The peasant was standing opposite the doctor, by the bedside of the
dying old woman, and she, calmly resigned and quite lucid, looked at
them and listened to their talking. She was going to die, and she did
not rebel at it, for her time was over, as she was ninety-two.
The July sun streamed in at the window and the open door and cast its
hot flames onto the uneven brown clay floor, which had been stamped down
by four generations of clod-hoppers. The smell of the fields came in
also, driven by the sharp wind, and parched by the noontide heat. The
grasshoppers chirped themselves hoarse, and filled the country with
their shrill noise, which was like that of the wooden crickets which are
sold to children at fair time.
The doctor raised his voice and said: "Honoré, you cannot leave your
mother in this state; she may die at any moment." And the peasant, in
great distress replied: "But I must get in my wheat, for it has been
lying on the ground a long time, and the weather is just right for it;
what do you say about it, mother?" And the dying old woman, still
tormented by her Norman avariciousness, replied _yes_ with her eyes and
her forehead, and so urged her son to get in his wheat, and to leave her
to die alone, but the doctor got angry, and stamping his foot, he said:
"You are no better than a brute, do you hear, and I will not allow you
to do it, do you understand? And if you must get in your wheat to-day,
go and fetch Rapet's wife and make her look after your mother. I will
have it, do you understand me? And if you do not obey me, I will let you
die like a dog, when you are ill in your turn; do you hear me?"
The peasant, a tall, thin fellow with slow movements, who was tormented
by indecision, by his fear of the doctor and his fierce love of saving,
hesitated, calculated and stammered out: "How much does la Rapet charge
for attending sick people?" "How should I know?" the doctor cried. "That
depends upon how long she is wanted for. Settle it with her, by Jove!
But I want her to be here within an hour, do you hear?"
So the man made up his mind: "I will go for her," he replied; "don't get
angry, doctor." And the latter left, calling out as he went: "Take care,
you know, for I do not joke when I am angry!" And as soon as they were
alone, the peasant turned to his mother and said in a resigned voice: "I
will go and fetch la Rapet, as the man will have it. Don't go off while
I am away."
And he went out in his turn.
* * * * *
La Rapet, who was an old washerwoman, watched the dead and the dying of
the neighborhood, and then, as soon as she had sown her customers into
that linen cloth from which they would emerge no more, she went and took
up her iron to smooth the linen of the living. Wrinkled like a last
year's apple, spiteful, envious, avaricious with a phenomenal avarice,
bent double, as if she had been broken in half across the loins, by the
constant movement of the iron over the linen, one might have said that
she had a kind of monstrous and cynical affection for a death struggle.
She never spoke of anything but of the people she had seen die, of the
various kinds of deaths at which she had been present, and she related
with the greatest minuteness, details which were always the same, just
like a sportsman recounts his shots.
When Honoré Bontemps entered her cottage, he found her preparing the
starch for the collars of the village women, and he said: "Good evening;
I hope you are pretty well, Mother Rapet?"
She turned her head round to look at him, and said: "Fairly well, fairly
well, and you?" "Oh! as for me, I am as well as I could wish, but my
mother is very poorly." "Your mother?" "Yes, my mother!" "What's the
matter with her?" "She is going to turn up her toes, that's what's the
matter with her!"
The old woman took her hands out of the water and asked with sudden
sympathy: "Is she as bad as all that?" "The doctor says she will not
last till morning." "Then she certainly is very bad!" Honoré hesitated,
for he wanted to make a few preambulatory remarks before coming to his
proposal, but as he could hit upon nothing, he made up his mind
suddenly.
"How much are you going to ask to stop with her till the end? You know
that I am not rich, and I cannot even afford to keep a servant-girl. It
is just that which has brought my poor mother to this state, too much
work and fatigue! She used to work for ten, in spite of her ninety-two
years. You don't find any made of that stuff nowadays!..."
