THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART
Page: 21

headed in his vineyard. At home he made incessant inquiries for
newspapers; to satisfy him his wife and the maid-servant used to give
him an old journal called the "Indre-et-Loire," and for seven years he
had never yet perceived that he was reading the same number over and
over again. Perhaps a doctor would have observed with interest the
connection that evidently existed between the recurring and spasmodic
demands for the newspaper and the atmospheric variations of the
weather.

Usually when his wife had company, which happened nearly every
evening, for the neighbors, pitying her situation, would frequently
come to play at boston in her salon, Margaritis remained silent in a
corner and never stirred. But the moment ten o'clock began to strike
on a clock which he kept shut up in a large oblong closet, he rose at
the stroke with the mechanical precision of the figures which are made
to move by springs in the German toys. He would then advance slowly
towards the players, give them a glance like the automatic gaze of the
Greeks and Turks exhibited on the Boulevard du Temple, and say
sternly, "Go away!" There were days when he had lucid intervals and
could give his wife excellent advice as to the sale of their wines;
but at such times he became extremely annoying, and would ransack her
closets and steal her delicacies, which he devoured in secret.
Occasionally, when the usual visitors made their appearance he would
treat them with civility; but as a general thing his remarks and
replies were incoherent. For instance, a lady once asked him, "How do
you feel to-day, Monsieur Margaritis?" "I have grown a beard," he
replied, "have you?" "Are you better?" asked another. "Jerusalem!
Jerusalem!" was the answer. But the greater part of the time he gazed
stolidly at his guests without uttering a word; and then his wife
would say, "The good-man does not hear anything to-day."

On two or three occasions in the course of five years, and usually
about the time of the equinox, this remark had driven him to frenzy;
he flourished his knives and shouted, "That joke dishonors me!"

As for his daily life, he ate, drank, and walked about like other men