Months slipped away, and Jeanne was still convalescent. August came,
and she had not quitted her bed. When evening fell she would rise for
an hour or two; but even the crossing of the room to the window—where
she reclined on an invalid-chair and gazed out on Paris, flaming with
the ruddy light of the dying sun—seemed too great a strain for her
wearied frame. Her attenuated limbs could scarce bear their burden, and
she would declare with a wan smile that the blood in her veins would
not suffice for a little bird, and that she must have plenty of soup.
Morsels of raw meat were dipped in her broth. She had grown to like
this mixture, as she longed to be able to go down to play in the
garden.
The weeks and the months which slipped by were ever instinct with the
same delightful monotony, and Hélène forgot to count the days. She
never left the house; at Jeanne’s side she forgot the whole world. No
news from without reached her ears. Her retreat, though it looked down
on Paris, which with its smoke and noise stretched across the horizon,
was as secret and secluded as any cave of holy hermit amongst the
hills. Her child was saved, and the knowledge of it satisfied all her
desires. She spent her days in watching over her return to health,
rejoicing in a shade of bright color returning to her cheeks, in a
lively look, or in a gesture of gladness. Every hour made her daughter
more like what she had been of old, with lovely eyes and wavy hair. The
slower Jeanne’s recovery, the greater joy was yielded to Hélène, who
recalled the olden days when she had suckled her, and, as she gazed on
her gathering strength, felt even a keener emotion than when in the
past she had measured her two little feet in her hand to see if she
would soon be able to walk.
At the same time some anxiety remained to Hélène. On several occasions
she had seen a shadow come over Jeanne’s face—a shadow of sudden
distrust and sourness. Why was her laughter thus abruptly turned to
sulkiness? Was she suffering? was she hiding some quickening of the old
pain?
“Tell me, darling, what is the matter? You were laughing just a moment
ago, and now you are nearly crying! Speak to me: do you feel a pain
anywhere?”
But Jeanne abruptly turned away her head and buried her face in the
pillow.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she answered curtly. “I want to be
left alone.”
And she would lie brooding the whole afternoon, with her eyes fixed on
the wall, showing no sign of affectionate repentance, but plunged in a
sadness which baffled her forlorn mother. The doctor knew not what to
say; these fits of gloom would always break out when he was there, and
he attributed them to the sufferer’s nervousness. He impressed on
Hélène the necessity of crossing her in nothing.
One afternoon Jeanne had fallen asleep. Henri, who was pleased with her
progress, had lingered in the room, and was carrying on a whispered
conversation with Hélène, who was once more busy with her everlasting
needlework at her seat beside the window. Since the terrible night when
she had confessed she loved him both had lived on peacefully in the
consciousness of their mutual passions, careless of the morrow, and
without a thought of the world. Around Jeanne’s bed, in this room that
still reverberated with her agony, there was an atmosphere of purity
which shielded them from any outburst. The child’s innocent breath fell
on them with a quieting influence. But as the little invalid slowly
grew well again, their love in very sympathy took new strength, and
they would sit side by side with beating hearts, speaking little, and
then only in whispers, lest the little one might be awakened. Their
words were without significance, but struck re-echoing chords within
the breast of each. That afternoon their love revealed itself in a
thousand ways.
“I assure you she is much better,” said the doctor. “In a fortnight she
will be able to go down to the garden.”
Hélène went on stitching quickly.
“Yesterday she was again very sad,” she murmured, “but this morning she
was laughing and happy. She has given me her promise to be good.”
A long silence followed. The child was still plunged in sleep, and
their souls were enveloped in a profound peace. When she slumbered
thus, their relief was intense; they seemed to share each other’s
hearts the more.
“Have you not seen the garden yet?” asked Henri. “Just now it’s full of
flowers.”
“The asters are out, aren’t they?” she questioned.
“Yes; the flower-bed looks magnificent. The clematises have wound their
way up into the elms. It is quite a nest of foliage.”
