Fantomas by Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre

Author:Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 1911-02-20T20:00:00+00:00

Meantime, in the great drawing-room, elaborate courtesies were being exchanged between Dr. Biron and Professor Swelding.

Dr. Biron was a man of about forty, with a high-coloured face and an active, vigorous frame. He gesticulated freely and spoke in an unctuous, fawning tone.

“I am delighted at the great compliment you pay me by coming here, sir,” he said. “When I started this institution five years ago I certainly did not dare to hope that it would so soon win sufficient reputation to entitle it to the honour of inspection by men so eminent in the scientific world as yourself.”

The professor listened with a courteous smile but evinced no hurry in replying.

Professor Swelding was certainly a remarkable figure. He might have been sixty, but he bore very lightly the weight of the years that laid their snows upon his thick and curly but startlingly white hair. It was this hair that attracted attention first; it was of extraordinary thickness and was joined on to a heavy moustache and a long and massive beard. He was like a man who might have taken a vow never to cut his hair. It covered his ears and grew low upon his forehead, so that hardly a vestige of the face could be seen, while, further, all the expression of the eyes was concealed behind large blue spectacles. The professor was enveloped in a heavy cloak, in spite of the bright sunshine; evidently he was one of those men from the cold North who do not know what real warmth is and have no idea of what it means to be too thickly clothed. He spoke French correctly, but with a slight accent and a slow enunciation that betrayed a foreign origin.

“I was really anxious, sir, to observe for myself the measures you have taken which have set your institution in the forefront of establishments of the kind,” he replied. “I have read with the very greatest interest your various communications to the transactions of learned societies. It is a great advantage for a practitioner like myself to be able to profit by the experience of a savant of your high standing.”

A few further compliments were exchanged and then Dr. Biron suggested a visit to the various wards, and led his guest out into the grounds of the institution.

If Dr. Biron did not possess that theoretical knowledge of insanity which has made French alienists famous throughout the world, he was certainly a first-rate organiser. His sanatorium was a model one. It was situated in one of the wealthiest, quietest and airiest quarters of Paris, and stood in a vast enclosure behind high walls; within this enclosure a number of small pavilions were built, all attractive in design, and communicating by broad flights of steps with a beautiful garden studded with trees and shrubs, but further subdivided into a series of little gardens separated from one another by white latticed palings.

“You see, Professor, I rely entirely on the isolation principle. A single block would have involved a

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