leaving such an
important thing as the selection of nutriment to the judgment of a
brute? Thus, every day, they give us hard eggs, anchovies, and ham
as side-dishes——"
M. Monecu interrupted him: "Oh! excuse me! My daughter can
digest nothing well except ham, which, moreover has been
prescribed for her by Mas-Roussel and Remusot."
Riquier exclaimed: "Ham! ham! why, that's poison, Monsieur."
And an interminable argument arose, which each day was taken up
afresh, as to the classification of foods. Milk itself was discussed with
passionate warmth. Riquier could not drink a glass of claret and milk
without immediately suffering from indigestion.
Aubry-Pasteur, in answer to his remarks, irritated in his turn,
observed that people questioned the properties of things which he
adored:
"Why, gracious goodness, Monsieur, if you were attacked with
dyspepsia and I with gastralgia, we would require food as different
as the glass of the spectacles that suits short-sighted and long-
sighted people, both of whom, however, have diseased eyes."
He added: "For my part I begin to choke when I swallow a glass of
red wine, and I believe there is nothing worse for man than wine. All
water-drinkers live a hundred years, while we——"
Gontran replied with a laugh: "Faith, without wine and without
marriage, I would find life monotonous enough."
The ladies Paille lowered their eyes. They drank a considerable
quantity of Bordeaux of the best quality without any water in it, and
their double widowhood seemed to indicate that they had applied
the same treatment to their husbands, the daughter being twenty-
two and the mother scarcely forty.
But Andermatt, usually so chatty, remained taciturn and thoughtful.
He suddenly asked Gontran: "Do you know where the Oriols live?"
"Yes, their house was pointed out to me a little while ago."
"Could you bring me there after dinner?"
"Certainly. It will even give me pleasure to accompany you. I shall
not be sorry to have another look at the two lassies."
And, as soon as dinner was over, they went off, while Christiane,
who was tired, went up with the Marquis and Paul Bretigny to spend
the rest of the day in the drawing-room.
It was still broad daylight, for they dine early at thermal stations.
Andermatt took his brother-in-law's arm.
"My dear Gontran, if this old man is reasonable, and if the analysis
realizes Doctor Latonne's expectations, I am probably going to try a
big stroke of business here—a spa. I am going to start a spa!"
He stopped in the middle of the street, and seized his companion by
both sides of his jacket.
"Ha! you don't understand, fellows like you, how amusing business
is, not the business of merchants or traders, but big undertakings
such as we go in for! Yes, my boy, when they are properly
understood, we find in them everything that men care for—they
cover, at the same time, politics, war, diplomacy, everything,
everything! It is necessary to be always searching, finding,
inventing, to understand everything, to foresee everything, to
combine everything, to dare everything. The great battle to-day is
being fought by means of money. For my part, I see in the hundred-
sou pieces raw recruits in red breeches, in the twenty-franc pieces
very glittering lieutenants, captains in the notes for a hundred
francs, and in those for a thousand I see generals. And I fight, by
heavens! I fight from morning till night against all the world, with all
the world. And this is how to live, how to live on a big scale, just as
the mighty lived in days of yore. We are the mighty of to-day—there
you are—the only true mighty ones!
"Stop, look at that village, that poor village! I will make a town of it,
yes, I will, a lovely town full of big hotels which will be filled with
visitors, with elevators, with servants, with carriages, a crowd of rich
folk served by a crowd of poor; and all this because it pleased me
one evening to fight with Royat, which is at the right, with Chatel-
Guyon, which is at the left, with Mont Doré, La Bourboule,
Châteauneuf, Saint Nectaire, which are behind us, with Vichy, which
is facing us. And I shall succeed because I have the means, the only
means. I have seen it in one glance, just as a great general sees the
weak side of an enemy. It is necessary too to know how to lead
men, in our line of business, both to carry them along with us and to
subjugate them.
"Good God! life becomes amusing when you can do such things. I
have now three years of pleasure to look forward to with this town
of mine. And then see what a chance it is to find this engineer, who
told us such interesting things at dinner, most interesting things, my
dear fellow. It is as clear as day, my system. Thanks to it, I can
smash the old company, without even having any necessity of
buying it up."
He then resumed his walk, and they quietly went up the road to the
left in the direction of Chatel-Guyon.
Gontran presently observed: "When I am walking by my brother-in-
law's side, I feel that the same noise disturbs his brain as that heard
in the gambling rooms at Monte Carlo—that noise of gold moved
about, shuffled, drawn away, raked off, lost or gained."
Andermatt did, indeed, suggest the idea of a strange human
machine, constructed only for the purpose of calculating and
debating about money, and mentally manipulating it. Moreover, he
exhibited much vanity about his special knowledge of the world, and
plumed himself on his power of estimating at one glance of his eye
the actual value of anything whatever. Accordingly, he might be
seen, wherever he happened to be, every moment taking up an
article, examining it, turning it round, and declaring: "This is worth
so much."
His wife and his brother-in-law, diverted by this mania, used to
amuse themselves by deceiving him, exhibiting to him queer pieces
of furniture and asking him to estimate them; and when he
remained perplexed, at the sight of their unexpected finds, they
would both burst out laughing like fools. Sometimes also, in the
street at Paris, Gontran would stop in front of a warehouse and force
him to make a calculation of an entire shop-window, or perhaps of a
horse with a jolting vehicle, or else again of a luggage-van laden
with household goods.
