“Yes, here I am, my friends,” he said, “and I thank you for your zeal.
Now we must try not to waste our efforts. The farm buildings and
the workshops are lost: we must give them up. Let us try to save the
dwelling-house. The river is not far. We must form a chain. Everybody in
line,--men and women! And now for water, water! Here come the engines!”
They really came thundering up: the firemen appeared on the scene. Capt.
Parenteau took the command. At last the mayor was at leisure to inquire
after Count Claudieuse.
“Master is down there,” replied an old woman, pointing at a little
cottage with a thatched roof. “The doctor has had him carried there.”
“Let us go and see how he is,” said the mayor to his two companions.
They stopped at the door of the only room of the cottage. It was a large
room with a floor of beaten clay; while overhead the blackened beams
were full of working tools and parcels of seeds. Two beds with twisted
columns and yellow curtains filled one side: on that on the left hand
lay a little girl, four years old, fast asleep, and rolled up in a
blanket, watched over by her sister, who was two or three years older.
On the other bed, Count Claudieuse was lying, or rather sitting; for
they had supported his back by all the pillows that had been saved from
the fire. His chest was bare, and covered with blood; and a man, Dr.
Seignebos, with his coat off, and his sleeves rolled up above the
elbows, was bending over him, and holding a sponge in one hand and a
probe in the other, seemed to be engaged in a delicate and dangerous
operation.
The countess, in a light muslin dress, was standing at the foot of her
husband’s bed, pale but admirably composed and resigned. She was holding
a lamp, and moved it to and fro as the doctor directed. In a corner two
servant-women were sitting on a box, and crying, their aprons turned
over their heads.
At last the mayor of Sauveterre overcame his painful impressions, and
entered the room. Count Claudieuse was the first to perceive him, and
said,--
“Ah, here is our good M. Seneschal. Come nearer, my friend; come nearer.
You see the year 1871 is a fatal year. It will soon leave me nothing but
a few handfuls of ashes of all I possessed.”
“It is a great misfortune,” replied the excellent mayor; “but, after
all, it is less than we apprehended. God be thanked, you are safe!”
“Who knows? I am suffering terribly.”
The countess trembled.
“Trivulce!” she whispered in a tone of entreaty. “Trivulce!”
Never did lover glance at his beloved with more tenderness than Count
Claudieuse did at his wife.
“Pardon me, my dear Genevieve, pardon me, if I show any want of
courage.”
A sudden nervous spasm seized him; and then he exclaimed in a loud
voice, which sounded like a trumpet,--
“Sir! But sir! Thunder and lightning! You kill me!”
“I have some chloroform here,” replied the physician coldly.
“I do not want any.”
“Then you must make up your mind to suffer, and keep quiet now; for
every motion adds to your pain.”
Then sponging a jet of blood which spurted out from under his knife, he
added,--
“However, you shall have a few minutes rest now. My eyes and my hand are
exhausted. I see I am no longer young.”
Dr. Seignebos was sixty years old. He was a small, thin man, with a bald
head and a bilious complexion, carelessly dressed, and spending his life
in taking off, wiping, and putting back again his large gold spectacles.
His reputation was widespread; and they told of wonderful cures which
he had accomplished. Still he had not many friends. The common people
disliked his bitterness; the peasants, his strictness in demanding his
fees; and the townspeople, his political views.
There was a story that one evening, at a public dinner, he had gotten up
and said, “I drink to the memory of the only physician of whose pure and
chaste renown I am envious,--the memory of my countryman, Dr. Guillotin
of Saintes!”
Had he really offered such a toast? The fact is, he pretended to be a
fierce radical, and was certainly the soul and the oracle of the small
socialistic clubs in the neighborhood. People looked aghast when he
began to talk of the reforms which he thought necessary; and they
trembled when he proclaimed his convictions, that “the sword and the
torch ought to search the rotten foundations of society.”
These opinions, certain utilitarian views of like eccentricity, and
still stranger experiments which he openly carried on before the whole
world, had led people more than once to doubt the soundness of his mind.
The most charitable said, “He is an oddity.” This eccentric man had
naturally no great fondness for M. Seneschal, the mayor, a former
lawyer, and a legitimist. He did not think much of the commonwealth
attorney, a useless bookworm. But he detested M. Galpin. Still he bowed
to the three men; and, without minding his patient, he said to them,--
“You see, gentlemen, Count Claudieuse is in a bad plight. He has been
fired at with a gun loaded with small shot; and wounds made in that way
are very puzzling. I trust no vital part has been injured; but I cannot
answer for any thing. I have often in my practice seen very small
injuries, wounds caused by a small-sized shot, which, nevertheless,
proved fatal, and showed their true character only twelve or fifteen
hours after the accident had happened.”
He would have gone on in this way, if the magistrate had not suddenly
interrupted him, saying,--
“Doctor, you know I am here because a crime has been committed. The
criminal has to be found out, and to be punished: hence I request your
assistance, from this moment, in the name of the Law.”