On the other hand,
there are gruels galore. You make them with millet, buckwheat, oats,
barley; you can make them even with tree-bark. So, my nieces, take
pity on this country, so rich in corn, but so poor in vegetables. Oh!
how Valentine would laugh to see the apples, pears, and plums! She
wouldn't give over at the end of a year. Good-bye, my dear girls, and
accept the Republic patiently; for you have real beef, veal, and
vegetables, and a kind uncle happy and fed on gruel."
Ill again with his heart in the April of 1849, Balzac had the good
luck to be attended by a pupil of the famous Doctor Franck, the latter
being the original of his _Country Doctor_. This disciple, and his son
to a less extent, were men of a newer and more enlightened school; and
the elder man, by bold experiments, reduced his patient's
arterio-sclerosis to the point of what seemed to be convalescence. But
the treatment was tedious and lasted on into the summer, so that the
novelist was left weak and delicate at the end. In such a condition he
was less than ever fit to carry on his wooing.
To give himself a countenance, he spoke again of departure, fixing the
date for the month of October.
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