The next day Madeleine Conti had a sudden turn for the worse, which
surprised the attendants. Doctor Kimball, the American, doctor, and Père
François, who had administered the last rites, were walking together in
the little formal garden, where the sun flung short, brilliant shadows
of scattered foliage about them.
"She was an extraordinary artist and her life was more extraordinary,"
said Dr. Kimball. "I heard her début at the Opéra Comique. For ten years
her name was the gossip of all Europe. Then all at once she meets a man
whom no one knows, falls in love, and is transformed. These women are
really extraordinary examples of hysteria. Each time I know one it makes
me understand the scientific phenomenon of Mary Magdalene. It is really
a case of nerve reaction. The moral fever that is the fiercest burns
itself out the quickest and seems to leave no trace behind. In this case
love came also as a religious conversion. I should say the phenomena
were identical."
"She was happy," said the curé, turning to go.
"Yes, it was a great romance."
"A rare one. She adored him. Love is a tide that cleanses all."
"Yet she was of the stage up to the last. You know she would not have
her husband in the room at the end."
"She had a great heart," said the curé quietly. "She wished to spare
him that suffering."
"She had an extraordinary will," said the doctor, glancing at him
quickly. He added, tentatively: "She asked two questions that were
curious enough."
"Indeed," said the curé, lingering a moment with his hand on the gate.
"She wanted to know whether persons in a delirium talked of the past and
if after death the face returned to its calm."
"What did you say to her about the effects of delirium?" said the curé
with his blank face.
"That it was a point difficult to decide," said the doctor slowly.
"Undoubtedly, in a delirium, everything is mixed, the real and the
imagined, the memory and the fantasy, actual experience and the inner
dream-life of the mind which is so difficult to classify. It was after
that, that she made her husband promise to see her only when she was
conscious and to remain away at the last."
"It is easily understood," said the curé quietly, without change of
expression on his face that held the secrets of a thousand
confessionals. "As you say, for ten years she had lived a different
life. She was afraid that in her delirium some reference to that time
might wound unnecessarily the man who had made over her life. She had a
great courage. Peace be with her soul."
"Still,"--Doctor Kimball hesitated, as though considering the phrasing
of a delicate question; but Father François, making a little amical sign
of adieu, passed out of the garden, and for a moment his blank face was
illumined by one of those rare smiles, such as one sees on the faces of
holy men; smiles that seem in perfect faith to look upon the mysteries
of the world to come.