The fracture was a simple one, without any kind of complication.
Charles could not have hoped for an easier case. Then calling to mind
the devices of his masters at the bedsides of patients, he comforted the
sufferer with all sorts of kindly remarks, those Caresses of the surgeon
that are like the oil they put on bistouries. In order to make some
splints a bundle of laths was brought up from the cart-house. Charles
selected one, cut it into two pieces and planed it with a fragment
of windowpane, while the servant tore up sheets to make bandages, and
Mademoiselle Emma tried to sew some pads. As she was a long time before
she found her work-case, her father grew impatient; she did not answer,
but as she sewed she pricked her fingers, which she then put to her
mouth to suck them. Charles was surprised at the whiteness of her nails.
They were shiny, delicate at the tips, more polished than the ivory of
Dieppe, and almond-shaped. Yet her hand was not beautiful, perhaps not
white enough, and a little hard at the knuckles; besides, it was too
long, with no soft inflections in the outlines. Her real beauty was in
her eyes. Although brown, they seemed black because of the lashes, and
her look came at you frankly, with a candid boldness.
The bandaging over, the doctor was invited by Monsieur Rouault himself
to "pick a bit" before he left.
Charles went down into the room on the ground floor. Knives and forks
and silver goblets were laid for two on a little table at the foot of a
huge bed that had a canopy of printed cotton with figures representing
Turks. There was an odour of iris-root and damp sheets that escaped
from a large oak chest opposite the window. On the floor in corners were
sacks of flour stuck upright in rows. These were the overflow from
the neighbouring granary, to which three stone steps led. By way of
decoration for the apartment, hanging to a nail in the middle of the
wall, whose green paint scaled off from the effects of the saltpetre,
was a crayon head of Minerva in gold frame, underneath which was written
in Gothic letters "To dear Papa."
First they spoke of the patient, then of the weather, of the great cold,
of the wolves that infested the fields at night.
Mademoiselle Rouault did not at all like the country, especially now
that she had to look after the farm almost alone. As the room was
chilly, she shivered as she ate. This showed something of her full lips,
that she had a habit of biting when silent.