Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/200

122 she doesn't die of—I don't remember what he said she might die of, but it ended in us."

"Of tetanus!" exclaimed Madame de Piennes.

"Precisely, madam; but it was very fortunate that the doctor arrived as he did, for there was already a quack doctor there, the same one that treated little Berthelot for the measles, and she was dead at his third visit."

At the end of an hour the doctor reappeared, his hair slightly unpowdered and his beautiful cambric frill in disorder.

"These would-be suicides are born to good luck," he said. "The other day a woman was brought to my hospital who had shot herself in the mouth with a pistol. A bad way of attempting it! She broke three teeth, made a hole in her left cheek. She will be a little plainer-looking for it, and that is all. This one throws herself from a third story. A poor devil of an honest man would fall accidentally from the first and break his neck. This girl breaks a leg. Two ribs were driven in, add a few contusions and all is said. A lean-to was opportunely there, which broke the force of her fall. It is the third case of the kind which I have seen since my return to Paris. She fell upon her feet. The tibia and fibula will unite again.