Sébastien beams with delight to hear he's a doctor. It would be so wonderful to cure people, and M. Joly seems very nice, and so if they are doctors together then surely that would be marvelous, and they could save people from dying of tuberculosis.

"Yes," he says, eagerly, in response to John. "Perhaps...if it's magic, or if it's complicated science? Some sort of mesmerism, that puts new languages into your mind? I didn't think mesmerism worked, not truly...oh, but surely you know, M. Joly, if you're a doctor?"