Eight o’clock was striking from the convent of the Visitation, the clock
of the quarter, when the inquisitive Godefroid tapped gently at his
neighbor’s door. Auguste opened it. As it happened to be a Saturday, the
young lad had his evening to himself. Godefroid beheld him in a little
sack-coat of black velvet, a blue silk cravat, and black trousers. But
his surprise at the youth’s appearance, so different from that of this
outside life, ceased as soon as he had entered the invalid’s chamber. He
then understood the reason why both father and son were well dressed.
For a moment the contrast between the squalor of the other rooms, as he
had seen them that morning, and the luxury of this chamber, was so great
that Godefroid was dazzled, though habituated for years to the luxury
and elegance procured by wealth.
The walls of the room were hung with yellow silk, relieved by twisted
fringes of a bright green, giving a gay and cheerful aspect to the
chamber, the cold tiled floor of which was hidden by a moquette carpet
with a white ground strewn with flowers. The windows, draped by handsome
curtains lined with white silk, were like conservatories, so full were
they of plants in flower. The blinds were lowered, which prevented this
luxury, so rare in that quarter of the town, from being seen from the
street. The woodwork was painted in white enamel, touched up, here and
there, by a few gold lines.
At the door was a heavy portiere, embroidered by hand with fantastic
foliage on a yellow ground, so thick that all sounds from without were
stifled. This magnificent curtain was made by the sick woman herself,
who could work, when she had the use of her hands, like a fairy.
At the farther end of the room, and opposite to the door, was the
fireplace, with a green velvet mantel-shelf, on which a few extremely
elegant ornaments, the last relics of the opulence of two families,
were arranged. These consisted of a curious clock, in the shape of an
elephant supporting on its back a porcelain tower which was filled with
the choicest flowers; two candelabra in the same style, and several
precious Chinese treasures. The fender, andirons, tongs, and shovel were
all of the handsomest description.
The largest of the flower-stands was placed in the middle of the room,
and above it hung a porcelain chandelier designed with wreaths of
flowers.
The bed on which the old man’s daughter lay was one of those beautiful
white and gold carved bedsteads such as were made in the Louis XV.
period. By the sick woman’s pillow was a very pretty marquetry table,
on which were the various articles necessary to this bedridden life.
Against the wall was a bracket lamp with two branches, either of which
could be moved forward or back by a mere touch of the hand. A small
table, adapted to the use of the invalid, extended in front of her. The
bed, covered with a beautiful counterpane, and draped with curtains held
back by cords, was heaped with books, a work-basket, and articles of
embroidery, beneath which Godefroid would scarcely have distinguished
the sick woman herself had it not been for the light of the bracket
lamps.
There was nothing of her to be seen but a face of extreme whiteness,
browned around the eyes by suffering, in which shone eyes of fire, its
principal adornment being a magnificent mass of black hair, the numerous
heavy curls of which, carefully arranged, showed that the dressing of
those beautiful locks occupied a good part of the invalid’s morning.
This supposition was further strengthened by the portable mirror which
lay on the bed.
No modern arrangement for comfort was lacking. Even a few knick-knacks,
which amused poor Vanda, proved that the father’s love was almost
fanatical.
The old man rose from an elegant Louis XV. sofa in white and cold,
covered with tapestry, and advanced to Godefroid, who would certainly
not have recognized him elsewhere; for that cold, stern face now wore
the gay expression peculiar to old men of the world, who retain the
manners and apparent frivolity of the nobility about a court. His wadded
violet gown was in keeping with this luxury, and he took snuff from a
gold box studded with diamonds.
“Here, my dear daughter,” said Monsieur Bernard, taking Godefroid by the
hand, “is the neighbor of whom I told you.”
He signed to his grandson to draw up one of two armchairs, similar in
style to the sofa, which stood beside the fireplace.
“Monsieur’s name is Godefroid, and he is full of friendly kindness for
us.”
Vanda made a motion with her head in answer to Godefroid’s low bow; by
the very way in which her neck bent and then recovered itself, Godefroid
saw that the whole physical life of the invalid was in her head. The
thin arms and flaccid hands lay on the fine, white linen of the sheets,
like things not connected with the body, which, indeed, seemed to fill
no place at all in the bed. The articles necessary for a sick person
were on shelves standing behind the bedstead, and were concealed by a
drawn curtain.
