"Madame." said Monsieur Laurentie; one morning, the eighth that I had
been in the fever-smitten village, "you did not take a promenade
yesterday."
"Not yesterday, monsieur."
"Nor the day before yesterday?" he continued.
"No, monsieur," I answered; "I dare not leave Minima, I fear she is
going to die."
My voice failed me as I spoke to him. I was sitting down for a few
minutes on a low seat, between Minima's bed and one where a little boy
of six years of age lay. Both were delirious. He was the little son of
Jean, our driver, and the sacristan of the church; and his father had
brought him into the ward the evening of the day after Minima had been
taken ill. Jean had besought me with tears to be good to his child. The
two had engrossed nearly all my time and thoughts, and I was losing
heart and hope every hour.
Monsieur Laurentie raised me gently from my low chair, and seated
himself upon it, with a smile, as he looked up at me.
"_Voilà_, madame," he said, "I promise not to quit the chamber till you
return. My sister has a little commission for you to do. Confide the
_mignonne_ to me, and make your promenade in peace. It is necessary,
madame; you must obey me."
The commission for mademoiselle was to carry some food and medicine to a
cottage lower down the valley; and Jean's eldest son, Pierre, was
appointed to be my guide. Both the curé and his sister gave me a strict
charge as to what we were to do; neither of us was upon any account to
go near or enter the dwelling; but after the basket was deposited upon a
flat stone, which Pierre was to point out to me, he was to ring a small
hand-bell which he carried with him for that purpose. Then we were to
turn our backs and begin our retreat, before any person came out of the
infected house.
I set out with Pierre, a solemn-looking boy of about twelve years of
age, who cast upon me sidelong glances of silent scrutiny. We passed
down the village street, with its closely-packed houses forming a very
nest for fever, until we reached the road by which I had first entered
Ville-en-bois. Now that I could see it by daylight, the valley was
extremely narrow, and the hills on each side so high that, though the
sun had risen nearly three hours ago, it had but just climbed above the
brow of the eastern slope. There was a luxurious and dank growth of
trees, with a tangle of underwood and boggy soil beneath them. A vapor
was shining in rainbow colors against the brightening sky. In the depth
of the valley, but hidden by the thicket, ran a noisy stream--too noisy
to be any thing else than shallow. There had been no frost since the
sharp and keen wintry weather in December, and the heavy rains which had
fallen since had flooded the stream, and made the lowlands soft and oozy
with undrained moisture. My guide and I trudged along in silence for
almost a kilometre.
"Are you a pagan, madame?" inquired Pierre, at last, with eager
solemnity of face and voice. His blue eyes were fastened upon me
pityingly.
"No, Pierre," I replied.
"But you are a heretic," he pursued.
"I suppose so," I said.
"Pagans and heretics are the same," he rejoined, dogmatically; "you are
a heretic, therefore you are a pagan, madame."
"I am not a pagan," I persisted; "I am a Christian like you."
"Does Monsieur le Curé say you are a Christian?" he inquired.
"You can ask him, Pierre," I replied.
"He will know," he said, in a confident tone; "he knows every thing.
There is no curé like monsieur between Ville-en-bois and Paris. All the
world must acknowledge that. He is our priest, our doctor, our _juge de
paix_, our school-master. Did you ever know a curé like him before,
madame?"
"I never knew any curé before," I replied.
"Never knew any cure!" he repeated slowly; "then, madame, you must be a
pagan. Did you never confess? Were you never prepared for your first
communion? Oh! it is certain, madame, you are a true pagan."
We had not any more time to discuss my religion, for we were drawing
near the end of our expedition. Above the tops of the trees appeared a
tall chimney, and a sudden turn in the by-road we had taken brought us
full in sight of a small cotton-mill, built on the banks of the noisy
stream. It was an ugly, formal building, as all factories are, with
straight rows of window-frames; but both walls and roof were mouldering
into ruin, and looked as though they must before long sink into the
brawling waters that were sapping the foundations. A more
mournfully-dilapidated place I had never seen. A blight seemed to have
fallen upon it; some solemn curse might be brooding over it, and slowly
working out its total destruction.
