The doctor awoke the next day fully resolved to make his fortune.
He had already taken this decision several times without ever actually following it through. At the start of each of his attempts at a new career, the hope of getting rich quickly had sustained his efforts and confidence until the first obstacle, the first setback which diverted him off on a new track.
From the comfort of his warm bed, he began to plan. How many doctors had become millionaires in a short space of time? It only required an ounce of know-how; this he had found out during the course of his studies where he had been able to assess the most famous of professors and had found them to be fools. He was certainly as good as them, if not better. If he could somehow win over the rich and elegant Le Havre clientele, he could easily earn a hundred thousand francs a year. And he calculated the guaranteed profit more precisely. In the mornings he would do his rounds, visiting his patients. Taking only a modest average of ten a day at twenty francs per call, he would make a minimum of 72,000 francs a year, even 75,000 because the figure of ten patients was lower than it would certainly be. In the afternoons he would see another average of ten patients in his practice at ten francs a head, making 36,000. That could be 120,000, rounded up. Long-standing patients and friends, for whom he would charge ten francs for a house call and five for an appointment, would probably slightly lower this figure, but this would be offset by consultations with other doctors and by all the other usual little perks of the profession.
The easiest way to do it would be by a bit of clever advertising, a few short articles in Le Figaro* indicating that the Parisian scientific establishment had its eye on him and was interested in some of the astounding cures for which the young and unassuming doctor from Le Havre was responsible. And he would be richer than his brother, richer and more satisfied as he would owe this wealth to his own endeavours. He would be generous to his ageing parents who would be rightly proud of his fame. He wouldn’t marry, not wishing to be tied down by a single, tiresome woman, but would take mistresses from among his prettiest patients.
He felt so sure of success that he leaped out of bed as if to seize it right away, and he dressed to go into town to find himself a suitable apartment.
As he roamed around the streets, he thought how shaky are the causes determining our actions. For the past three weeks he could have, in fact should have, taken this decision which no doubt had been suddenly generated in him as a result of his brother’s inheritance.
He only stopped at the doors displaying a sign announcing either a beautiful flat or a luxury apartment to let, dismissing contemptuously notices without any adjectives. Then he viewed them haughtily, measuring the height of the ceilings, sketching the place in his notebook, showing passageways and door widths, making it clear that he was a doctor and had many callers. The staircase must be wide and well looked after, and he had to be no higher than the first floor.
Having taken down seven or eight addresses and scribbled hundreds of notes, he returned for lunch a quarter of an hour late.
From the hall he could hear the clatter of plates. So they had started without him. Why? They never ate punctually at home. He felt put out and hurt as he was rather touchy. As soon as he came in, Roland said to him: ‘Hurry up then, Pierre, for heaven’s sake! You know that we have to be at the lawyer’s at two. Today’s not the day for dawdling.’
The doctor sat down without replying, after kissing his mother and shaking hands with his father and brother, and took the cutlet saved for him from the dish in the centre of the table. It was cold and dried up. It must have been the worst one. He thought they might have left it in the oven until he came in, and not have lost their heads to the point of completely forgetting their other son, the elder son at that. The conversation was picked up from the point where it had been interrupted by his arrival.
‘If I were you,’ said Madame Roland to Jean, ‘I would set myself up at once with no expense spared so as to catch the public eye, I would be seen in society, ride a horse, and choose one or two interesting cases to defend to get a reputation in the courts. I would like to be a sort of amateur barrister much in demand. Thanks to God you’re free from financial worries, and, at the end of the day, if you take up a profession it’s only so that you don’t let your studies go to waste and because a man should never just do nothing.’
Old Roland, peeling a pear, declared: ‘Good Lord, in your shoes I’d buy a lovely boat, a cutter like our pilots’, and I’d sail as far as Senegal* in it.’
It was Pierre’s turn to give his advice. What it came down to was that it wasn’t wealth which determined a man’s moral value or intellectual worth. In the mediocre it only brought about degeneration, whereas, conversely, it became a powerful lever placed in the hands of the strong. And yet there weren’t too many of these. If Jean really was a superior sort of man, he could show it now that he was free from want, but he would need to work a hundred times harder than he would have done under other circumstances. It was not a question of simply pleading for or against some widow or orphan and pocketing so much for each case lost or won, but of becoming an eminent lawyer, a leading light of the profession.
