Chapter Sixty-Five
Denis was walking to the main corridor, after escorting Jean-Paul Mazenc to the gate of the asylum, when Mainsermant called for him. At the gate, Mazenc had repeated his confidence that he “expected the medical gentlemen tomorrow in Verdun, at my front door.”
Ferrand had left it to Denis to accompany Mazenc. An hour earlier, when Ferrand was talking to Mazenc in the room where The Mole was strapped to a bed, Denis assessed the director as distracted and blunt. The Mole was still in a coma after his epileptic attack. When Ferrand opened the patient’s eyelids, only the whites were visible. The Mole’s breathing was regular, though shallow. Ferrand ordered a nurse to monitor the patient and left brusquely, after assuring Mazenc that he and Denis would travel to Verdun the
