XXVII
How Doctor Heraclius Did Not Agree with the Dauphin, Who, Having Saved a Monkey from Drowning, Threw It Back Again and Went Off to Find a Man to Save Instead
When Heraclius went out the following morning he noticed that everyone looked at him with curiosity as he passed and that people turned to glance twice at him. At first all this attention astonished him; he wondered what the reason of it was and thought that perhaps his doctrine had spread without his knowledge and that he was on the point of being appreciated by his fellow citizens. He was suddenly filled with a great tenderness towards these people, whom he already saw as his enthusiastic disciples, and he began to acknowledge them by smiling right and left, like a prince among his people. The whisperings that followed him seemed to him murmurs of praise and he beamed cheerfully at the thought of the imminent consternation of the Warden and the Dean.
In this way he reached the Quai de la Brille. A few yards away a group of excited children, roaring with laughter, were throwing stones into the water, while some sailors, lounging in the sun and smoking, seemed interested in the game. Heraclius approached and then suddenly drew back as though he had received a heavy blow in the chest. Ten yards from the bank, sinking and coming up again by turns, a kitten was drowning. The poor little animal was making desperate efforts to regain the bank, but each time she showed her head above water a stone thrown by one of the urchins, who were enjoying her agony, made her go under again. The wicked rascals vied with each other and urged each other on, and when a well-aimed shot hit the wretched animal there were shouts of laughter and cries of joy. Suddenly a glancing pebble hit the kitten on the forehead and a trickle of blood appeared on her white fur. The torturers burst into shouts of joy and applause, which, however, turned suddenly into a terrible panic. Livid, trembling with rage, upsetting all before him and striking out with his fists and feet, the Doctor hurled himself among the brats like a wolf into a flock of sheep. Their terror was so great and their flight so rapid that one of them, distracted with fear, threw himself into the river and disappeared. Heraclius quickly unbuttoned his coat, kicked off his shoes and jumped into the water. He was seen to swim vigorously for a moment or two, catch hold of the kitten just as she was sinking, and regain the bank. Then he seated himself on a stone and having dried and kissed the little being whom he had snatched from death, he folded her lovingly in his arms like a baby and without troubling about the child, whom two sailors were bringing to land, and quite indifferent to the din going on behind him, he strode off towards his house, forgetting his shoes and coat which he had left behind him on the bank.