Doctor Pascal
Zola, Émile, 1840-1902
English
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Below is a summary of Doctor Pascal
DOCTOR PASCAL
BY
EMILE ZOLA
TRANSLATED BY
MARY J. SERRANO
I.
In the heat of the glowing July afternoon, the room, with blinds
carefully closed, was full of a great calm. From the three windows,
through the cracks of the old wooden shutters, came only a few
scattered sunbeams which, in the midst of the obscurity, made a soft
brightness that bathed surrounding objects in a diffused and tender
light. It was cool here in comparison with the overpowering heat that
was felt outside, under the fierce rays of the sun that blazed upon
the front of the house.
Standing before the press which faced the windows, Dr. Pascal was
looking for a paper that he had come in search of. With doors wide
open, this immense press of carved oak, adorned with strong and
handsome mountings of metal, dating from the last century, displayed
within its capacious depths an extraordinary collection of papers and
manuscripts of all sorts, piled up in confusion and filling every
shelf to overflowing. For more than thirty years the doctor had thrown
into it every page he wrote, from brief notes to the complete texts of
his great works on heredity. Thus it was that his searches here were
not always easy. He rummaged patiently among the papers, and when he
at last found the one he was looking for, he smiled.
For an instant longer he remained near the bookcase, reading the note
by a golden sunbeam that came to him from the middle window. He
himself, in this dawnlike light, appeared, with his snow-white hair
and beard, strong and vigorous; although he was near sixty, his color
was so fresh, his features were so finely cut, his eyes were still so
clear, and he had so youthful an air that one might have taken him, in
his close-fitting, maroon velvet jacket, for a young man with powdered
hair.
"Here, Clotilde," he said at last, "you will copy this note. Ramond
would never be able to decipher my diabolical writing."
And he crossed the room and laid the paper beside the young girl, who
stood working at a high desk in the embrasure of the window to the
right.
"Very well, master," she answered.
She did not even turn round, so engrossed was her attention with the
pastel which she was at the moment rapidly sketching in with broad
strokes of the crayon. Near her in a vase bloomed a stalk of
hollyhocks of a singular shade of violet, striped with yellow. But the
profile of her small round head, with its short, fair hair, was
clearly distinguishable; an exquisite and serious profile, the
straight forehead contracted in a frown of attention, the eyes of an
azure blue, the nose delicately molded, the chin firm. Her bent neck,
especially, of a milky whiteness, looked adorably youthful under the
gold of the clustering curls. In her long black blouse she seemed very
tall, with her slight figure, slender throat, and flexible form, the
flexible slenderness of the divine figures of the Renaissance. In
spite of her twenty-five years, she still retained a childlike air and
looked hardly eighteen.
"And," resumed the doctor, "you will arrange the press a little.
Nothing can be found there any longer."
"Very well, master," she repeated, without raising her head;
"presently."
Pascal had turned round to seat himself at his desk, at the other end
of the room, before the window to the left. It was a plain black
wooden table, and was littered also with papers and pamphlets of all
sorts. And silence again reigned in the peaceful semi-obscurity,
contrasting with the overpowering glare outside. The vast apartment, a
dozen meters long and six wide, had, in addition to the press, only
two bookcases, filled with books. Antique chairs of various kinds
stood around in disorder, while for sole adornment, along the walls,
hung with an old _salon_ Empire paper of a rose pattern, were nailed
pastels of flowers of strange coloring dimly visible. The woodwork of
three folding-doors, the door opening on the hall and two others at
opposite ends of the apartment, the one leading to the doctor's room,
the other to that of the young girl, as well as the cornice of the
smoke-darkened ceiling, dated from the time of Louis XV.
An hour passed without a sound, without a breath. Then Pascal, who, as
a diversion from his work, had opened a newspaper--_Le Temps_--which
had lain forgotten on the table, uttered a slight exclamation:
"Why! your father has been appointed editor of the _Epoque_, the
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