Instantly the young girl uttered a cry,
ran to the door, and disappeared. This event produced a great
sensation. The card-players paused. Every one questioned his neighbor.
The murmur of voices swelled, and groups gathered.
"Can Monsieur Taillefer be--" I began.
"--dead?" said my sarcastic neighbor. "You would wear the gayest
mourning, I fancy!"
"But what has happened to him?"
"The poor dear man," said the mistress of the house, "is subject to
attacks of a disease the name of which I never can remember, though
Monsieur Brousson has often told it to me; and he has just been seized
with one."
"What is the nature of the disease?" asked an examining-judge.
"Oh, it is something terrible, monsieur," she replied. "The doctors
know no remedy. It causes the most dreadful suffering. One day, while
the unfortunate man was staying at my country-house, he had an attack,
and I was obliged to go away and stay with a neighbor to avoid hearing
him; his cries were terrible; he tried to kill himself; his daughter
was obliged to have him put into a strait-jacket and fastened to his
bed. The poor man declares there are live animals in his head gnawing
his brain; every nerve quivers with horrible shooting pains, and he
writhes in torture. He suffers so much in his head that he did not
even feel the moxas they used formerly to apply to relieve it; but
Monsieur Brousson, who is now his physician, has forbidden that
remedy, declaring that the trouble is a nervous affection, an
inflammation of the nerves, for which leeches should be applied to the
neck, and opium to the head.
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