Clerambault saw a young man looking at him as he lay extended on a couch. The fair youthful face lit up by the setting sun, with its intelligent eyes, looked so healthy and calm that at first sight the thought of illness did not present itself.
"You!" he exclaimed. "You here?"
He looked younger than ever with this joyful surprise on his face, but neither the body, nor the arms which were covered, moved in the least, and Clerambault coming nearer saw that the head alone seemed to be alive.
"Mamma, you have been giving me away," said Edmé Froment.
"Did you not want to see me?" said Clerambault, bending over him.
"That is not just what I meant, but I am not very anxious to be seen."
"Why not? I should like to know," said Clerambault, in a tone which he tried to make gay.
"Because a man does not ask visitors to the house when he is not there himself."
"Where are you?" if one may ask.
"I could almost swear that I was shut up in an old Egyptian mummy"--he glanced at the bed and his immovable body:
"There is no life left in it," he said.
"You have more life than any of us," said a voice beside them. Clerambault looked up and saw on the other side of the couch a tall young man full of health and strength, who seemed to be about the same age as Edmé, who smiled and said to Clerambault: "My friend Chastenay has enough vitality to lend me some and to spare."