And to conclude, he added: ‘If I had money, I wouldn’t half dissect some bodies!’
Old Roland shrugged his shoulders: ‘Fiddlesticks! The wisest thing in life is to take it easy. We’re not beasts of burden, we’re men. If you’re born poor, you have to work, and if that’s the way it is, so be it, you work; but when you have an income, good God! you’d be a fool to work yourself into the ground.’
Pierre replied haughtily: ‘There you and I differ! Personally the only things I respect in this world are knowledge and intelligence, everything else is contemptible.’
Madame Roland, who always tried to soften the endless clashes between father and son, changed the subject and talked about a murder which had been committed at Bolbec-Nointot* the week before. Immediately everybody’s mind was thus occupied by the circumstances surrounding the murder and enthralled by the interesting horror, by the seductive mystery of crimes which, however banal, shameful, and revolting, exercise a strange and common fascination over human curiosity.
From time to time, however, Roland pulled out his watch: ‘Well, we ought to set off soon.’
Pierre scoffed: ‘It’s not even one o’clock. Really, it wasn’t worth making me eat a cold cutlet.’
‘Are you coming to the lawyer’s?’ asked his mother.
He replied curtly: ‘Me? No, what would be the point? My presence would be unnecessary.’
Jean remained silent as if it didn’t concern him. When they had spoken about the murder at Bolbec, he had, as a lawyer, put forward a few ideas and developed some opinions on crime and criminals. Now he was silent again, but the sparkle in his eye, the healthy glow in his cheeks, and even his glossy beard seemed to proclaim his happiness.
Once the family had left, Pierre, alone again, resumed his earlier search for an apartment to rent. After two or three hours of traipsing up and down stairs, he finally found an attractive place in the Boulevard François I; a large mezzanine, with two entrances on different streets, two reception rooms, a glassed-in lobby in which patients waiting to be seen could wander about surrounded by flowers, and a wonderful circular dining room overlooking the sea.
As he was about to sign the rent agreement, he was stopped by the figure of 3,000 francs as the first quarter had to be paid in advance, and he hadn’t got a penny to his name.
The modest capital saved by his father yielded barely 8,000 francs a year, and Pierre reproached himself for having often caused his parents financial worries by hesitating so long in his choice of career, his false starts, and continually going back to begin his studies all over again. So he left, promising to confirm within two days, and he thought about asking his brother for this first quarter, or even the first six months, as soon as Jean came into his inheritance.
‘It would only be a loan for a few months,’ he thought. ‘I may even be able to pay him back before the end of the year. It’s quite straightforward, and anyway he would be pleased to do it for me.’
As it was not yet four and he had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do, he went and sat in the park and stayed on a bench there for a long while, his mind empty, staring at the ground, overwhelmed by a weariness developing into anguish.
He had, however, spent every day like this since returning home, without ever suffering so cruelly from the emptiness of life and his own inactivity. How had he managed to fill the time between waking and sleeping?
He had sauntered along the jetty at the change of tide, wandered around the streets, hung about in cafés, at Marowsko’s, everywhere. And now suddenly, this lifestyle, which until now had been tolerable, seemed unbearable, unacceptable. If he had had some money he would have taken a carriage and gone for a long drive in the country, alongside farm ditches shaded by hedges and elm trees. But he had to count the cost of a beer or even a stamp, and couldn’t allow himself such treats. He suddenly thought how difficult it is, once you’re over thirty, to be reduced to blushingly asking your mother for the odd louis; and, scraping the ground with the end of his walking stick, he murmured: ‘Damn it! If only I had money!’
And although the thought of his brother’s inheritance made its way through his skin once more like a wasp-sting, he impatiently brushed it aside, not wanting to slip down the slope of jealousy.
Some children were playing around him in the sandy pathways. They had long fair hair, and, looking very serious and concentrating, were building up little piles of sand only to crush them again with their feet.
Pierre was having one of those gloomy days when you look into every corner of your soul and shake out the creases.
‘Our labours are like the work of those kids,’ he thought. Then he wondered if the best thing in life would be to have two or three of these useless little beings and to watch them grow up with indulgent curiosity. He was touched by the desire to marry. You don’t feel so lost when you’re no longer alone. At least you feel someone’s presence close by in times of trouble and uncertainty; to be able to talk intimately with a woman is itself a balm to suffering.
