AT the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours, that morning, Marie remained
seated on her bed, propped up by pillows. Having spent the whole night at
the Grotto, she had refused to let them take her back there. And, as
Madame de Jonquiere approached her, to raise one of the pillows which was
slipping from its place, she asked: “What day is it, madame?”
“Monday, my dear child.”
“Ah! true. One so soon loses count of time. And, besides, I am so happy!
It is to-day that the Blessed Virgin will cure me!”
She smiled divinely, with the air of a day-dreamer, her eyes gazing into
vacancy, her thoughts so far away, so absorbed in her one fixed idea,
that she beheld nothing save the certainty of her hope. Round about her,
the Sainte-Honorine Ward was now quite deserted, all the patients,
excepting Madame Vetu, who lay at the last extremity in the next bed,
having already started for the Grotto. But Marie did not even notice her
neighbour; she was delighted with the sudden stillness which had fallen.
One of the windows overlooking the courtyard had been opened, and the
glorious morning sunshine entered in one broad beam, whose golden dust
was dancing over her bed and streaming upon her pale hands. It was indeed
pleasant to find this room, so dismal at nighttime with its many beds of
sickness, its unhealthy atmosphere, and its nightmare groans, thus
suddenly filled with sunlight, purified by the morning air, and wrapped
in such delicious silence! “Why don’t you try to sleep a little?”
maternally inquired Madame de Jonquiere. “You must be quite worn out by
your vigil.”
Marie, who felt so light and cheerful that she no longer experienced any
pain, seemed surprised.
“But I am not at all tired, and I don’t feel a bit sleepy. Go to sleep?
Oh! no, that would be too sad. I should no longer know that I was going
to be cured!”
At this the superintendent laughed. “Then why didn’t you let them take
you to the Grotto?” she asked. “You won’t know what to do with yourself
all alone here.”
“I am not alone, madame, I am with her,” replied Marie; and thereupon,
her vision returning to her, she clasped her hands in ecstasy. “Last
night, you know, I saw her bend her head towards me and smile. I quite
understood her, I could hear her voice, although she never opened her
lips. When the Blessed Sacrament passes at four o’clock I shall be
cured.”
Madame de Jonquiere tried to calm her, feeling rather anxious at the
species of somnambulism in which she beheld her. However, the sick girl
went on: “No, no, I am no worse, I am waiting. Only, you must surely see,
madame, that there is no need for me to go to the Grotto this morning,
since the appointment which she gave me is for four o’clock.” And then the
girl added in a lower tone: “Pierre will come for me at half-past three.
At four o’clock I shall be cured.”
The sunbeam slowly made its way up her bare arms, which were now almost
transparent, so wasted had they become through illness; whilst her
glorious fair hair, which had fallen over her shoulders, seemed like the
very effulgence of the great luminary enveloping her. The trill of a bird
came in from the courtyard, and quite enlivened the tremulous silence of
the ward. Some child who could not be seen must also have been playing
close by, for now and again a soft laugh could be heard ascending in the
warm air which was so delightfully calm.
“Well,” said Madame de Jonquiere by way of conclusion, “don’t sleep then,
as you don’t wish to. But keep quite quiet, and it will rest you all the
same.”
Meantime Madame Vetu was expiring in the adjoining bed. They had not
dared to take her to the Grotto, for fear they should see her die on the
way. For some little time she had lain there with her eyes closed; and
Sister Hyacinthe, who was watching, had beckoned to Madame Desagneaux in
order to acquaint her with the bad opinion she had formed of the case.
Both of them were now leaning over the dying woman, observing her with
increasing anxiety. The mask upon her face had turned more yellow than
ever, and now looked like a coating of mud; her eyes too had become more
sunken, her lips seemed to have grown thinner, and the death rattle had
begun, a slow, pestilential wheezing, polluted by the cancer which was
finishing its destructive work. All at once she raised her eyelids, and
was seized with fear on beholding those two faces bent over her own.
Could her death be near, that they should thus be gazing at her? Immense
sadness showed itself in her eyes, a despairing regret of life. It was
not a vehement revolt, for she no longer had the strength to struggle;
but what a frightful fate it was to have left her shop, her surroundings,
and her husband, merely to come and die so far away; to have braved the
abominable torture of such a journey, to have prayed both day and night,
and then, instead of having her prayer granted, to die when others
recovered!