“You are the first person, monsieur,--except my doctors, who are not men
to me,--whom I have seen for six years; therefore you cannot doubt
the interest you have excited in my mind, since my father told me
this morning that you were to pay me a visit--interest! no, it was an
unconquerable curiosity, like that of our mother Eve. My father, who is
so good to me, and my son, whom I love so much, do certainly suffice to
fill the desert of a soul which is almost without a body; but after all,
that soul is still a woman’s; I feel it in the childish joy the thought
of your visit has brought me. You will do me the pleasure to take a cup
of tea with us, I hope?”
“Monsieur has promised to pass the evening here,” said the old man, with
the air of a millionnaire receiving a guest.
Auguste, sitting on a tapestried chair at a marquetry table with brass
trimmings, was reading a book by the light of the candelabra on the
chimney piece.
“Auguste, my dear,” said his mother, “tell Jean to serve tea in an hour.
Would you believe it monsieur,” she added, “that for six years I have
been waited upon wholly by my father and son, and now, I really think, I
could bear no other attendance. If they were to fail me I should die.
My father will not even allow Jean, a poor Norman who has served us for
thirty years, to come into my room.”
“I should think not!” said the old man, quickly; “monsieur knows him; he
chops wood and brings it in, and cooks; he wears dirty aprons, and would
soon spoil all this elegance in which you take such pleasure--this room
is really the whole of life to my poor daughter, monsieur.”
“Ah! madame, your father is quite right.”
“But why?” she said; “if Jean did any damage to my room my father would
restore it.”
“Yes, my child; but remember you could not leave it; you don’t know what
Parisian tradesmen are; they would take three months to renovate your
room. Let Jean take care of it? no, indeed! how can you think of it?
Auguste and I take such precautions that we allow no dust, and so avoid
all sweeping.”
“It is a matter of health, not economy,” said Godefroid; “your father is
right.”
“I am not complaining,” said Vanda, in a caressing voice.
That voice was a concert of delightful sounds. Soul, motion, life itself
were concentrated in the glance and in the voice of this woman; for
Vanda had succeeded by study, for which time was certainly not lacking
to her, in conquering the difficulty produced by the loss of her teeth.
“I have much to make me happy in the midst of my sufferings, monsieur,”
she said; “and certainly ample means are a great help in bearing
trouble. If we had been poor I should have died eighteen years ago,
but I still live. Oh, yes, I have many enjoyments, and they are all the
greater because they are perpetually won from death. I am afraid you
will think me quite garrulous,” she added, smiling.
“Madame, I should like to listen to you forever,” replied Godefroid;
“I have never heard a voice that was comparable to yours; it is music;
Rubini is not more enchanting.”
“Don’t speak of Rubini or the opera,” said the old man, sadly. “That
is a pleasure that, rich as I am, I cannot give to my daughter. She was
once a great musician, and the opera was her greatest pleasure.”
“Forgive me,” said Godefroid.
“You will soon get accustomed to us,” said the old man.
“Yes, and this is the process,” said the sick woman, laughing; “when
they’ve cried ‘puss, puss, puss,’ often enough you’ll learn the
puss-in-the-corner of our conversations.”
Godefroid gave a rapid glance at Monsieur Bernard, who, seeing the tears
in the eyes of his new neighbor, seemed to be making him a sign not to
undo the results of the self-command he and his grandson had practised
for so many years.
This sublime and perpetual imposture, proved by the complete illusion of
the sick woman, produced on Godefroid’s mind the impression of an
Alpine precipice down which two chamois hunters picked their way. The
magnificent gold snuff-box enriched with diamonds with which the old man
carelessly toyed as he sat by his daughter’s bedside was like the stroke
of genius which in the work of a great man elicits a cry of admiration.
Godefroid looked at that snuff-box, wondering it had not been sold or
found its way to the mont-de-piete.
“This evening, Monsieur Godefroid, my daughter received the announcement
of your visit with such excitement that all the curious symptoms of her
malady which have troubled us very much for the last twelve days have
entirely disappeared. You can fancy how grateful I am to you.”