He began to think about women.
He didn’t have much experience of women, his affairs in the Latin Quarter* only ever lasting a couple of weeks or so, broken off once that month’s money had run out, and picked up again or changed the following month. And yet there must be loving, gentle, and consoling creatures somewhere. Hadn’t his own mother brought reason and charm into his father’s home? How he would love to meet a woman, a real woman!
He got up suddenly, having decided to pay a visit to Madame Rosémilly.
He sat down again just as quickly. No! She wasn’t the kind of woman he liked! Why not? Because she had too much dull common sense, and anyway, didn’t she seem to prefer Jean? Without wanting to admit it openly to himself, this preference had a lot to do with his low regard for the widow’s intelligence because, whilst he loved his brother, he couldn’t help but think of him as rather ordinary and of himself as being superior.
On the other hand he wasn’t going to stay there until nightfall and, as on the previous evening, he asked himself anxiously: ‘What am I going to do?’
But now, deep within him, he felt a need for affection, to be enveloped and consoled. Consoled for what? He couldn’t have said, but it was one of those moments of weakness and weariness where the presence of a woman, her caress, the touch of a hand, the rustling of a dress, a tender look from brown or blue eyes seem to us an urgent imperative of the heart. He remembered a little blond barmaid who had taken him back to her place one night and whom he’d seen from time to time since.
He stood up once again, to go and have a drink with this girl. What would he say to her? What would she say to him? Nothing, most probably. What did it matter? He would hold her hand for a few seconds! She seemed to fancy him, so why not see her more often then?
He found her dozing on a chair in the almost empty bar. Three customers were smoking pipes, leaning their elbows on the oak tables. The cashier was reading a novel, whilst the landlord in his shirtsleeves was fast asleep on the bench.
As soon as she spotted him, the girl jumped up and came towards him.
‘Hello, how are you?’
‘Not bad, and you?’
‘Oh, I’m fine. Haven’t seen much of you lately!’
‘I know, I haven’t had much time to myself. You know I’m a doctor now.’
‘Really? You never told me. If I’d known I would have come to you last week when I was ill. What are you having?’
‘A beer, and you?’
‘I’ll have the same, seeing as you’re paying.’
And she went on in this familiar tone, as if his buying her this drink had been tacit permission. Then, sitting facing each other, they chatted. Now and again she took his hand in hers with the easy intimacy of a woman for sale, and looking at him alluringly she said: ‘Why don’t you come here more often? I’ve got a soft spot for you, my darling.’
But already he was getting sick of her and finding her stupid, common, and reeking of the working classes. Women, he said to himself, should appear to us in dreams or surrounded by a halo of luxury to romanticize their vulgarity.
‘You went past the other morning with a nice-looking fair man with a full beard. Was it your brother?’ she asked him.
‘Yes, it was.’
‘He’s a really handsome man.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Oh yes, and he looks like a bloke who enjoys life.’
What strange urge suddenly drove him to tell this barmaid all about Jean’s inheritance? Why should this subject, pushed away when he was alone, repelled by his fear of the unease it stirred up in him, come to his lips at that very moment? And why was he now letting it all pour out to somebody yet again as if he needed to empty the embittered contents of his heart?
Crossing his legs, he said: ‘My brother’s an extraordinarily lucky man, he’s just inherited an income of twenty thousand francs.’
Her greedy blue eyes opened wide:
‘Oh? And who left it to him? Was it his grandmother or an aunt?’
‘No, an old friend of my parents.’
‘Just a friend? I can’t believe it! And he didn’t leave you anything?’
‘No. I hardly knew him.’
Having thought it over for a moment, she said with a strange smile: ‘Well, that brother of yours is very lucky to have friends like that! It’s not really surprising that he looks so unlike you!’
He felt like hitting her without knowing why exactly, and, tight-lipped, he asked her: ‘What do you mean by that?’
She affected an air of mindless innocence. ‘Oh, nothing. I just meant he’s much luckier than you.’
He threw some small change on the table and left.
But now he kept repeating what she had said to him: ‘It’s not really surprising that he looks so unlike you!’
What had she thought of and what was she suggesting by these words? There had definitely been something malicious, spiteful, and evil in them. Yes, that girl must have thought that Jean was Maréchal’s son.