However, she could do no more than murmur “Oh! how I suffer; oh! how I
suffer. Do something, anything, to relieve this pain, I beseech you.”
Little Madame Desagneaux, with her pretty milk-white face showing amidst
her mass of fair, frizzy hair, was quite upset. She was not used to
deathbed scenes, she would have given half her heart, as she expressed
it, to see that poor woman recover. And she rose up and began to question
Sister Hyacinthe, who was also in tears but already resigned, knowing as
she did that salvation was assured when one died well. Could nothing
really be done, however? Could not something be tried to ease the dying
woman? Abbe Judaine had come and administered the last sacrament to her a
couple of hours earlier that very morning. She now only had Heaven to
look to; it was her only hope, for she had long since given up expecting
aid from the skill of man.
“No, no! we must do something,” exclaimed Madame Desagneaux. And
thereupon she went and fetched Madame de Jonquiere from beside Marie’s
bed. “Look how this poor creature is suffering, madame!” she exclaimed.
“Sister Hyacinthe says that she can only last a few hours longer. But we
cannot leave her moaning like this. There are things which give relief.
Why not call that young doctor who is here?”
“Of course we will,” replied the superintendent. “We will send for him at
once.”
They seldom thought of the doctor in the wards. It only occurred to the
ladies to send for him when a case was at its very worst, when one of
their patients was howling with pain. Sister Hyacinthe, who herself felt
surprised at not having thought of Ferrand, whom she believed to be in an
adjoining room, inquired if she should fetch him.
“Certainly,” was the reply. “Bring him as quickly as possible.”
When the Sister had gone off, Madame de Jonquiere made Madame Desagneaux
help her in slightly raising the dying woman’s head, thinking that this
might relieve her. The two ladies happened to be alone there that
morning, all the other lady-hospitallers having gone to their devotions
or their private affairs. However, from the end of the large deserted
ward, where, amidst the warm quiver of the sunlight such sweet
tranquillity prevailed, there still came at intervals the light laughter
of the unseen child.
“Can it be Sophie who is making such a noise?” suddenly asked the
lady-superintendent, whose nerves were somewhat upset by all the worry of
the death which she foresaw. Then quickly walking to the end of the ward,
she found that it was indeed Sophie Couteau--the young girl so
miraculously healed the previous year--who, seated on the floor behind a
bed, had been amusing herself, despite her fourteen years, in making a
doll out of a few rags. She was now talking to it, so happy, so absorbed
in her play, that she laughed quite heartily. “Hold yourself up,
mademoiselle,” said she. “Dance the polka, that I may see how you can do
it! One! two! dance, turn, kiss the one you like best!”
Madame de Jonquiere, however, was now coming up. “Little girl,” she said,
“we have one of our patients here in great pain, and not expected to
recover. You must not laugh so loud.”
“Ah! madame, I didn’t know,” replied Sophie, rising up, and becoming
quite serious, although still holding the doll in her hand. “Is she going
to die, madame?”
“I fear so, my poor child.”
Thereupon Sophie became quite silent. She followed the superintendent,
and seated herself on an adjoining bed; whence, without the slightest
sign of fear, but with her large eyes burning with curiosity, she began
to watch Madame Vetu’s death agony. In her nervous state, Madame
Desagneaux was growing impatient at the delay in the doctor’s arrival;
whilst Marie, still enraptured, and resplendent in the sunlight, seemed
unconscious of what was taking place about her, wrapt as she was in
delightful expectancy of the miracle.
Not having found Ferrand in the small apartment near the linen-room which
he usually occupied, Sister Hyacinthe was now searching for him all over
the building. During the past two days the young doctor had become more
bewildered than ever in that extraordinary hospital, where his assistance
was only sought for the relief of death pangs. The small medicine-chest
which he had brought with him proved quite useless; for there could be no
thought of trying any course of treatment, as the sick were not there to
be doctored, but simply to be cured by the lightning stroke of a miracle.