“And I, too,” said the invalid in her caressing tones, drooping her head
with a motion full of coquetry. “Monsieur is to me a deputy from the
world. Since I was twenty years old, monsieur, I have not seen a salon,
or a party, or a ball. And I must tell you that I love dancing, and
adore the theatre, especially the opera. I imagine everything by
thought! I read a great deal; and then my father, who goes into society,
tells me about social events.”
Godefroid made an involuntary movement as if to kneel at the old man’s
feet.
“Yes, when he goes to the opera, and he often goes, he describes to me
the singing and tells me about the dresses of the ladies. Oh! I would I
were cured for the sake of my father, who lives solely for me as I live
by him and for him, and then for my son, to whom I would fain be a real
mother. Ah! monsieur, what blessed beings my old father and my good
son are! I should also like to recover so as to hear Lablache, Rubini,
Tamburini, Grisi, and ‘I Puritani.’ But--”
“Come, come, my child, be calm! If we talk music we are lost!” said the
old man, smiling.
That smile, which rejuvenated his face, was evidently a perpetual
deception to the sick woman.
“Yes, yes, I’ll be good,” said Vanda, with a petulant little air; “but
when will you give me an accordion?”
The portable instrument then called by that name had just been invented.
It could, if desired, be placed at the edge of a bedstead, and only
needed the pressure of a foot to give out the sounds of an organ. This
instrument, in its highest development, was equal to a piano; but the
cost of it was three hundred francs. Vanda, who read the newspapers and
reviews, knew of the existence of the instrument, and had wished for one
for the last two months.
“Yes, madame, you shall have one,” said Godefroid, after exchanging
a look with the old man. “A friend of mine who is just starting for
Algiers has a fine instrument and I will borrow it of him. Before
buying, you had better try one. It is possible that the powerful,
vibrating tones may be too much for you.”
“Can I have it to-morrow?” she said, with the wilfulness of a creole.
“To-morrow?” said Monsieur Bernard, “that is soon; besides, to-morrow is
Sunday.”
“Ah--” she exclaimed, looking at Godefroid, who fancied he could see a
soul hovering in the air as he admired the ubiquity of Vanda’s glances.
Until then, Godefroid had never known the power of voice and eyes when
the whole of life is put into them. The glance was no longer a glance,
a look, it was a flame, or rather, a divine incandescence, a radiance,
communicating life and mind,--it was thought made visible. The voice,
with its thousand intonations, took the place of motions, gestures,
attitudes. The variations of the complexion, changing color like the
famous chameleon, made the illusion, perhaps we should say the mirage,
complete. That suffering head lying on the white pillow edged with laces
was a whole person in itself.
Never in his life had Godefroid seen so wonderful a sight; he could
scarcely control his emotions. Another wonder, for all was wondrous in
this scene, so full of horror and yet of poesy, was that in those who
saw it soul alone existed. This atmosphere, filled with mental emotions
only, had a celestial influence. Those present felt their bodies as
little as the sick woman felt hers. They were all mind. As Godefroid
contemplated that frail fragment of woman he forgot the surrounding
elegancies of the room, and fancied himself beneath the open heavens. It
was not until half an hour had passed that he came back to his sense
of things about him; he then noticed a fine picture, which the invalid
asked him to examine, saying it was by Gericault.
“Gericault,” she told him, “came from Rouen; his family were under
certain obligations to my father, who was president of the court, and he
showed his gratitude by painting that portrait of me when I was a girl
of sixteen.”
“It is a beautiful picture,” said Godefroid; “and quite unknown to those
who are in search of the rare works of that master.”
“To me it is merely an object of affection,” replied Vanda; “I live in
my heart only,--and it is a beautiful life,” she added, casting a look
at her father in which she seemed to put her very soul. “Ah! monsieur,
if you only knew what my father really is! Who would believe that
the stern and lofty magistrate to whom the Emperor was under such
obligations that he gave him that snuff-box, and on whom Charles X.
bestowed as a reward that Sevres tea-set which you see behind you, who
would suppose that that rigid supporter of power and law, that learned
jurist, should have within his heart of rock the heart of a mother, too?
Oh! papa, papa! kiss me, kiss me! come!”
The old man rose, leaned over the bed and kissed the broad poetic
forehead of his daughter, whose passionate excitements did not always
take the turn of this tempest of affection. Then he walked about the
room; his slippers, embroidered by his daughter, making no noise.
“What are your occupations?” said Vanda to Godefroid, after a pause.
