Doctor Pascal

Doctor Pascal

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Doctor Pascal, by Emile Zola This
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Title: Doctor Pascal
Author: Emile Zola
Release Date: January 14, 2004 [EBook #10720]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOCTOR
PASCAL ***

Produced by David Widger, Dagny, and John Bickers

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