There was another silence. Hélène ceased sewing, and gave him a smile.
To their fancy it seemed as though they were strolling together along
high-banked paths, dim with shadows, amidst which fell a shower of
roses. As he hung over her he drank in the faint perfume of vervain
that arose from her dressing-gown. However, all at once a rustling of
the sheets disturbed them.
“She is wakening!” exclaimed Hélène, as she started up.
Henri drew himself away, and simultaneously threw a glance towards the
bed. Jeanne had but a moment before gripped the pillow with her arms,
and, with her chin buried in it, had turned her face towards them. But
her eyelids were still shut, and judging by her slow and regular
breathing, she had again fallen asleep.
“Are you always sewing like this?” asked Henri, as he came nearer to
Hélène.
“I cannot remain with idle hands,” she answered. “It is mechanical
enough, but it regulates my thoughts. For hours I can think of the same
thing without wearying.”
He said no more, but his eye dwelt on the needle as the stitching went
on almost in a melodious cadence; and it seemed to him as if the thread
were carrying off and binding something of their lives together. For
hours she could have sewn on, and for hours he could have sat there,
listening to the music of the needle, in which, like a lulling refrain,
re-echoed one word that never wearied them. It was their wish to live
their days like this in that quiet nook, to sit side by side while the
child was asleep, never stirring from their places lest they might
awaken her. How sweet was that quiescent silence, in which they could
listen to the pulsing of hearts, and bask in the delight of a dream of
everlasting love!
“How good you are!” were the words which came several times from his
lips, the joy her presence gave him only finding expression in that one
phrase.
Again she raised her head, never for a moment deeming it strange that
she should be so passionately worshipped. Henri’s face was near her
own, and for a second they gazed at one another.
“Let me get on with my work,” she said in a whisper. “I shall never
have it finished.”
But just then an instinctive dread prompted her to turn round, and
indeed there lay Jeanne, lowering upon them with deadly pale face and
great inky-black eyes. The child had not made the least movement; her
chin was still buried in the downy pillow, which she clasped with her
little arms. She had only opened her eyes a moment before and was
contemplating them.
“Jeanne, what’s the matter?” asked Hélène. “Are you ill? do you want
anything?”
The little one made no reply, never stirred, did not even lower the
lids of her great flashing eyes. A sullen gloom was on her brow, and in
her pallid cheeks were deep hollows. She seemed about to throw back her
hands as though a convulsion was imminent. Hélène started up, begging
her to speak; but she remained obstinately stiff, darting such black
looks on her mother that the latter’s face became purple with blushes,
and she murmured:
“Doctor, see; what is the matter with her?”
Henri had drawn his chair away from Hélène’s. He ventured near the bed,
and was desirous of taking hold of one of the little hands which so
fiercely gripped the pillow. But as he touched Jeanne she trembled in
every limb, turned with a start towards the wall, and exclaimed:
“Leave me alone; you, I mean! You are hurting me!”
She pulled the coverlet over her face, and for a quarter of an hour
they attempted, without success, to soothe her with gentle words. At
last, as they still persevered, she sat up with her hands clasped in
supplication: “Oh, please leave me alone; you are tormenting me! Leave
me alone!”
Hélène, in her bewilderment, once more sat down at the window, but
Henri did not resume his place beside her. They now understood: Jeanne
was devoured by jealousy. They were unable to speak another word. For a
minute or two the doctor paced up and down in silence, and then slowly
quitted the room, well understanding the meaning of the anxious glances
which the mother was darting towards the bed. As soon as he had gone,
she ran to her daughter’s side and pressed her passionately to her
breast, with a wild outburst of words.
“Hear me, my pet, I am alone now; look at me, speak to me. Are you in
pain? Have I vexed you then? Tell me everything! Is it I whom you are
angry with? What are you troubled about?”