La Rapet answered gravely: "There are two prices: Forty sous by day and
three francs by night for the rich, and twenty sous by day, and forty by
night for the others. You shall pay me the twenty and forty." But the
peasant reflected, for he knew his mother well. He knew how tenacious of
life, vigorous and unyielding she was, and she might last another week,
in spite of the doctor's opinion, and so he said resolutely: "No, I
would rather you would fix a price until the end. I will take my chance,
one way or the other. The doctor says she will die very soon. If that
happens so much the better for you, and so much the worse for me, but if
she holds out till to-morrow or longer, so much the better for me and so
much the worse for you!"
The nurse looked at the man in astonishment, for she had never treated a
death as a speculative job, and she hesitated, tempted by the idea of
the possible gain, but almost immediately she suspected that he wanted
to juggle her, "I can say nothing until I have seen your mother," she
replied. "Then come with me and see her."
She washed her hands, and went with him immediately.
They did not speak on the road; she walked with short, hasty steps,
while he strode on with his long legs, as if he were crossing a brook at
every step.
The cows lying down in the fields, overcome by the heat, raised their
heads heavily and lowed feebly at the two passers-by, as if to ask them
for some green grass.
When they got near the house, Honoré Bontemps murmured: "Suppose it is
all over?" And the unconscious wish which he had that it might be so,
showed itself in the sound of his voice.
But the old woman was not dead. She was lying on her back, on her
wretched bed, her hands covered with a pink cotton counterpane, horribly
thin, knotty hands, like strange animals, like crabs, and closed by
rheumatism, fatigue, and the work of nearly a century which she had
accomplished.
La Rapet went up to the bed and looked at the dying woman, felt her
pulse, tapped her on the chest, listened to her breathing, and asked her
questions, so as to hear her speak: and then, having looked at her for
some time longer, she went out of the room, followed by Honoré. Her
decided opinion was that the old woman would not last out the night, and
he asked: "Well?" And the sick-nurse replied: "Well, she may last two
days, perhaps three. You will have to give me six francs, everything
included."
"Six francs! six francs!" he shouted. "Are you out of your mind? I tell
you that she cannot last more than five or six hours!" And they disputed
angrily for some time, but as the nurse said she would go home, as the
time was going by, and as his wheat would not come to the farmyard of
its own accord, he agreed to her terms at last:
"Very well then, that is settled; six francs including everything, until
the corpse is taken out." "That is settled, six francs."
And he went away, with long strides, to his wheat, which was lying on
the ground under the hot sun, which ripens the grain, while the
sick-nurse returned to the house.
She had brought some work with her, for she worked without stopping by
the side of the dead and the dying, sometimes for herself, sometimes for
the family which employed her as seamstress also, paying her rather
more in that capacity. Suddenly she asked: "Have you received the last
sacraments, Mother Bontemps?"
The old peasant woman said "no" with her head, and la Rapet, who was
very devout, got up quickly: "Good heavens, is it possible? I will go
and fetch the Curé;" and she rushed off to the parsonage so quickly,
that the urchins in the street thought some accident had happened, when
they saw her trotting off like that.
* * * * *
The priest came immediately in his surplice, preceded by a choir-boy,
who rang a bell, to announce the passage of the Host through the parched
and quiet country. Some men, who were working at a distance, took off
their large hats and remained motionless until the white vestment had
disappeared behind some farm buildings; the women who were making up the
sheaves, stood up to make the sign of the cross; the frightened black
hens ran away along the ditch until they reached a well-known hole
through which they suddenly disappeared, while a foal, which was tied up
in a meadow, took fright at the sight of the surplice and began to turn
round at the length of its rope, kicking violently. The choir-boy, in
his red cassock, walked quickly, and the priest, with his head inclined
towards one shoulder, and with his square biretta on his head, followed
him, muttering some prayers, and last of all came la Rapet, bent almost
double, as if she wished to prostrate herself as she walked with folded
hands, as if she were in church.
Honoré saw them pass in the distance, and he asked: "Where is our priest
going to?" And his man, who was more acute, replied: "He is taking the
sacrament to your mother, of course!"
The peasant was not surprised, and said: "That is quite possible," and
went on with his work.
Mother Bontemps confessed, received absolution and communion, and the
priest took his departure, leaving the two women alone in the
suffocating cottage, while la Rapet began to look at the dying woman,
and to ask herself whether it could last much longer.