One evening, while seated at his sister's dinner-table before
fashionable guests, he called on William to tell him what would be
the approximate value of the Obelisk; then, when the other
happened to name some figure, he would put the same question as
to the Solferino Bridge, and the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile. And he
gravely concluded: "You might write a very interesting work on the
valuation of the principal monuments of the globe." Andermatt never
got angry, and fell in with all his pleasantries, like a superior man
sure of himself.
Gontran having asked one day: "And I—how much am I worth?"
William declined to answer; then, as his brother-in-law persisted,
saying: "Look here! If I should be captured by brigands, how much
would you give to release me?" he replied at last: "Well, well, my
dear fellow, I would give a bill." And his smile said so much that the
other, a little disconcerted, did not press the matter further.
Andermatt, besides, was fond of artistic objects, and having fine
taste and appreciating such things thoroughly, he skillfully collected
them with that bloodhound's scent which he carried into all
commercial transactions.
They had arrived in front of a house of a middle-class type. Gontran
stopped him and said: "Here it is." An iron knocker hung over a
heavy oaken door; they knocked, and a lean servant-maid came to
open it.
The banker asked: "Monsieur Oriol?"
The woman said: "Come in."
They entered a kitchen, a big farm-kitchen, in which a little fire was
still burning under a pot; then they were ushered into another part
of the house, where the Oriol family was assembled.
The father was asleep, seated on one chair with his feet on another.
The son, with both elbows on the table, was reading the "Petit
Journal" with the spasmodic efforts of a feeble intellect always
wandering; and the two girls, in the recess of the same window,
were working at the same piece of tapestry, having begun it one at
each end.
They were the first to rise, both at the same moment, astonished at
this unexpected visit; then, big Jacques raised his head, a head
congested by the pressure of his brain; then, at last, Père Oriol
waked up, and took down his long legs from the second chair one
after the other.
The room was bare, with whitewashed walls, a stone flooring, and
furniture consisting of straw seats, a mahogany chest of drawers,
four engravings by Epinal with glass over them, and big white
curtains. They were all staring at each other, and the servant-maid,
with her petticoat raised up to her knees, was waiting at the door,
riveted to the spot by curiosity.
Andermatt introduced himself, mentioning his name as well as that
of his brother-in-law, Count de Ravenel, made a low bow to the two
young girls, bending his head with extreme politeness, and then
calmly seated himself, adding:
"Monsieur Oriol, I came to talk to you about a matter of business.
Moreover, I will not take four roads to explain myself. See here. You
have just discovered a spring on your property. The analysis of this
water is to be made in a few days. If it is of no value, you will
understand that I will have nothing to do with it; if, on the contrary,
it fulfills my anticipations, I propose to buy from you this piece of
ground, and all the lands around it. Think on this. No other person
but myself could make you such an offer. The old company is nearly
bankrupt; it will not, therefore, have the least notion of building a
new establishment, and the ill success of this enterprise will not
encourage fresh attempts. Don't give me an answer to-day. Consult
your family. When the analysis is known you will fix your price. If it
suits me, I will say 'yes'; if it does not suit me, I will say 'no.' I never
haggle for my part."
The peasant, a man of business in his own way, and sharp as
anyone could be, courteously replied that he would see about it, that
he felt honored, that he would think it over—and then he offered
them a glass of wine.
Andermatt made no objection, and, as the day was declining, Oriol
said to his daughters, who had resumed their work, with their eyes
lowered over the piece of tapestry: "Let us have some light, girls."
They both got up together, passed into an adjoining room, then
came back, one carrying two lighted wax-candles, the other four
wineglasses without stems, glasses such as the poor use. The wax-
candles were fresh looking and were garnished with red paper—
placed, no doubt, by way of ornament on the young girl's
mantelpiece.
Then, Colosse rose up; for only the male members of the family
visited the cellar. Andermatt had an idea. "It would give me great
pleasure to see your cellar. You are the principal vinedresser of the
district, and it must be a very fine one."
Oriol, touched to the heart, hastened to conduct them, and, taking
up one of the wax-candles, led the way. They had to pass through
the kitchen again, then they got into a court where the remnant of
daylight that was left enabled them to discern empty casks standing
on end, big stones of giant granite in a corner pierced with a hole in
the middle, like the wheels of some antique car of colossal size, a
dismounted winepress with wooden screws, its brown divisions
rendered smooth by wear and tear, and glittering suddenly in the
light thrown by the candle on the shadows that surrounded it. Close
to it, the working implements of polished steel on the ground had
the glitter of arms used in warfare. All these things gradually grew
more distinct, as the old man drew nearer to them with the candle in
his hand, making a shade of the other.
Already they got the smell of the wine, the pounded grapes drained
dry. They arrived in front of a door fastened with two locks. Oriol
opened it, and quickly raising the candle above his head vaguely
pointed toward a long succession of barrels standing in a row, and
having on their swelling flanks a second line of smaller casks. He
showed them first of all that this cellar, all on one floor, sank right
into the mountain, then he explained the contents of its different
casks, the ages, the nature of the various vine-crops, and their
merits; then, having reached the supply reserved for the family, he
caressed the cask with his hand just as one might rub the crupper of
a favorite horse, and in a proud tone said:
"You are going to taste this. There's not a wine bottled equal to it—
not one, either at Bordeaux or elsewhere."
For he possessed the intense passion of countrymen for wine kept in
a cask.
Colosse followed him, carrying a jug, stooped down, turned the cock
of the funnel, while his father cautiously held the light for him, as
though he were accomplishing some difficult task requiring minute
attention. The candle's flame fell directly on their faces, the father's
head like that of an old attorney, and the son's like that of a peasant
soldier.
Andermatt murmured in Gontran's ear: "Hey, what a fine Teniers!"
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com