“Madame, I am employed by pious persons to help the unfortunate.”
“Ah! what a noble mission, monsieur!” she said. “Do you know the thought
of devoting myself to that very work has often come to me? but ah!
what ideas do not come to me?” she added, with a motion of her head.
“Suffering is like a torch which lights up life. If I were ever to
recover health--”
“You should amuse yourself, my child,” said her father.
“Oh yes!” she said; “I have the desire, but should I then have the
faculty? My son will be, I hope a magistrate, worthy of his two
grandfathers, and he will leave me. What should I do then? If God
restores me to life I will dedicate that life to Him--oh! after giving
you all you need of it,” she cried, looking tenderly at her father and
son. “There are moments, my dear father, when the ideas of Monsieur
de Maistre work within me powerfully, and I fancy that I am expiating
something.”
“See what it is to read too much!” said the old man, evidently troubled.
“That brave Polish general, my great grandfather, took part, though very
innocently, in the partition of Poland.”
“Well, well! now it is Poland!” said Monsieur Bernard.
“How can I help it, papa? my sufferings are infernal; they give me a
horror of life, they disgust me with myself. Well, I ask you, have I
done anything to deserve them? Such diseases are not a mere derangement
of health, they are caused by a perverted organization and--”
“Sing that national air your poor mother used to sing; Monsieur
Godefroid wants to hear it; I have told him about your voice,” said
the old man, endeavoring to distract her mind from the current of such
thoughts.
Vanda began, in a low and tender voice, to sing a Polish song which held
Godefroid dumb with admiration and also with sadness. This melody, which
greatly resembles the long drawn out melancholy airs of Brittany, is one
of those poems which vibrate in the heart long after the ear has heard
them. As he listened, Godefroid looked at Vanda, but he could not endure
the ecstatic glance of that fragment of a woman, partially insane, and
his eyes wandered to two cords which hung one on each side of the canopy
of the bed.
“Ah ha!” laughed Vanda, noticing his look, “do you want to know what
those cords are for?”
“Vanda!” said her father, hastily, “calm yourself, my daughter. See!
here comes tea. That, monsieur,” he continued, turning to Godefroid,
“is rather a costly affair. My daughter cannot rise, and therefore it is
difficult to change her sheets. Those cords are fastened to pulleys; by
slipping a square of leather beneath her and drawing it up by the four
corners with these pulleys, we are able to make her bed without fatigue
to her or to ourselves.”
“They swing me!” cried Vanda, gaily.
Happily, Auguste now came in with a teapot, which he placed on a table,
together with the Sevres tea-set; then he brought cakes and sandwiches
and cream. This sight diverted his mother’s mind from the nervous crisis
which seemed to threaten her.
“See, Vanda, here is Nathan’s new novel. If you wake in the night you
will have something to read.”
“Oh! delightful! ‘La Perle de Dol;’ it must be a love-story,--Auguste, I
have something to tell you! I’m to have an accordion!”
Auguste looked up suddenly with a strange glance at his grandfather.
“See how he loves his mother!” cried Vanda. “Come and kiss me, my
kitten. No, it is not your grandfather you are to thank, but monsieur,
who is good enough to lend me one. I am to have it to-morrow. How are
they made, monsieur?”
Godefroid, at a sign from the old man, explained an accordion at length,
while sipping the tea which Auguste brought him and which was in truth,
exquisite.
About half-past ten o’clock he retired, weary of beholding the desperate
struggle of the son and father, admiring their heroism, and the daily,
hourly patience with which they played their double parts, each equally
exhausting.
“Well,” said Monsieur Bernard, who followed him home, “you now see,
monsieur, the life I live. I am like a thief, on the watch all the time.
A word, a gesture might kill my daughter; a mere gewgaw less than she
is accustomed to seeing about her would reveal all to that mind that can
penetrate everything.”
“Monsieur,” replied Godefroid, “on Monday next Halpersohn shall
pronounce upon your daughter. He has returned. I myself doubt the
possibility of any science being able to revive that body.”
“Oh! I don’t expect that,” cried the father; “all I ask is that her life
be made supportable. I felt sure, monsieur, of your sympathy, and I see
that you have indeed comprehended everything--Ah! there’s the attack
coming on!” he exclaimed, as the sound of a cry came through the
partition; “she went beyond her strength.”