And so he mainly confined himself to administering a few opium pills, in
order to deaden the severer sufferings. He had been fairly amazed when
accompanying Doctor Bonamy on a round through the wards. It had resolved
itself into a mere stroll, the doctor, who had only come out of
curiosity, taking no interest in the patients, whom he neither questioned
nor examined. He solely concerned himself with the pretended cases of
cure, stopping opposite those women whom he recognised from having seen
them at his office where the miracles were verified. One of them had
suffered from three complaints, only one of which the Blessed Virgin had
so far deigned to cure; but great hopes were entertained respecting the
other two. Sometimes, when a wretched woman, who the day before had
claimed to be cured, was questioned with reference to her health, she
would reply that her pains had returned to her. However, this never
disturbed the doctor’s serenity; ever conciliatory, the good man declared
that Heaven would surely complete what Heaven had begun. Whenever there
was an improvement in health, he would ask if it were not something to be
thankful for. And, indeed, his constant saying was: “There’s an
improvement already; be patient!” What he most dreaded were the
importunities of the lady-superintendents, who all wished to detain him
to show him sundry extraordinary cases. Each prided herself on having the
most serious illnesses, the most frightful, exceptional cases in her
ward; so that she was eager to have them medically authenticated, in
order that she might share in the triumph should cure supervene. One
caught the doctor by the arm and assured him that she felt confident she
had a leper in her charge; another entreated him to come and look at a
young girl whose back, she said, was covered with fish’s scales; whilst a
third, whispering in his ear, gave him some terrible details about a
married lady of the best society. He hastened away, however, refusing to
see even one of them, or else simply promising to come back later on when
he was not so busy. As he himself said, if he listened to all those
ladies, the day would pass in useless consultations. However, he at last
suddenly stopped opposite one of the miraculously cured inmates, and,
beckoning Ferrand to his side, exclaimed: “Ah! now here is an interesting
cure!” and Ferrand, utterly bewildered, had to listen to him whilst he
described all the features of the illness, which had totally disappeared
at the first immersion in the piscina.
At last Sister Hyacinthe, still wandering about, encountered Abbe
Judaine, who informed her that the young doctor had just been summoned to
the Family Ward. It was the fourth time he had gone thither to attend to
Brother Isidore, whose sufferings were as acute as ever, and whom he
could only fill with opium. In his agony, the Brother merely asked to be
soothed a little, in order that he might gather together sufficient
strength to return to the Grotto in the afternoon, as he had not been
able to do so in the morning. However, his pains increased, and at last
he swooned away.
When the Sister entered the ward she found the doctor seated at the
missionary’s bedside. “Monsieur Ferrand,” she said, “come up-stairs with
me to the Sainte-Honorine Ward at once. We have a patient there at the
point of death.”
He smiled at her; indeed, he never beheld her without feeling brighter
and comforted. “I will come with you, Sister,” he replied. “But you’ll
wait a minute, won’t you? I must try to restore this poor man.”
She waited patiently and made herself useful. The Family Ward, situated
on the ground-floor, was also full of sunshine and fresh air which
entered through three large windows opening on to a narrow strip of
garden. In addition to Brother Isidore, only Monsieur Sabathier had
remained in bed that morning, with the view of obtaining a little rest;
whilst Madame Sabathier, taking advantage of the opportunity, had gone to
purchase a few medals and pictures, which she intended for presents.
Comfortably seated on his bed, his back supported by some pillows, the
ex-professor was rolling the beads of a chaplet between his fingers. He
was no longer praying, however, but merely continuing the operation in a
mechanical manner, his eyes, meantime, fixed upon his neighbour, whose
attack he was following with painful interest.
“Ah! Sister,” said he to Sister Hyacinthe, who had drawn near, “that poor
Brother fills me with admiration. Yesterday I doubted the Blessed Virgin
for a moment, seeing that she did not deign to hear me, though I have
been coming here for seven years past; but the example set me by that
poor martyr, so resigned amidst his torments, has quite shamed me for my
want of faith. You can have no idea how grievously he suffers, and you
should see him at the Grotto, with his eyes glowing with divine hope! It
is really sublime! I only know of one picture at the Louvre--a picture by
some unknown Italian master--in which there is the head of a monk
beatified by a similar faith.”
The man of intellect, the ex-university-professor, reared on literature
and art, was reappearing in this poor old fellow, whose life had been
blasted, and who had desired to become a free patient, one of the poor of
the earth, in order to move the pity of Heaven. He again began thinking
of his own case, and with tenacious hopefulness, which the futility of
seven journeys to Lourdes had failed to destroy, he added: “Well, I still
have this afternoon, since we sha’n’t leave till to-morrow. The water is
certainly very cold, but I shall let them dip me a last time; and all the
morning I have been praying and asking pardon for my revolt of yesterday.
