Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/29

Rh "Come now, what does this excitement mean?"

"Egad! I think you ought to know, Lamartinière, or where is the use of being a doctor?"

"Have you had a bad dream?"

"Well, yes, I have."

"Just a dream!" cried Lamartinière, lifting his hands to heaven, "a dream!"

"Egad!" protested the King, "there are some dreams! "

"Well, well! come tell us your dream, Sire."

"It cannot be told, my friend."

"Why not? everything can be told."

"To a Confessor, yes."

"Then send for your Confessor, quick; meantime I will take my lancet away with me."

"A dream is sometimes a secret."

"Yes, and sometimes a question of remorse. Your Majesty is right; I will take my leave, Sire,"—and the doctor began to draw on his stockings and get into his breeches.

"Come, Lamartinière, come, never get angry, old friend. Well then, I dreamt . . . I dreamt they were carrying me to Saint-Denis."

"And that the hearse jolted you . . . Bah! when you come to make that journey. Sire, you will never notice it."

"How can you jest on such subjects?" the King expostulated with a shudder.

"No, I dreamt they were taking me to Saint-Denis, and that I was buried alive in the velvet of my coffin."

"Did you feel incommoded in the coffin, eh?"

"Yes, a little."

"Vapours, black humours, difficult digestion."

"Oh! but I ate no supper, yesterday."

"An empty stomach then."

"You think so?"

"Ah! now I have it; at what o'clock did you leave Madame la Comtesse yesterday?"

"Why, it is two days since I have so much as seen her."

"You are sulking,—black humours, you see, as I said."

"On the contrary it is she who is sulking at me. I promised her something I have failed to give her.

"Quick, give her this something, and find your cheerfulness again."

"I cannot, I am overwhelmed with melancholy."

"Ah, an idea! Go and breakfast with Monsieur de Chauvelin."

"Breakfast!" cried the King, " ah I that was all very well in the days when I had an appetite."

"This will never do!" expostulated the surgeon, folding his arms. " You will have nothing more to do with your friends, nothing more to do with your mistress, nothing more to do with your breakfast, and you think I am going to allow that? Well, Sire, I will tell you one thing, and that is, that if you change your habits at this time of day, you are a lost man."

"Lamartinière! my friend sets me yawning, my mistress sends me to sleep, my breakfast chokes me."

"Good! it is very certain you are ill then."

"Ah! Lamartinière," cried the King; "I have had many years of happiness."

"And you make that a grievance? what things men are!"

"No, I make no complaint of the past, it is the present I hate. The stoutest cart feels the wear and tear at least,"—and the King heaved a sigh.

"True, wear and tear, wear and tear," the surgeon repeated sententiously."

"So that the springs grow stiff and rusty," sighed the King, "and I long for rest."

"Very well then, go to sleep, go to sleep!" cried Lamartinière, getting into bed again.

"Let me complete my simile, my dear doctor."

"Can I be mistaken, or are you turning poet. Sire? Another nasty complaint that!"

"Not I! on the contrary you know I loathe them all, your poets. To gratify Madame de Pompadour, I made that common fellow Voltaire a gentleman; but since the day he dared to speak to me as an equal, calling me Titus or Trajan,—I don't know which it was, I have done with the business. I only mean to say, poetry apart, that I believe my time is come to put on the drag."

"You want to hear my advice. Sire? "

"I do, my friend."

Well then, Sire, my advice is,—don't do that, but take out the horse and give him a rest."

"It's hard," muttered Louis XV.

"But so it is. Sire, when I speak to the King, I call him Your Majesty;