Pressing Godefroid’s hand, the old man hurriedly returned to his own
rooms.
At eight o’clock the next morning Godefroid knocked at the door of the
celebrated Polish doctor. He was shown by a footman to the first floor
of a little house Godefroid had been examining while the porter was
seeking and informing the footman.
Happily, Godefroid’s early arrival saved him the annoyance of being kept
waiting. He was, he supposed, the first comer. From a very plain and
simple antechamber he passed into a large study, where he saw an old
man in a dressing-gown smoking a long pipe. The dressing-gown, of
black bombazine, shiny with use, dated from the period of the Polish
emigration.
“What can I do for you?” said the Jewish doctor, “for I see you are
not ill.” And he fixed on his visitor a look which had the inquisitive,
piercing expression of the eyes of a Polish Jew, eyes which seem to have
ears of their own.
Halpersohn was, to Godefroid’s great astonishment, a man of fifty-six
years of age, with small bow-legs, and a broad, powerful chest and
shoulders. There was something oriental about the man, and his face in
its youth must have been very handsome. The nose was Hebraic, long and
curved like a Damascus blade. The forehead, truly Polish, broad and
noble, but creased like a bit of crumpled paper, resembled that given by
the old Italian masters to Saint Joseph. The eyes, of a sea-green,
and circled, like those of parrots, with a gray and wrinkled membrane,
expressed slyness and avarice in an eminent degree. The mouth, gashed
into the face like a wound, added to the already sinister expression of
the countenance all the sarcasm of distrust.
That pale, thin face, for Halpersohn’s whole person was remarkably thin,
surmounted by ill-kept gray hair, ended in a long and very thick, black
beard, slightly touched with white, which hid fully half the face,
so that nothing was really seen of it but the forehead, nose, eyes,
cheek-bones, and mouth.
This friend of the revolutionist Lelewel wore a black velvet cap which
came to a point on the brow, and took a high light worthy of the touch
of Rembrandt.
The question of the physician (who has since become so celebrated,
as much for his genius as for his avarice) caused some surprise in
Godefroid’s mind, and he said to himself:--
“I wonder if he takes me for a thief.”
The answer to this mental question was on the doctor’s table and
fireplace. Godefroid thought he was the first to arrive; he was really
the last. Preceding clients had left large offerings behind them; among
them Godefroid noticed piles of twenty and forty-franc gold pieces and
two notes of a thousand francs each. Could that be the product of one
morning? He doubted it, and suspected the Pole of intentional trickery.
Perhaps the grasping but infallible doctor took this method of showing
his clients, mostly rich persons, that gold must be dropped into his
pouch, and not buttons.
Moses Halpersohn was, undoubtedly, largely paid, for he cured, and
he cured precisely those desperate diseases which science declares
incurable. It is not known in Europe that the Slav races possess many
secrets. They have a collection of sovereign remedies, the fruits
of their connection with the Chinese, Persians, Cossacks, Turks, and
Tartars. Certain peasant women in Poland, who pass for witches, cure
insanity radically with the juice of herbs. A vast body of observation,
not codified, exists in Poland on the effects of certain plants, and
certain barks of trees reduced to powder, which are transmitted from
father to son, and family to family, producing cures that are almost
miraculous.
Halpersohn, who for five or six years was called a quack on account
of his powders and herb medicines, had the innate science of a great
physician. Not only had he studied much and observed much, but he had
travelled in every part of Germany, Russia, Persia, and Turkey, whence
he had gathered many a traditionary secret; and as he knew chemistry he
became a living volume of those wonderful recipes scattered among the
wise women, or, as the French call them, the _bonnes femmes_, of every
land to which his feet had gone, following his father, a perambulating
trader.
It must not be thought that the scene in “The Talisman” where Saladin
cures the King of England is a fiction. Halpersohn possesses a silk
purse which he steeps in water till the liquid is slightly colored;
certain fevers yield immediately when the patient has drunk the
prescribed dose of it. The virtue of plants, according to his man, is
infinite, and the cure of the worst diseases possible. Nevertheless,
he, like the rest of his professional brethren, stops short at
certain incomprehensibilities. Halpersohn approved of the invention of
homoeopathy, more on account of its therapeutics than for its medical
system; he was corresponding at this time with Hedenius of Dresden,
Chelius of Heidelburg, and the celebrated German doctors, all the while
holding his hand closed, though it was full of discoveries. He wished
for no pupils.