When the Blessed Virgin chooses to cure one of her children, it only
takes her a second to do so; is that not so, Sister? May her will be
done, and blessed be her name!”
Passing the beads of the chaplet more slowly between his fingers, he
again began saying his “Aves” and “Paters,” whilst his eyelids drooped on
his flabby face, to which a childish expression had been returning during
the many years that he had been virtually cut off from the world.
Meantime Ferrand had signalled to Brother Isidore’s sister, Marthe, to
come to him. She had been standing at the foot of the bed with her arms
hanging down beside her, showing the tearless resignation of a poor,
narrow-minded girl whilst she watched that dying man whom she worshipped.
She was no more than a faithful dog; she had accompanied her brother and
spent her scanty savings, without being of any use save to watch him
suffer. Accordingly, when the doctor told her to take the invalid in her
arms and raise him up a little, she felt quite happy at being of some
service at last. Her heavy, freckled, mournful face actually grew bright.
“Hold him,” said the doctor, “whilst I try to give him this.”
When she had raised him, Ferrand, with the aid of a small spoon,
succeeded in introducing a few drops of liquid between his set teeth.
Almost immediately the sick man opened his eyes and heaved a deep sigh.
He was calmer already; the opium was taking effect and dulling the pain
which he felt burning his right side, as though a red-hot iron were being
applied to it. However, he remained so weak that, when he wished to
speak, it became necessary to place one’s ear close to his mouth in order
to catch what he said. With a slight sign he had begged Ferrand to bend
over him. “You are the doctor, monsieur, are you not?” he faltered. “Give
me sufficient strength that I may go once more to the Grotto, this
afternoon. I am certain that, if I am able to go, the Blessed Virgin will
cure me.”
“Why, of course you shall go,” replied the young man. “Don’t you feel
ever so much better?”
“Oh! ever so much better--no! I know very well what my condition is,
because I saw many of our Brothers die, out there in Senegal. When the
liver is attacked and the abscess has worked its way outside, it means
the end. Sweating, fever, and delirium follow. But the Blessed Virgin
will touch the sore with her little finger and it will be healed. Oh! I
implore you all, take me to the Grotto, even if I should be unconscious!”
Sister Hyacinthe had also approached, and leant over him. “Be easy, dear
Brother,” said she. “You shall go to the Grotto after _dejeuner_, and we
will all pray for you.”
At length, in despair at these delays and extremely anxious about Madame
Vetu, she was able to get Ferrand away. Still, the Brother’s state filled
her with pity; and, as they ascended the stairs, she questioned the
doctor, asking him if there were really no more hope. The other made a
gesture expressive of absolute hopelessness. It was madness to come to
Lourdes when one was in such a condition. However, he hastened to add,
with a smile: “I beg your pardon, Sister. You know that I am unfortunate
enough not to be a believer.”
But she smiled in her turn, like an indulgent friend who tolerates the
shortcomings of those she loves. “Oh! that doesn’t matter,” she replied.
“I know you; you’re all the same a good fellow. Besides, we see so many
people, we go amongst such pagans that it would be difficult to shock
us.”
Up above, in the Sainte-Honorine Ward, they found Madame Vetu still
moaning, a prey to most intolerable suffering. Madame de Jonquiere and
Madame Desagneaux had remained beside the bed, their faces turning pale,
their hearts distracted by that death-cry, which never ceased. And when
they consulted Ferrand in a whisper, he merely replied, with a slight
shrug of the shoulders, that she was a lost woman, that it was only a
question of hours, perhaps merely of minutes. All he could do was to
stupefy her also, in order to ease the atrocious death agony which he
foresaw. She was watching him, still conscious, and also very obedient,
never refusing the medicine offered her. Like the others, she now had but
one ardent desire--to go back to the Grotto--and she gave expression to
it in the stammering accents of a child who fears that its prayer may not
be granted: “To the Grotto--will you? To the Grotto!”
“You shall be taken there by-and-by, I promise you,” said Sister
Hyacinthe. “But you must be good. Try to sleep a little to gain some
strength.”