In the yard adjoining this deserted factory stood a miserable cottage,
with a thatched roof, and eaves projecting some feet from the walls, and
reaching nearly to the ground, except where the door was. The small
casements of the upper story, if there were any, were completely hidden.
A row of _fleur-de-lis_ was springing up, green and glossy, along the
peak of the brown thatch; this and the picturesque eaves forming its
only beauty. The thatch looked old and rotten, and was beginning to
steam in the warm sunshine. The unpaved yard about it was a slough of
mire and mud. There were mould and mildew upon all the wood-work. The
place bore the aspect of a pest-house, shunned by all the inmates of the
neighboring village. Pierre led me to a large flat stone, which had once
been a horse-block, standing at a safe distance from this hovel, and I
laid down my basket upon it. Then he rang his hand-bell noisily, and the
next instant was scampering back along the road.
But I could not run away. The desolate, plague-stricken place had a
dismal fascination for me. I wondered what manner of persons could dwell
in it; and, as I lingered, I saw the low door opened, and a thin,
spectral figure standing in the gloom within, but delaying to cross the
mouldering door-sill as long as I remained in sight. In another minute
Pierre had rushed back for me, and dragged me away with all his boyish
strength and energy.
"Madame," he said, in angry remonstrance, "you are disobeying Monsieur
le Curé. If you catch the fever, and die while you are a pagan, it will
be impossible for you to go to heaven. It would be a hundred times
better for me to die, who have taken my first communion."
"But who lives there?" I asked.
"They are very wicked people," he answered, emphatically; "no one goes
near them, except Monsieur le Curé, and he would go and nurse the devil
himself, if he had the fever in his parish. They became wicked before my
time, and Monsieur le Curé has forbidden us to speak of them with
rancor, so we do not speak of them at all."
I walked back in sadness, wondering at this misery and solitariness by
the side of the healthy, simple society of the lonely village, with its
interwoven family interests. As I passed through the street again, I
heard the click of the hand-looms in most of the dwellings, and saw the
pale-faced weavers, in their white and tasselled caps, here a man and
there a woman, look after me, while they suspended their work for a
moment. Every door was open; the children ran in and out of any house,
playing together as if they were of one family; the women were knitting
in companies under the eaves. Who were these pariahs, whose name even
was banished from every tongue? I must ask the curé himself.
But I had no opportunity that day. When I returned to the sick-ward, I
found Monsieur Laurentie pacing slowly up and down the long room, with
Jean's little son in his arms, to whom he was singing in a low, soft
voice, scarcely louder than a whisper. His eyes, when they met mine,
were glistening with tears, and he shook his head mournfully.
I went on to look at Minima. She was lying quiet, too weak and exhausted
to be violent, but chattering all the time in rapid, childish sentences.
I could do nothing for her, and I went back to the hearth, where the
curé was now standing, looking sadly at the child in his arms. He bade
me sit down on a tabouret that stood there, and laid his little burden
on my lap.
"The child has no mother, madame," he said; "let him die in a woman's
arms."
I had never seen any one die, not even my father, and I shrank from
seeing it. But the small white face rested helplessly against my arm,
and the blue eyes unclosed for a moment, and gazed into mine, almost
with a smile. Monsieur Laurentie called in Jean and Pierre, and they
knelt before us in silence, broken only by sobs. In the room there were
children's voices talking about their toys, and calling to one another
in shrill, feverish accents. How many deaths such as this was I to
witness?
"Monsieur le Curé!" murmured the failing voice of the little child.
"What is it, my little one?" he said, stooping over him.
"Shall I play sometimes with the little child Jesus?"
The words fell one by one from the feeble lips.
"Yes, _mon chéri_, yes. The holy child Jesus knows what little children
need," answered the curé.
"He is always good and wise," whispered the dying child; "so good, so
wise."
How quickly it was over after that!