The rush of emotion he felt at the thought of this suspicion cast on his mother was so violent that he stopped and looked around for somewhere to sit down.
There was another café opposite, so he went in, sat on a chair, and ordered a beer when the waiter came over to him.
His heart was beating fast and shivers were running over his skin. Marowsko’s words from the day before now came to him: ‘That won’t look good at all.’ Had the same thought occurred to him, the same suspicion as in the mind of that little slut?
Leaning over his beer he watched the white froth bubble and dissolve, and he asked himself: ‘Could anybody possibly believe that?’
The reasons why this odious doubt was germinating in people’s minds came to him now in clear, self-evident, and infuriating succession. Nothing could be more straightforward or more natural than an elderly bachelor with no relatives leaving his fortune to his friend’s two children, but that he should leave the entire amount to just one of them would certainly astonish people and give them cause to whisper and snigger. Why had he failed to see it before? Why hadn’t his father felt it and why hadn’t his mother guessed it? No, they had been so happy about this unexpected windfall that the idea hadn’t occurred to them. And anyway, how could these decent people even have suspected such a shameful thing.
But everybody else, the neighbours, the shopkeepers, tradesmen, and everyone who knew them, wouldn’t they repeat this awful idea, have a good laugh about it, revel in it, mock his father and despise his mother for it?
The barmaid’s observation that Jean was fair and he was dark, that they were so different in features, manner, build, and aptitude, would now strike every eye and mind. When people referred to one of Roland’s sons they would say: ‘Which one, the real one or the fake?’
He got up, determined to go and tell his brother, to forewarn him of this terrible danger threatening their mother’s reputation. But what could Jean do? The simplest thing would obviously be to refuse to accept the legacy and let it go to the poor instead, and to tell friends and others in the know that the will contained unacceptable clauses and conditions which would have made Jean a trustee rather than an heir.
As he returned home, he decided he ought to see his brother alone and not raise such a subject in front of his parents.
From the doorway he heard the sound of loud voices and laughter in the parlour, and, as he went in, he heard Madame Rosémilly and Captain Beausire who had been brought back by his father and made to stay for dinner to celebrate the good news.
Vermouth and absinthe had been ordered to give them an appetite, and this had put them all in fine spirits. Captain Beausire, a short man, rotund from having rolled across so many seas, whose ideas even seemed to be round like pebbles on the shore, and who had a constant guttural laugh, thought everything in life was wonderful, there for the taking.
He was clinking glasses with old Roland whilst Jean was handing the two ladies another full glass each.
Madame Rosémilly declined, whereupon the captain, who had known her late husband, exclaimed: ‘Oh, go on, Madame. Bis repetita placent,* as we locals say, which means: “Two vermouths never did anybody any harm.” Look at me, since I gave up sailing I have a couple or so every day before dinner to get things rolling, I add a bit of a pitch to that after coffee which sets me off on the high seas for the evening. I never ever go as far as a tempest though, never! I’m too afraid of being holed below the water-line.’
Roland, whose mania for the sea was flattered by the old seafarer, was laughing heartily, his face already red and his eyes puffy with the alcohol. He had a huge shopkeeper’s belly, and nothing but a belly, the kind into which the rest of the body seems to disappear, one of those flabby bellies typical of men who sit all day and have no thighs, chest, arms, or neck left, the seat of their chair having settled their entire mass into one area.
On the other hand Beausire, although short and fat, looked solid as an egg and hard as a bullet.
Madame Roland had not finished her first glass and, pink with pleasure and eyes shining, she was gazing at her son Jean.
He was now bursting with happiness. The whole thing was signed and sealed; he had an income of twenty thousand francs. Through his laughter, his deeper tones, the way he looked at people, his more candid manner, his increased confidence, you could sense the self-assurance that money brings.
Dinner was announced, and as old Roland went to offer his arm to escort Madame Rosémilly, his wife exclaimed: ‘No, no, Father, today everything is for Jean.’
The table was brimming with unusual delicacies: in front of Jean, in his father’s place at the head of the table, there rose, like a dome adorned with flags, a huge display of ribbons, a truly ceremonial bouquet, flanked by four fruit bowls, the first of which contained a pyramid of magnificent peaches, the second a monumental cake filled with whipped cream and decorated with icing-sugar bells, like a sponge-cake cathedral. In the third were slices of pineapple drowned in a clear syrup, and in the fourth, unheard-of luxury, black grapes from southern climes.