The sick woman appeared to sink into a doze, and Madame de Jonquiere then
thought that she might take Madame Desagneaux with her to the other end
of the ward to count the linen, a troublesome business, in which they
became quite bewildered, as some of the articles were missing. Meantime
Sophie, seated on the bed opposite Madame Vetu, had not stirred. She had
laid her doll on her lap, and was waiting for the lady’s death, since
they had told her that she was about to die. Sister Hyacinthe, moreover,
had remained beside the dying woman, and, unwilling to waste her time,
had taken a needle and cotton to mend some patient’s bodice which had a
hole in the sleeve.
“You’ll stay a little while with us, won’t you?” she asked Ferrand.
The latter, who was still watching Madame Vetu, replied: “Yes, yes. She
may go off at any moment. I fear hemorrhage.” Then, catching sight of
Marie on the neighbouring bed, he added in a lower voice: “How is she?
Has she experienced any relief?”
“No, not yet. Ah, dear child! we all pray for her very sincerely. She is
so young, so sweet, and so sorely afflicted. Just look at her now! Isn’t
she pretty? One might think her a saint amid all this sunshine, with her
large, ecstatic eyes, and her golden hair shining like an aureola!”
Ferrand watched Marie for a moment with interest. Her absent air, her
indifference to all about her, the ardent faith, the internal joy which
so completely absorbed her, surprised him. “She will recover,” he
murmured, as though giving utterance to a prognostic. “She will recover.”
Then he rejoined Sister Hyacinthe, who had seated herself in the
embrasure of the lofty window, which stood wide open, admitting the warm
air of the courtyard. The sun was now creeping round, and only a narrow
golden ray fell upon her white coif and wimple. Ferrand stood opposite to
her, leaning against the window bar and watching her while she sewed. “Do
you know, Sister,” said he, “this journey to Lourdes, which I undertook
to oblige a friend, will be one of the few delights of my life.”
She did not understand him, but innocently asked: “Why so?”
“Because I have found you again, because I am here with you, assisting
you in your admirable work. And if you only knew how grateful I am to
you, what sincere affection and reverence I feel for you!”
She raised her head to look him straight in the face, and began jesting
without the least constraint. She was really delicious, with her pure
lily-white complexion, her small laughing mouth, and adorable blue eyes
which ever smiled. And you could realise that she had grown up in all
innocence and devotion, slender and supple, with all the appearance of a
girl hardly in her teens.
“What! You are so fond of me as all that!” she exclaimed. “Why?”
“Why I’m fond of you? Because you are the best, the most consoling, the
most sisterly of beings. You are the sweetest memory in my life, the
memory I evoke whenever I need to be encouraged and sustained. Do you no
longer remember the month we spent together, in my poor room, when I was
so ill and you so affectionately nursed me?”
“Of course, of course I remember it! Why, I never had so good a patient
as you. You took all I offered you; and when I tucked you in, after
changing your linen, you remained as still as a little child.”
So speaking, she continued looking at him, smiling ingenuously the while.
He was very handsome and robust, in the very prime of youth, with a
rather pronounced nose, superb eyes, and red lips showing under his black
moustache. But she seemed to be simply pleased at seeing him there before
her moved almost to tears.
“Ah! Sister, I should have died if it hadn’t been for you,” he said. “It
was through having you that I was cured.”
Then, as they gazed at one another, with tender gaiety of heart, the
memory of that adorable month recurred to them. They no longer heard
Madame Vetu’s death moans, nor beheld the ward littered with beds, and,
with all its disorder, resembling some infirmary improvised after a
public catastrophe. They once more found themselves in a small attic at
the top of a dingy house in old Paris, where air and light only reached
them through a tiny window opening on to a sea of roofs. And how charming
it was to be alone there together--he who had been prostrated by fever,
she who had appeared there like a good angel, who had quietly come from
her convent like a comrade who fears nothing! It was thus that she nursed
women, children, and men, as chance ordained, feeling perfectly happy so
long as she had something to do, some sufferer to relieve. She never
displayed any consciousness of her sex; and he, on his side, never seemed
to have suspected that she might be a woman, except it were for the
extreme softness of her hands, the caressing accents of her voice, the
beneficent gentleness of her manner; and yet all the tender love of a
mother, all the affection of a sister, radiated from her person. During
three weeks, as she had said, she had nursed him like a child, helping
him in and out of bed, and rendering him every necessary attention,
without the slightest embarrassment or repugnance, the holy purity born
of suffering and charity shielding them both the while. They were indeed
far removed from the frailties of life. And when he became convalescent,
what a happy existence began, how joyously they laughed, like two old
friends! She still watched over him, scolding him and gently slapping his
arms when he persisted in keeping them uncovered. He would watch her
standing at the basin, washing him a shirt in order to save him the
trifling expense of employing a laundress. No one ever came up there;
they were quite alone, thousands of miles away from the world, delighted
with this solitude, in which their youth displayed such fraternal gaiety.
