"
Then turning to Clerambault, he added: "He is the one who keeps us all
up, is it not so, Madame Fanny?"
"Indeed yes, I could not do without my strong son," said the mother
tenderly.
"They take advantage of the fact that I cannot defend myself," said
Edme to Clerambault. "You see I cannot stir an inch."
"Was it a wound?"
"Paralysis."--Clerambault did not dare to ask for details, but after a
pause: "Do you suffer much?" he inquired.
"I ought to wish that it were so perhaps; for pain is a tie between us
and the shore. However, I confess that I prefer the silence of this
body in which I am encased ... let us say no more about it.... My mind
at least is free. And if it is not true that it '_agitat molem_,' does
often escape."
"I know," said Clerambault, "it came to see me the other day."
"Not for the first time; it has been there before."
"And I who thought myself deserted!"
"Do you recall," said Edme, "the words of Randolph to Cecil?--'_The
voice of a man alone can in one hour put more life into us than the
clang of five hundred trumpets sounded continuously_.'"
"That always reminds me of you," said Chastenay, but Edme went on as
if he had not heard him: ... "You have waked us all up."
Clerambault looked at the brave calm eyes of the paralytic, and said:
"Your eyes do not look as if they needed to be waked.
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