But it was useless to pray for an answer, useless to plead with all
sorts of questions; Jeanne declared that she was quite well. Then she
started up with a frenzied cry: “You don’t love me any more, mamma! you
don’t love me any more!”
She burst into grievous sobbing, and wound her arms convulsively round
her mother’s neck, raining greedy kisses on her face. Hélène’s heart
was rent within her, she felt overwhelmed with unspeakable sadness, and
strained her child to her bosom, mingling her tears with her own, and
vowing to her that she would never love anybody save herself.
From that day onward a mere word or glance would suffice to awaken
Jeanne’s jealousy. While she was in the perilous grip of death some
instinct had led her to put her trust in the loving tenderness with
which they had shielded and saved her. But now strength was returning
to her, and she would allow none to participate in her mother’s love.
She conceived a kind of spite against the doctor, a spite which
stealthily grew into hate as her health improved. It was hidden deep
within her self-willed brain, in the innermost recesses of her
suspicious and silent nature. She would never consent to explain
things; she herself knew not what was the matter with her; but she felt
ill whenever the doctor drew too near to her mother; and would press
her hands violently to her bosom. Her torment seemed to sear her very
heart, and furious passion choked her and made her cheeks turn pale.
Nor could she place any restraint on herself; she imagined every one
unjust, grew stiff and haughty, and deigned no reply when she was
charged with being very ill-tempered. Hélène, trembling with dismay,
dared not press her to explain the source of her trouble; indeed, her
eyes turned away whenever this eleven-year-old child darted at her a
glance in which was concentrated the premature passion of a woman.
“Oh, Jeanne, you are making me very wretched!” she would sometimes say
to her, the tears standing in her eyes as she observed her stifling in
her efforts to restrain a sudden bubbling up of mad anger.
But these words, once so potent for good, which had so often drawn the
child weeping to Hélène’s arms, were now wholly without influence.
There was a change taking place in her character. Her humors varied ten
times a day. Generally she spoke abruptly and imperiously, addressing
her mother as though she were Rosalie, and constantly plaguing her with
the pettiest demands, ever impatient and loud in complaint.
“Give me a drink. What a time you take! I am left here dying of
thirst!” And when Hélène handed the glass to her she would exclaim:
“There’s no sugar in it; I won’t have it!”
Then she would throw herself back on her pillow, and a second time push
away the glass, with the complaint that the drink was too sweet. They
no longer cared to attend to her, she would say; they were doing it
purposely. Hélène, dreading lest she might infuriate her to a yet
greater extent, made no reply, but gazed on her with tears trembling on
her cheeks.
However, Jeanne’s anger was particularly visible when the doctor made
his appearance. The moment he entered the sick-room she would lay
herself flat in bed, or sullenly hang her head in the manner of savage
brutes who will not suffer a stranger to come near. Sometimes she
refused to say a word, allowing him to feel her pulse or examine her
while she remained motionless with her eyes fixed on the ceiling. On
other days she would not even look at him, but clasp her hands over her
eyes with such a gust of passion that to remove them would have
necessitated the violent twisting of her arms. One night, as her mother
was about to give her a spoonful of medicine, she burst out with the
cruel remark: “I won’t have it; it will poison me.”
Hélène’s heart, pierced to the quick, sank within her, and she dreaded
to elicit what the remark might mean.
“What are you saying, my child?” she asked. “Do you understand what you
are talking about? Medicine is never nice to take. You must drink
this.”
But Jeanne lay there in obstinate silence, and averted her head in
order to get rid of the draught. From that day onward she was full of
caprices, swallowing or rejecting her medicines according to the humor
of the moment. She would sniff at the phials and examine them
suspiciously as they stood on the night-table. Should she have refused
to drink the contents of one of them she never forgot its identity, and
would have died rather than allow a drop from it to pass her lips.
