It was just five minutes past twelve, and M. Mauperin was seated by
Renée's bed, holding her two hands in his. Renée glanced at the
time-piece.
"He'll be here soon," said M. Mauperin.
Renée answered by closing her eye-lids gently, and her breathing and the
beating of her heart could be heard like the ticking of a watch in the
silence of the room at night.
Suddenly a peal of the door-bell rang out, clearly and imperiously,
vibrating through the house. It seemed to M. Mauperin as though it had
been rung within him, and a shudder passed through him to his very
finger-tips like a needle-prick. He went to the door and opened it.
"It is some one who rang by mistake, sir," said the servant-man.
"It's very warm," said M. Mauperin to his daughter as he took his seat
again, looking very pale.
Five minutes later the servant knocked. The doctor was waiting in the
drawing-room.
"Ah!" said M. Mauperin, getting up once more.
"Go to him," murmured Renée, and then calling him back, she asked,
looking alarmed: "Is he going to examine me?"
"I don't know; I don't think so. There'll be no need, perhaps," answered
M. Mauperin, playing with the knob of the door.
* * * * *
M. Mauperin had fetched the doctor and left him with his daughter. He
was in the drawing-room waiting the result. He had walked up and down,
taken a seat, and gazed mechanically at a flower on the carpet, and had
then gone to the window and was tapping with his fingers on the pane.
It seemed to him as though everything within himself and all round had
suddenly stopped. He did not know whether he had been there an hour or a
minute. It was one of those moments in life for him, the measure and
duration of which cannot be calculated. He felt as though he were living
again through his whole existence, and as though all the emotions of a
lifetime were crowded into a moment that was eternal.
He turned dizzy, like a man in a dream falling from a height and
enduring the anguish of falling. All kinds of indistinct ideas, of
confused anxieties and vague terrors, seemed to rise from the pit of his
stomach and buzz round his temples. Yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, the
doctor, his daughter, her illness, all this whirled round in his head,
perplexing him, mingled as it all was with a physical sensation of
uneasiness, anxiety, fear, and dread. Then all at once one idea became
distinct. He had one of those clear visions that cross the mind at such
times. He saw the doctor with his ear pressed against his daughter's
back and he listened with him. He thought he heard the bed creak as it
does when any one turns on it. It was over, they would be coming now;
but no one came. He began pacing up and down again, as he could not keep
still. He grew irritable with impatience and thought the doctor was a
very long time, but the next minute he said to himself that it was a
good sign, that a great specialist would not relish wasting his time,
and that if there had been nothing he could do, he would already have
been back. Fresh hope came to him with this thought: his daughter was
saved; when the doctor came in he should see by his face that his
daughter was saved. He watched the door, but no one came. Then he began
to say to himself that they would have to take precautions, that perhaps
she would always be delicate, that there were plenty of people who went
on living in spite of palpitation of the heart. Then the word, the
terrible word, _death_, came to him and haunted him. He tried to drive
it away by thinking over and over again the same thoughts about
convalescence, getting well, and good health. He went over in his mind
all the persons he had known, who had been ill a long time, and who were
not dead. And yet in spite of all his efforts the same question kept
coming back to him: "What would the doctor tell him?"
He repeated this over and over again to himself. It seemed to him as
though this visit were never going to finish and never would finish. And
then at times he would shudder at the idea of seeing the door open. He
would have liked to remain as he was forever, and _never_ know. Finally
hope came back to him once more, just as the door opened.
"Well?" said M. Mauperin to the doctor as he entered the room.
"You must be brave," said the doctor.
M. Mauperin looked up, glanced at the doctor, moved his lips without
uttering a word--his mouth was dry and parched.
The doctor began to explain in full his daughter's disease, its gravity,
the complications that were to be feared: he then wrote out a long
prescription, saying to M. Mauperin at each item:
"You understand?"
"Perfectly!" answered M. Mauperin, looking stupefied.
* * * * *
"Ah, my dear little girl, you are going to get well!"
These were M. Mauperin's words to his daughter when he went back to her
room.
"Really?" she asked.
"Kiss me."
"What did he tell you?"
"Well, you need only look at my face to know what he said," answered M.
Mauperin, smiling at her. He felt as though it would kill him, though,
that smile; and turning away under the pretence of looking for his hat,
he continued, "I must go to Paris to get the prescription made up."