“Do you remember, Sister, the morning when I was first able to walk
about?” asked Ferrand. “You helped me to get up, and supported me whilst
I awkwardly stumbled about, no longer knowing how to use my legs. We did
laugh so.”
“Yes, yes, you were saved, and I was very pleased.”
“And the day when you brought me some cherries--I can see it all again:
myself reclining on my pillows, and you seated at the edge of the bed,
with the cherries lying between us in a large piece of white paper. I
refused to touch them unless you ate some with me. And then we took them
in turn, one at a time, until the paper was emptied; and they were very
nice.”
“Yes, yes, very nice. It was the same with the currant syrup: you would
only drink it when I took some also.”
Thereupon they laughed yet louder; these recollections quite delighted
them. But a painful sigh from Madame Vetu brought them back to the
present. Ferrand leant over and cast a glance at the sick woman, who had
not stirred. The ward was still full of a quivering peacefulness, which
was only broken by the clear voice of Madame Desagneaux counting the
linen. Stifling with emotion, the young man resumed in a lower tone: “Ah!
Sister, were I to live a hundred years, to know every joy, every
pleasure, I should never love another woman as I love you!”
Then Sister Hyacinthe, without, however, showing any confusion, bowed her
head and resumed her sewing. An almost imperceptible blush tinged her
lily-white skin with pink.
“I also love you well, Monsieur Ferrand,” she said, “but you must not
make me vain. I only did for you what I do for so many others. It is my
business, you see. And there was really only one pleasant thing about it
all, that the Almighty cured you.”
They were now again interrupted. La Grivotte and Elise Rouquet had
returned from the Grotto before the others. La Grivotte at once squatted
down on her mattress on the floor, at the foot of Madame Vetu’s bed, and,
taking a piece of bread from her pocket, proceeded to devour it. Ferrand,
since the day before, had felt some interest in this consumptive patient,
who was traversing such a curious phase of agitation, a prey to an
inordinate appetite and a feverish need of motion. For the moment,
however, Elise Rouquet’s case interested him still more; for it had now
become evident that the lupus, the sore which was eating away her face,
was showing signs of cure. She had continued bathing her face at the
miraculous fountain, and had just come from the Verification Office,
where Doctor Bonamy had triumphed. Ferrand, quite surprised, went and
examined the sore, which, although still far from healed, was already
paler in colour and slightly desiccated, displaying all the symptoms of
gradual cure. And the case seemed to him so curious, that he resolved to
make some notes upon it for one of his old masters at the medical
college, who was studying the nervous origin of certain skin diseases due
to faulty nutrition.
“Have you felt any pricking sensation?” he asked.
“Not at all, monsieur,” she replied. “I bathe my face and tell my beads
with my whole soul, and that is all.”
La Grivotte, who was vain and jealous, and ever since the day before had
been going in triumph among the crowds, thereupon called to the doctor.
“I say, monsieur, I am cured, cured, cured completely!”
He waved his hand to her in a friendly way, but refused to examine her.
“I know, my girl. There is nothing more the matter with you.”
Just then Sister Hyacinthe called to him. She had put her sewing down on
seeing Madame Vetu raise herself in a frightful fit of nausea. In spite
of her haste, however, she was too late with the basin; the sick woman
had brought up another discharge of black matter, similar to soot; but,
this time, some blood was mixed with it, little specks of violet-coloured
blood. It was the hemorrhage coming, the near end which Ferrand had been
dreading.
“Send for the superintendent,” he said in a low voice, seating himself at
the bedside.