Honest Monsieur Rambaud alone could persuade her at times. It was he
whom she now overwhelmed with the most lavish caresses, especially if
the doctor were looking on; and her gleaming eyes were turned towards
her mother to note if she were vexed by this display of affection
towards another.
“Oh, it’s you, old friend!” she exclaimed the moment he entered. “Come
and sit down near me. Have you brought me any oranges?”
She sat up and laughingly fumbled in his pockets, where goodies were
always secreted. Then she embraced him, playing quite a love comedy,
while her revenge found satisfaction in the anguish which she imagined
she could read on her mother’s pallid face. Monsieur Rambaud beamed
with joy over his restoration to his little sweetheart’s good graces.
But Hélène, on meeting him in the ante-room, was usually able to
acquaint him with the state of affairs, and all at once he would look
at the draught standing on the table and exclaim: “What! are you having
syrup?”
Jeanne’s face clouded over, and, in a low voice, she replied: “No, no,
it’s nasty, it’s nauseous; I can’t take it.”
“What! you can’t drink this?” questioned Monsieur Rambaud gaily. “I can
wager it’s very good. May I take a little of it?”
Then without awaiting her permission he poured out a large spoonful,
and swallowed it with a grimace that seemed to betoken immeasurable
satisfaction.
“How delicious!” he murmured. “You are quite wrong; see, just take a
little to try.”
Jeanne, amused, then made no further resistance. She would drink
whatever Monsieur Rambaud happened to taste. She watched his every
motion greedily, and appeared to study his features with a view to
observing the effects of the medicine. The good man for a month gorged
himself in this way with drugs, and, on Hélène gratefully thanking him,
merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh! it’s very good stuff!” he declared, with perfect conviction,
making it his pleasure to share the little one’s medicines.
He passed his evenings at her bedside. The Abbé, on the other hand,
came regularly every second day. Jeanne retained them with her as long
as possible, and displayed vexation when she saw them take up their
hats. Her immediate dread lay in being left alone with her mother and
the doctor, and she would fain have always had company in the room to
keep these two apart. Frequently, without reason, she called Rosalie to
her. When they were alone with her, her eyes never quitted them, but
pursued them into every corner of the bedroom. Whenever their hands
came together, her face grew ashy white. If a whispered word was
exchanged between them, she started up in anger, demanding to know what
had been said. It was a grievance to her that her mother’s gown should
sweep against the doctor’s foot. They could not approach or look at one
another without the child falling immediately into violent trembling.
The extreme sensitiveness of her innocent little being induced in her
an exasperation which would suddenly prompt her to turn round, should
she guess that they were smiling at one another behind her. She could
divine the times when their love was at its height by the atmosphere
wafted around her. It was then that her gloom became deeper, and her
agonies were those of nervous women at the approach of a terrible
storm.
Every one about Hélène now looked on Jeanne as saved, and she herself
had slowly come to recognize this as a certainty. Thus it happened that
Jeanne’s fits were at last regarded by her as the bad humors of a
spoilt child, and as of little or no consequence. A craving to live
sprang up within her after the six weeks of anguish which she had just
spent. Her daughter was now well able to dispense with her care for
hours; and for her, who had so long become unconscious of life, these
hours opened up a vista of delight, of peace, and pleasure. She
rummaged in her drawers, and made joyous discoveries of forgotten
things; she plunged into all sorts of petty tasks, in the endeavor to
resume the happy course of her daily existence. And in this upwelling
of life her love expanded, and the society of Henri was the reward she
allowed herself for the intensity of her past sufferings. In the
shelter of that room they deemed themselves beyond the world’s ken, and
every hindrance in their path was forgotten. The child, to whom their
love had proved a terror, alone remained a bar between them.