The day was on the wane, and a cooler air came in stronger puffs, and
made a view of Epinal, which was fastened to the wall by two pins, flap
up and down, the scanty window curtains, which had formerly been white,
but were now yellow and covered with fly-specks, looked as if they were
going to fly off and seemed to struggle to get away, like the old
woman's soul.
She lying motionless, with her eyes open, seemed to await that death
which was so near and which yet delayed its coming, with perfect
indifference. Her short breath whistled in her tightening throat. It
would stop altogether soon, and there would be one woman less in the
world, whom nobody would regret.
At nightfall Honoré returned, and when he went up to the bed and saw
that his mother was still alive, he asked: "How is she?" just as he had
done formerly, when she had been unwell, and then he sent la Rapet away,
saying to her: "To-morrow morning at five o'clock, without fail." And
she replied: "To-morrow, at five o'clock."
She came at daybreak, and found Honoré eating his soup, which he had
made himself, before going to work, and the sick-nurse asked him: "Well,
is your mother dead?" "She is rather better, on the contrary," he
replied, with a malignant look out of the corner of his eyes. And he
went out.
La Rapet was seized with anxiety, and went up to the dying woman, who
remained in the same state, lethargic and impassive, with her eyes open
and her hands clutching the counterpane. The nurse perceived that this
might go on thus for two days, four days, eight days, and her avaricious
mind was seized with fear, while she was excited to furious rage against
the cunning fellow who had tricked her, and against the woman, who would
not die.
Nevertheless, she began to work and waited with her looks fixed on the
wrinkled face of Mother Bontemps, and when Honoré returned to breakfast
he seemed quite satisfied and even in a bantering humor, for he was
decidedly carrying in his wheat under very favorable circumstances.
* * * * *
La Rapet was getting exasperated; every minute passed now seemed to her
so much time and money stolen from her. She felt a mad inclination to
take this old ass, this headstrong old fool, this obstinate old wretch,
and to stop that short, rapid breath, which was robbing her of her time
and money, by squeezing her throat a little. But then, she reflected on
the danger of doing so, and other thoughts came into her head, so she
went up to the bed and said to her: "Have you ever seen the Devil?"
Mother Bontemps whispered: "No."
Then the sick-nurse began to talk and to tell her tales which were
likely to terrify her weak and dying mind. Some minutes before one died
the Devil appeared, she said, to all who were in their death throes. He
had a broom in his hand, a saucepan on his head, and he uttered loud
cries. When anybody had seen him, all was over, and that person had only
a few moments longer to live; and she enumerated all those to whom the
Devil had appeared that year: Josephine Loisel, Eulalie Ratier, Sophie
Padagnau, Séraphine Grospied.
Mother Bontemps, who was at last most disturbed in mind, moved about,
wrung her hands, and tried to turn her head to look at the bottom of the
room, and suddenly la Rapet disappeared at the foot of the bed. She took
a sheet out of the cupboard and wrapped herself up in it; she put the
iron pot onto her head, so that its three short bent feet rose up like
horns, and she took a broom in her right hand and a tin pail in her
left, which she threw up suddenly, so that it might fall to the ground
noisily.
And certainly when it came down, it made a terrible noise; then,
climbing onto a chair, the nurse lifted up the curtain which hung at the
bottom of the bed, and showed herself, gesticulating and uttering shrill
cries into the pot which covered her face, while she menaced the old
peasant woman, who was nearly dead, with her broom.
Terrified, with a mad look on her face, the dying woman made a
superhuman effort to get up and escape; she even got her shoulders and
chest out of bed; then she fell back with a deep sigh. All was over, and
la Rapet calmly put everything back into its place; the broom into the
corner by the cupboard, the sheet inside it, the pot on the hearth, the
pail on the floor and the chair against the wall. Then, with
professional movements, she closed the dead woman's enormous eyes, put
a plate on the bed and poured some holy water into it, dipped the twig
of boxwood into it, and kneeling down, she fervently repeated the
prayers for the dead, which she knew by heart, as a matter of business.
And when Honoré returned in the evening, he found her praying, and he
calculated immediately that she had made twenty sous out of him, for she
had only spent three days and one night there, which made five francs
altogether, instead of the six which he owed her.