Sister Hyacinthe ran for Madame de Jonquiere. The linen having been
counted, she found her deep in conversation with her daughter Raymonde,
at some distance from Madame Desagneaux, who was washing her hands.
Raymonde had just escaped for a few minutes from the refectory, where she
was on duty. This was the roughest of her labours. The long narrow room,
with its double row of greasy tables, its sickening smell of food and
misery, quite disgusted her. And taking advantage of the half-hour still
remaining before the return of the patients, she had hurried up-stairs,
where, out of breath, with a rosy face and shining eyes, she had thrown
her arms around her mother’s neck.
“Ah! mamma,” she cried, “what happiness! It’s settled!”
Amazed, her head buzzing, busy with the superintendence of her ward,
Madame de Jonquiere did not understand. “What’s settled, my child?” she
asked.
Then Raymonde lowered her voice, and, with a faint blush, replied: “My
marriage!”
It was now the mother’s turn to rejoice. Lively satisfaction appeared
upon her face, the fat face of a ripe, handsome, and still agreeable
woman. She at once beheld in her mind’s eye their little lodging in the
Rue Vaneau, where, since her husband’s death, she had reared her daughter
with great difficulty upon the few thousand francs he had left her. This
marriage, however, meant a return to life, to society, the good old times
come back once more.
“Ah! my child, how happy you make me!” she exclaimed.
But a feeling of uneasiness suddenly restrained her. God was her witness
that for three years past she had been coming to Lourdes through pure
motives of charity, for the one great joy of nursing His beloved
invalids. Perhaps, had she closely examined her conscience, she might,
behind her devotion, have found some trace of her fondness for authority,
which rendered her present managerial duties extremely pleasant to her.
However, the hope of finding a husband for her daughter among the
suitable young men who swarmed at the Grotto was certainly her last
thought. It was a thought which came to her, of course, but merely as
something that was possible, though she never mentioned it. However, her
happiness, wrung an avowal from her:
“Ah! my child, your success doesn’t surprise me. I prayed to the Blessed
Virgin for it this morning.”
Then she wished to be quite sure, and asked for further information.
Raymonde had not yet told her of her long walk leaning on Gerard’s arm
the day before, for she did not wish to speak of such things until she
was triumphant, certain of having at last secured a husband. And now it
was indeed settled, as she had exclaimed so gaily: that very morning she
had again seen the young man at the Grotto, and he had formally become
engaged to her. M. Berthaud would undoubtedly ask for her hand on his
cousin’s behalf before they took their departure from Lourdes.
“Well,” declared Madame de Jonquiere, who was now convinced, smiling, and
delighted at heart, “I hope you will be happy, since you are so sensible
and do not need my aid to bring your affairs to a successful issue. Kiss
me.”
It was at this moment that Sister Hyacinthe arrived to announce Madame
Vetu’s imminent death. Raymonde at once ran off. And Madame Desagneaux,
who was wiping her hands, began to complain of the lady-assistants, who
had all disappeared precisely on the morning when they were most wanted.
“For instance,” said she, “there’s Madame Volmar. I should like to know
where she can have got to. She has not been seen, even for an hour, ever
since our arrival.”
“Pray leave Madame Volmar alone!” replied Madame de Jonquiere with some
asperity. “I have already told you that she is ill.”
They both hastened to Madame Vetu. Ferrand stood there waiting; and
Sister Hyacinthe having asked him if there were indeed nothing to be
done, he shook his head. The dying woman, relieved by her first emesis,
now lay inert, with closed eyes. But, a second time, the frightful nausea
returned to her, and she brought up another discharge of black matter
mingled with violet-coloured blood. Then she had another short interval
of calm, during which she noticed La Grivotte, who was greedily devouring
her hunk of bread on the mattress on the floor.
“She is cured, isn’t she?” the poor woman asked, feeling that she herself
was dying.
La Grivotte heard her, and exclaimed triumphantly: “Oh, yes, madame,
cured, cured, cured completely!”
For a moment Madame Vetu seemed overcome by a miserable feeling of grief,
the revolt of one who will not succumb while others continue to live. But
almost immediately she became resigned, and they heard her add very
faintly, “It is the young ones who ought to remain.”