Jeanne became, indeed, a veritable scourge to their affections. An
ever-present barrier, with her eyes constantly upon them, she compelled
them to maintain a continued restraint, an affectation of indifference,
with the result that their hearts were stirred with even greater motion
than before. For days they could not exchange a word; they knew
intuitively that she was listening even when she was seemingly wrapped
in slumber. One evening, when Hélène had quitted the room with Henri,
to escort him to the front door, Jeanne burst out with the cry, “Mamma!
mamma!” in a voice shrill with rage. Hélène was forced to return, for
she heard the child leap from her bed; and she met her running towards
her, shivering with cold and passion. Jeanne would no longer let her
remain away from her. From that day forward they could merely exchange
a clasp of the hand on meeting and parting. Madame Deberle was now
spending a month at the seaside, and the doctor, though he had all his
time at his own command, dared not pass more than ten minutes in
Hélène’s company. Their long chats at the window had come to an end.
What particularly tortured their hearts was the fickleness of Jeanne’s
humor. One night, as the doctor hung over her, she gave way to tears.
For a whole day her hate changed to feverish tenderness, and Hélène
felt happy once more; but on the morrow, when the doctor entered the
room, the child received him with such a display of sourness that the
mother besought him with a look to leave them. Jeanne had fretted the
whole night in angry regret over her own good-humor. Not a day passed
but what a like scene was enacted. And after the blissful hours the
child brought them in her moods of impassioned tenderness these hours
of misery fell on them with the torture of the lash.
A feeling of revulsion at last awoke within Hélène. To all seeming her
daughter would be her death. Why, when her illness had been put to
flight, did the ill-natured child work her utmost to torment her? If
one of those intoxicating dreams took possession of her imagination—a
mystic dream in which she found herself traversing a country alike
unknown and entrancing with Henri by her side Jeanne’s face, harsh and
sullen, would suddenly start up before her and thus her heart was ever
being rent in twain. The struggle between her maternal affection and
her passion became fraught with the greatest suffering.
One evening, despite Hélène’s formal edict of banishment, the doctor
called. For eight days they had been unable to exchange a word
together. She would fain that he had not entered; but he did so on
learning that Jeanne was in a deep sleep. They sat down as of old, near
the window, far from the glare of the lamp, with the peaceful shadows
around them. For two hours their conversation went on in such low
whispers that scarcely a sound disturbed the silence of the large room.
At times they turned their heads and glanced at the delicate profile of
Jeanne, whose little hands, clasped together, were reposing on the
coverlet. But in the end they grew forgetful of their surroundings, and
their talk incautiously became louder. Then, all at once, Jeanne’s
voice rang out.
“Mamma! mamma!” she cried, seized with sudden agitation, as though
suffering from nightmare.
She writhed about in her bed, her eyelids still heavy with sleep, and
then struggled to reach a sitting posture.
“Hide, I beseech you!” whispered Hélène to the doctor in a tone of
anguish. “You will be her death if you stay here.”
In an instant Henri vanished into the window-recess, concealed by the
blue velvet curtain; but it was in vain, the child still kept up her
pitiful cry: “Oh, mamma! mamma! I suffer so much.”
“I am here beside you, my darling; where do you feel the pain?”
“I don’t know. Oh, see, it is here! Oh, it is scorching me!” With eyes
wide open and features distorted, she pressed her little hands to her
bosom. “It came on me in a moment. I was asleep, wasn’t I? But I felt
something like a burning coal.”
“But it’s all gone now. You’re not pained any longer, are you?”
“Yes, yes, I feel it still.”
She glanced uneasily round the room. She was now wholly awake; the
sullen gloom crept over her face once more, and her cheeks became
livid.
“Are you by yourself, mamma?” she asked.
“Of course I am, my darling!”
Nevertheless Jeanne shook her head and gazed about, sniffing the air,
while her agitation visibly increased. “No, you’re not; I know you’re
not. There’s some one—Oh, mamma! I’m afraid, I’m afraid! You are
telling me a story; you are not by yourself.”
She fell back in bed in an hysterical fit, sobbing loudly and huddling
herself beneath the coverlet, as though to ward off some danger.
