"Come, come, calm yourself, my good M. Charles; happily the world has not yet discovered its deficiencies; as soon as it shall have become enlightened in this respect, we shall endeavor to supply its wants; and in that case, a man of your capacity, of your learning, can always render great services." "But I am for science what Noah's ark was for physical nature," cried he, grinding his teeth, his eye looking very wild. "I know it, my dear friend." "You wish to put the light under the bushel!" cried he, clinching his fists. "But then I will break you like glass," added he, with a threatening air, his face purple with anger, and the veins swelling like cords. "Ah! M. Charles," answered the doctor, fixing on the madman a calm, piercing, steady look, and assuming a caressing and flattering manner, "I thought that you were the greatest professor of modern times." "And past," cried the madman, forgetting all at once his anger in his pride. "You did not let me finish: that you were the greatest professor of time past, and present--" "And future," cried the madman, proudly. "Oh! the great babbler, who always interrupts me," said the doctor, smiling, and striking him amicably on the shoulder. "Can it be said that I am ignorant of all the admiration that you inspire and deserve! Come, let us go and see the blind man." "Conduct me to him. Doctor, you are a good man; come, come, you will see what he is obliged to listen to when I can tell him such fine things," answered the lunatic, completely calmed, walking before the doctor with a satisfied air. "I confess to you, sir," said Germain, who had drawn near to his wife, remarking her fear when the madman spoke and gesticulated so violently, "I confess to you, for a moment I feared a crisis." "Formerly, at the very first word of excitement, at the very first sign of a threat, the keepers would have seized, tied, beat, and inundated him with a shower-bath, one of the most atrocious tortures that ever were invented. Judge of the effect of such a treatment on an energetic and irritable temperament, whose force of expansion becomes more violent as it is more compressed. Then he would have fallen into one of those frightful fits of madness which defy the most powerful restraint; exasperated by their frequency, they become almost incurable; while as you see, by not restraining at first this momentary ebullition, or in turning it aside by the aid of the excessive mobility of mind which is to be remarked among many lunatics, these experimental bubblings are assuaged as soon as they are raised." "And who is this blind man of whom he speaks? is that an illusion of his mind?" asked Madame George.