‘Heavens!’ said Pierre as he sat down, ‘we are celebrating the accession of Jean the Rich.’
After the soup, Madeira was served, and already everybody was talking at once. Beausire was telling them about a dinner he had had as a guest of a black general in Santo Domingo.* Old Roland listened whilst trying to slip in details of another dinner given by one of his friends at Meudon after which every guest had needed a fortnight to recover. Madame Rosémilly, Jean, and his mother were planning a day out and lunch at Saint-Jouin,* and already imagining what a splendid time they would have; and Pierre wished he had eaten out alone in some cheap restaurant on the sea-front and avoided all this noise, laughter, and festivity which was getting on his nerves.
He thought about how he was going to go about telling his brother his fears and getting him to give up the inheritance he had already accepted, which he was celebrating and already carried away with. It would certainly be difficult for him, but he must do it without hesitation; their mother’s reputation was at stake.
The arrival of an enormous sea-bass set Roland off on fishing stories again. Beausire told some amazing tales about Gabon,* Sainte-Marie in Madagascar, * and especially about the coasts of China and Japan where the fish look as funny as the inhabitants. Then he went on to describe these fish, their huge, golden eyes, their blue or red bellies, their strange fan-like fins, their crescent-shaped tails, and mimicked them in such an entertaining way that all the guests laughed till they cried as they listened to him.
Only Pierre seemed incredulous and he murmured: ‘It’s true what they say about the Normans being the Gascons* of the north.’
After the fish came a vol-au-vent, then roast chicken, salad, green beans, and a lark terrine from Pithiviers. * Madame Rosémilly’s maid was helping with the serving, and the merriment heightened with every glass of wine. When the first of the champagne corks flew off, an exhilarated Roland imitated the sound of it popping, then declared: ‘I much prefer that to hearing gun shots.’
Pierre, becoming more and more exasperated, replied mockingly: ‘And yet that’s probably more dangerous for you.’
Roland, on the point of taking a sip, put his glass back on the table and asked: ‘Why do you say that?’
For a long time he had been complaining about his health, having headaches, dizzy spells, a general and inexplicable feeling of being unwell. The doctor went on: ‘Because a bullet from a pistol may well miss you, whereas a glass of wine will definitely go straight to the stomach.’
‘And?’
‘And then it burns right through the gut, upsets the nervous system, slows down the circulation, and brings on the apoplexy which all men of your constitution are prone to.’
The former jeweller’s growing drunkenness seemed to evaporate into thin air, and he stared at his son anxiously as he tried to determine whether or not he was joking.
But Beausire exclaimed: ‘Oh, these damned doctors are all the same: don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t make love, and no fooling around. It’s all supposed to be bad for your health. Well, I’ve done it all, my dear Sir, in every corner of the globe, wherever I could, as much as I could, and I’m none the worse for it!’
Pierre replied sourly: ‘First, Captain, you are much stronger than my father, and secondly, people who live as recklessly as you always say the same until the day when... and they never come back the next day to admit to the prudent doctor: “Yes, doctor, you were right.” When I see my father doing the worst and most harmful things to himself, it’s only natural that I should warn him. I wouldn’t be much of a son if I acted otherwise.’
Distressed, Madame Roland intervened: ‘What is it with you, Pierre? It won’t hurt him just this once. Think what an occasion this is for him, for all of us. You’ll spoil it all for him and upset the lot of us. You’re being very mean.’
He shrugged his shoulders and muttered: ‘Let him do what he likes, he’s been warned.’
But old Roland had stopped drinking. He looked at his glassful of clear, sparkling wine whose light, intoxicating soul was floating away in a rush of little bubbles which rose rapidly from the bottom and vanished on the surface. He looked at it with all the suspicion of a fox who comes across a dead chicken and suspects a trap.
Hesitantly he asked: ‘Do you think it will be really bad for me?’
Pierre was remorseful and felt ashamed of himself for making the others suffer because of his bad mood: ‘No, go ahead this once, you can have a drink, but don’t get carried away and don’t make a habit of it.’
