"Ma doue! Ma doue! Caste! Caste!"
These are oaths of a kind, of his own coining, which make every one
laugh, and himself the first. He adds, as he does every day:
"Doctor, you never hurt me so much before as you have done this time."
Then he laughs again.
Lens is not asleep yet, but he is as silent as usual. He has scarcely
uttered twenty words in three weeks.
In a corner, Mehay patiently repeats: "P-A, Pa," and the orderly who is
teaching him to read presses his forefinger on the soiled page.