Hélène, crazy with alarm, dismissed Henri without delay, despite his
wish to remain and look after the child. But she drove him out
forcibly, and on her return clasped Jeanne in her arms, while the
little one gave vent to the one pitiful cry, with every utterance of
which her sobbing was renewed louder than ever: “You don’t love me any
more! You don’t love me any more!”
“Hush, hush, my angel! don’t say that,” exclaimed the mother in agony.
“You are all the world to me. You’ll see yet whether I love you or
not.”
She nursed her until the morning broke, intent on yielding up to her
all her heart’s affections, though she was appalled at realizing how
completely the love of herself possessed this darling child. Next day
she deemed a consultation necessary. Doctor Bodin, dropping in as
though by chance, subjected the patient with many jokes to a careful
examination; and a lengthy discussion ensued between him and Doctor
Deberle, who had remained in the adjacent room. Both readily agreed
that there were no serious symptoms apparent at the moment, but they
were afraid of complex developments, and cross-questioned Hélène for
some time. They realized that they were dealing with one of those
nervous affections which have a family history, and set medical skill
at defiance. She told them, what they already partly knew, that her
grandmother[*] was confined in the lunatic asylum of Les Tulettes at a
short distance from Plassans, and that her mother had died from
galloping consumption, after many years of brain affection and
hysterical fits. She herself took more after her father; she had his
features and the same gravity of temperament. Jeanne, on the other
hand, was the facsimile of her grandmother; but she never would have
her strength, commanding figure, or sturdy, bony frame. The two doctors
enjoined on her once more that the greatest care was requisite. Too
many precautions could not be taken in dealing with chloro-anaemical
affections, which tend to develop a multitude of dangerous diseases.
[*] Adelaide Fouque, already mentioned, who figures so prominently in
“The Fortune of the Rougons,” and dies under such horrible
circumstances in “Doctor Pascal.”
Henri had listened to old Doctor Bodin with a deference which he had
never before displayed for a colleague. He besought his advice on
Jeanne’s case with the air of a pupil who is full of doubt. Truth to
tell, this child inspired him with dread; he felt that her case was
beyond his science, and he feared lest she might die under his hands
and her mother be lost to him for ever. A week passed away. He was no
longer admitted by Hélène into the little one’s presence; and in the
end, sad and sick at heart, he broke off his visits of his own accord.
As the month of August verged on its close, Jeanne recovered sufficient
strength to rise and walk across the room. The lightness of her heart
spoke in her laughter. A fortnight had elapsed since the recurrence of
any nervous attack. The thought that her mother was again all her own
and would ever cling to her had proved remedy enough. At first distrust
had rankled in her mind; while letting Hélène kiss her she had remained
uneasy at her least movement, and had imperiously besought her hand
before she fell asleep, anxious to retain it in her own during her
slumber. But at last, with the knowledge that nobody came near, she had
regained confidence, enraptured by the prospect of a reopening of the
old happy life when they had sat side by side, working at the window.
Every day brought new roses to her cheeks; and Rosalie declared that
she was blossoming brighter and brighter every hour.
There were times, however, as night fell, when Hélène broke down. Since
her daughter’s illness her face had remained grave and somewhat pale,
and a deep wrinkle, never before visible, furrowed her brow. When
Jeanne caught sight of her in these hours of weariness, despair, and
voidness, she herself would feel very wretched, her heart heavy with
vague remorse. Gently and silently she would then twine her arms around
her neck.
“Are you happy, mother darling?” came the whisper.
A thrill ran through Hélène’s frame, and she hastened to answer: “Yes,
of course, my pet.”
Still the child pressed her question:
“Are you, oh! are you happy? Quite sure?”
“Quite sure. Why should I feel unhappy?”
With this Jeanne would clasp her closer in her little arms, as though
to requite her. She would love her so well, she would say—so well,
indeed, that nowhere in all Paris could a happier mother be found.