Old Roland picked up his glass, still unsure whether or not to place it to his lips. He looked at it sadly with a mixture of craving and fear. He then smelled it, tasted it, took little sips and savoured them, his heart full of anguish, weakness, and greed, then regret once he had drained the last drop.
Pierre suddenly caught Madame Rosémilly staring at him, her eyes limpid and blue, knowing and hard. He could feel, read, and guess the unmistakable and angry thought behind the gaze of this little woman with her straightforward and honest ways, for her eyes seemed to say: ‘You’re jealous and that’s shameful.’
He lowered his head and continued eating.
He wasn’t hungry and he found everything tasted foul. He was tormented by an urge to get away, a desire not to be in the company of these people, or hear them laughing, joking, and chatting any longer.
Meanwhile his father, who was starting once again to come under the influence of the heady wine, had already forgotten his son’s advice and was casting sidelong, loving glances at an almost full bottle of champagne by his plate. He didn’t dare touch it for fear of another lecture, and was wondering which trick, which ingenuity to employ to get his hands on it without arousing fresh comment from Pierre. A ruse came to him, the simplest of all; he picked up the bottle nonchalantly and, holding it at the bottom, stretched his arm across the table, first filling the doctor’s glass and then all the others, and when he arrived at his own he began to talk very loudly, and if he did pour something into it, you would certainly have sworn that he had done so inadvertently. In fact, nobody took any notice.
Pierre, without realizing it, was drinking a great deal. He was wound up and on edge, and kept unconsciously sipping from the crystal flute with its bubbles rising up through the clear, sparkling liquid. He was pouring it slowly into his mouth so as to feel the sweet prickling sensation as it fizzed on his tongue. Gradually a feeling of warmth coursed through his body. It started in his stomach, which seemed to be the source of heat, it reached his chest, crept through his limbs, and spread throughout his flesh like a warm, heartening wave bringing happiness with it. He felt much better, not so impatient and perturbed, and his resolve to speak to his brother that very evening weakened, not because it had occurred to him to give up the idea altogether, but so as not to interrupt so soon the feeling of well-being he was experiencing.
Beausire stood up to propose a toast.
After bowing to all present, he said: ‘Most honourable ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here to celebrate a happy event which has just befallen one of our friends. It used to be said that Lady Luck was blind; I believe that she was just short-sighted or a tease, but that she has just bought herself a pair of quality marine binoculars which enabled her to spot in the port of Le Havre the son of our good friend Roland, captain of the Perle.’
There were cries of ‘bravo!’, together with hearty applause. Roland senior stood up to reply.
He coughed, for his throat needed clearing and his tongue felt somewhat heavy, and then stammered out: ‘Thank you, Captain, thank you on behalf of myself and my son. I’ll never forget how you’ve acted in these circumstances. Let’s drink to your own hopes.’
He was choked with tears, and he sat down again, finding nothing else to say.
Jean was laughing as he took the floor in his turn: ‘I am the one who should thank all the devoted friends, the excellent friends’ (he glanced at Madame Rosémilly), ‘who are showing me touching proof of their affection here today. But words alone are not enough to express my gratitude, I will prove it tomorrow, at every point in my life, always, for our friendship is not one which will fade.’
His mother, deeply moved, murmured: ‘Well said, my child.’
But Beausire cried: ‘Come on, Madame Rosémilly, say a few words on behalf of the fairer sex.’
She raised her glass and said in a gentle voice with just a touch of sadness: ‘I drink to the blessed memory of Monsieur Maréchal.’
There were a few moments of calm and fitting contemplation, as follows a prayer, and then Beausire, who was always ready with a compliment, remarked: ‘Only women can be so thoughtful.’
Then, turning to Roland senior: ‘What was this Maréchal really like? Were you on very intimate terms with him?’
The old boy, emotional as a result of the alcohol, began to cry and spluttered out: ‘A brother... you know... you’d never find another like him... we were never apart... he ate with us every evening... he treated us to trips to the theatre... I can only say that... that... that. A friend... a real one... a real... wasn’t he, Louise?’
His wife replied simply: ‘Yes, he was a faithful friend.’
Pierre looked at his father and mother, but as the conversation had moved on, he started to drink again.
He hardly remembered anything about the end of the evening. They had had coffee, a few liqueurs, and had laughed and joked. He had gone to bed around midnight in a confused state and with a headache. And he had slept like a log until nine the following morning.