The frame was in keeping with this embodiment of a Rembrandt picture.
The study, hung with a paper imitating green velvet, was shabbily
furnished with a green divan, the cover of which was threadbare. A
worn-out green carpet was on the floor. A large armchair of black
leather, intended for clients, stood before the window, which was draped
with green curtains. A desk chair of Roman shape, made in mahogany and
covered with green morocco, was the doctor’s own seat.
Between the fireplace and the long table at which he wrote, a common
iron safe stood against the wall, and on it was a clock of Viennese
granite, surmounted by a group in bronze representing Cupid playing
with Death, the present of a great German sculptor whom Halpersohn
had doubtless cured. On the mantel-shelf was a vase between two
candlesticks, and no other ornament. On either side of the divan were
corner-buffets of ebony, holding plates and dishes, and Godefroid also
noticed upon them two silver bowls, glass decanters, and napkins.
This simplicity, which amounted almost to bareness struck Godefroid,
whose quick eye took it all in as he recovered his self-possession.
“Monsieur, I am, as you say, perfectly well myself; I have come on
behalf of a woman to whom you were asked to pay a visit some time ago.
She lives on the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse.”
“Ah! yes; the lady who has sent her son here several times. Well,
monsieur, let her come here to me.”
“Come here!” repeated Godefroid, indignantly. “Monsieur, she cannot even
be moved from her bed to a chair; they lift her with pulleys.”
“You are not a physician, I suppose?” said the Jewish doctor, with a
singular grimace which made his face appear more wicked than it really
was.
“If the Baron de Nucingen sent word that he was ill and wanted you to
visit him, would you reply, ‘Let him come here to me’?”
“I should go to him,” said the Jew, coldly, spitting into a Dutch pot
made of mahogany and full of sand.
“You would go,” said Godefroid, gently, “because the Baron de Nucingen
has two millions a year, and--”
“The rest has nothing to do with the matter; I should go.”
“Well, monsieur, you must go to the lady on the boulevard du
Mont-Parnasse for the same reason. Without possessing the fortune of
the Baron du Nucingen, I am here to tell you that you may yourself put
a price upon this lady’s cure, or upon your attendance if you fail; I am
ready to pay it in advance. But perhaps, monsieur, as you are a Polish
refugee and, I believe, a communist, the lady’s parentage may induce
you to make a sacrifice to Poland. She is the granddaughter of Colonel
Tarlowski, the friend of Poniatowski.”
“Monsieur, you came here to ask me to cure that lady, and not to give
me advice. In Poland I am a Pole; in Paris I am Parisian. Every man does
good in his own way; the greed with which I am credited is not without
its motive. The wealth I am amassing has its destination; it is a sacred
one. I sell health; the rich can afford to purchase it, and I make them
pay. The poor have their doctors. If I had not a purpose in view I would
not practise medicine. I live soberly and I spend my time in rushing
hither and thither; my natural inclination is to be lazy, and I used to
be a gambler. Draw your conclusions, young man. You are too young still
to judge old men.”
Godefroid was silent.
“From what you say,” went on the doctor, “the lady in question is the
granddaughter of that imbecile who had no courage but that of fighting,
and who took part in delivering over his country to Catherine II?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Well, be at her house Monday next at three o’clock,” said Halpersohn,
taking out a note-book in which he wrote a few words. “You will give me
then two hundred francs; and if I promise to cure the patient you will
give me three thousand. I am told,” he added, “that the lady has shrunk
to almost nothing.”
“Monsieur, if the most celebrated doctors in Paris are to be believed,
it is a neurotic case of so extraordinary a nature that they denied the
possibility of its symptoms until they saw them.”
“Ah! yes, I remember now what the young lad told me. To-morrow,
monsieur.”
Godefroid withdrew, after bowing to the man who seemed to him as odd as
he was extraordinary. Nothing about him indicated a physician, not even
the study, in which the most notable object was the iron safe, made by
Huret or Fichet.
Godefroid had just time to get to the passage Vivienne before the shops
closed for the day, and there he bought a superb accordion, which he
ordered sent at once to Monsieur Bernard, giving the address.