Then her eyes, which remained wide open, looked round, as though bidding
farewell to all those persons, whom she seemed surprised to see about
her. She attempted to smile as she encountered the eager gaze of
curiosity which little Sophie Couteau still fixed upon her: the charming
child had come to kiss her that very morning, in her bed. Elise Rouquet,
who troubled herself about nobody, was meantime holding her hand-glass,
absorbed in the contemplation of her face, which seemed to her to be
growing beautiful, now that the sore was healing. But what especially
charmed the dying woman was the sight of Marie, so lovely in her ecstasy.
She watched her for a long time, constantly attracted towards her, as
towards a vision of light and joy. Perhaps she fancied that she already
beheld one of the saints of Paradise amid the glory of the sun.
Suddenly, however, the fits of vomiting returned, and now she solely
brought up blood, vitiated blood, the colour of claret. The rush was so
great that it bespattered the sheet, and ran all over the bed. In vain
did Madame de Jonquiere and Madame Desagneaux bring cloths; they were
both very pale and scarce able to remain standing. Ferrand, knowing how
powerless he was, had withdrawn to the window, to the very spot where he
had so lately experienced such delicious emotion; and with an instinctive
movement, of which she was surely unconscious, Sister Hyacinthe had
likewise returned to that happy window, as though to be near him.
“Really, can you do nothing?” she inquired.
“No, nothing! She will go off like that, in the same way as a lamp that
has burnt out.”
Madame Vetu, who was now utterly exhausted, with a thin red stream still
flowing from her mouth, looked fixedly at Madame de Jonquiere whilst
faintly moving her lips. The lady-superintendent thereupon bent over her
and heard these slowly uttered words:
“About my husband, madame--the shop is in the Rue Mouffetard--oh! it’s
quite a tiny one, not far from the Gobelins.--He’s a clockmaker, he is;
he couldn’t come with me, of course, having to attend to the business;
and he will be very much put out when he finds I don’t come back.--Yes, I
cleaned the jewelry and did the errands--” Then her voice grew fainter,
her words disjointed by the death rattle, which began. “Therefore,
madame, I beg you will write to him, because I haven’t done so, and now
here’s the end.--Tell him my body had better remain here at Lourdes, on
account of the expense.--And he must marry again; it’s necessary for one
in trade--his cousin--tell him his cousin--”
The rest became a confused murmur. Her weakness was too great, her breath
was halting. Yet her eyes continued open and full of life, amid her pale,
yellow, waxy mask. And those eyes seemed to fix themselves despairingly
on the past, on all that which soon would be no more: the little
clockmaker’s shop hidden away in a populous neighbourhood; the gentle
humdrum existence, with a toiling husband who was ever bending over his
watches; the great pleasures of Sunday, such as watching children fly
their kites upon the fortifications. And at last these staring eyes gazed
vainly into the frightful night which was gathering.
A last time did Madame de Jonquiere lean over her, seeing that her lips
were again moving. There came but a faint breath, a voice from far away,
which distantly murmured in an accent of intense grief: “She did not cure
me.”
And then Madame Vetu expired, very gently.
As though this were all that she had been waiting for, little Sophie
Couteau jumped from the bed quite satisfied, and went off to play with
her doll again at the far end of the ward. Neither La Grivotte, who was
finishing her bread, nor Elise Rouquet, busy with her mirror, noticed the
catastrophe. However, amidst the cold breath which seemingly swept by,
while Madame de Jonquiere and Madame Desagneaux--the latter of whom was
unaccustomed to the sight of death--were whispering together in
agitation, Marie emerged from the expectant rapture in which the
continuous, unspoken prayer of her whole being had plunged her so long.
And when she understood what had happened, a feeling of sisterly
compassion--the compassion of a suffering companion, on her side certain
of cure--brought tears to her eyes.
“Ah! the poor woman!” she murmured; “to think that she has died so far
from home, in such loneliness, at the hour when others are being born
anew!”
Ferrand, who, in spite of professional indifference, had also been
stirred by the scene, stepped forward to verify the death; and it was on
a sign from him that Sister Hyacinthe turned up the sheet, and threw it
over the dead woman’s face, for there could be no question of removing
the corpse at that moment. The patients were now returning from the
Grotto in bands, and the ward, hitherto so calm, so full of sunshine, was
again filling with the tumult of wretchedness and pain--deep coughing and
feeble shuffling, mingled with a noisome smell--a pitiful display, in
fact, of well-nigh every human infirmity.