|Next morning, at about eleven o'clock, my good sister Josephine came to
me in my study, and said, “She is awake now and wishes to see you.”
“I am at her service,” I replied. “Will she join me here?”
“She is eager to have you operate. She asked me where you would do so. I
told her I supposed there, in her bed. Then she said she would not waste
time by getting up, and wished me to tell you that she is waiting to
have it done. I suspect that she is partly influenced by a reluctance to
put on her prison uniform again. I should have offered her the use of my
wardrobe, but she is so much taller and larger than I, that that would
be absurd.”
“Yes, to be sure, so it would. Very well. I will go to her directly. If
she is in a favourable condition of mind and body, it will, perhaps, be
as well not to delay. But first tell me--you have held some conversation
with her?”
“Yes, a little.”
“And what impression do you form of her character?”
“She is very pretty. She is even beautiful.”
I laughed. “What has that to do with her character?99
“I infer her character as much from her appearance as from her
behaviour, as much from her physiognomy as from her speech.”
“Oh, I see. And your inference is?”
“I cannot be quite sure. There is a certain hardness in her face, a
certain cynical listlessness in her manner, which may indicate a vice of
character, but which may, on the other hand, result simply from hardship
and suffering. She is undoubtedly clever. She has received a good
education; she expresses herself well; she has a marvellously musical
voice. Yet, on the whole, I cannot say that I find her likeable or
agreeable. She seems to proceed upon the assumption that nobody is moved
by any but selfish motives; that everybody has an axe to grind; and that
she must be constantly on her guard lest we take some advantage of her.
She is horribly suspicious.”
“Well, go on.”
“Well, I do not know that I can say anything more. I cannot quite fathom
her--quite make her out. It is a question in my mind whether she is
naturally a young woman of good instincts, whose passions have betrayed
her into the commission of some crime, or whether she is inherently and
intrinsically corrupt.”
“Towards which alternative do you incline?”
“I do not like to express a final opinion; but I am afraid, from what
little I have seen of her, I am afraid that I incline towards the
latter.”
“That she is intrinsically bad. Well, it will be interesting, after our
operation, to see whether, in a new environment, under new conditions,
the good that is latent in her--as good is latent in every human
soul--will be developed. And now will you come with me to her room?”
“Will she not prefer to see you alone?”
“Why should she? Come, let us go.”
We found her sitting up in bed, waiting for us. By daylight she seemed
to me even more beautiful than she had seemed by gaslight. Her features
were strongly yet finely modelled; her skin was exquisitely delicate,
both in texture and in colour; and her eyes were wonderfully liquid and
translucent. But an expression of deep melancholy brooded over her whole
countenance; while underlying that again, was certainly visible the
cynical hardness that Josephine had complained of.
Having wished her good-morning, I proceeded at once to my business as a
physician; ascertained her pulse and her temperature, and inquired how
she had slept.
“I have not had such a night's sleep for I know not how long,” she
answered. “Heaven knows I had enough to think about to keep me awake,
yet I must have lain in total unconsciousness for fully nine hours. What
was most grateful, I did not dream. All which leads me to suspect that,
despite your protestations to the contrary, the medicine you made me
drink last evening contained an opiate.”
“The medicine I prevailed upon you to drink last evening,” I explained,
“was the mildest composing-draught known to the Pharmacopoeia--a most
harmless mixture of orange-flower water, bromide, and sugar. If it had
the effect of a sleeping-potion, I am very glad to learn it, for it
indicates the degree of your nervous susceptibility--a point upon which
it is highly desirable that I should be informed. And are you still
of the same mind in which I left you? You have not reconsidered your
determination?”
“No. I am still ready to be killed or regenerated--I am really quite
indifferent which. When I awoke this morning, I could not help fancying
that the conversation which I seemed to recall had never really taken
place--that I had dreamed it. But this lady, your sister, assures me
that my doubt is groundless. Now I can only request you to begin and get
over with it as soon as possible.”
“My beginning must be in the nature of an interrogatory. I must ask you
for certain information.”
“Very well. Ask.”
“My questions shall be few: only those formal ones which, as a
physician, I should put to any patient whom I was about to treat.
First, then, what is your name?”
“My name is Louise Massarte, spelt M-a-s-s-a-r-t-e.”
I opened my case-book, prepared my fountain-pen for action, and wrote
“Louise Massarte.”
“It is a foreign name, is it not?” I inquired “Were you born in this
country?”
“Like the other hopeful subject of whom you told me last night, I was
born in France--at the city of Tours.”
“Native of France,” I wrote. Then aloud s “Of French parents?”
“Yes, I am French by descent and by place of birth. But I have lived in
America all my life. I was brought here when I was two years old.”
“But you speak French, I take it?”
“I speak French and English with equal ease.”
“Any other language?”
“No other.”
“How old are you, if you will forgive my asking?”
“I shall be six-and-twenty on the eighth of August.”
“Are your parents living?”
“Both my father and mother are long since dead.”
“Have you any brothers or sisters?”
“I was an only child.”
“Are you married or single?”
“I have never been married.”
“And now, finally, is there any fact or circumstance which you would
like to mention and have recorded? For, you must bear in mind, you will
shortly have forgotten everything connected with your past; and if there
is anything you will wish to remember, you had better tell it to me now,
and I will make a memorandum of it.”
“There is nothing that I shall wish to remember,” she replied. “Nothing
but what I shall be glad to forget. However, I fancy what you say is but
a hint to the effect that you are curious to know my history. I have no
objection in telling it to you. It is not an edifying history. Most
women, I daresay, would be ashamed to tell it; but I have got beyond
even pretending to feel ashamed of anything; and if you desire to hear
it, you have only to say so.”
“On the contrary,” I rejoined, “you must not think of telling it.
It would excite you and fatigue you; whereas it is of the highest
importance for the success of our operation that you should be at
rest in mind as well as in body. Besides, and irrespective of that
consideration, it is better that neither my sister, nor I, nor indeed
any living person, should hear it. You yourself will in a little while
have forgotten it. What right has anybody else to remember it?”
“Oh, well, you will doubtless find the gist of it in the morning paper.
It will in all likelihood be printed with an account of my escape from
the Penitentiary,” she returned.
At which insinuation my sister Josephine cried out, “You little know
my brother. There is indeed something about your escape in the morning
paper; but the instant he discovered the headlines of the article, he
said, 'This is something, Josephine, that neither you nor I must read.'
And he threw the paper into the fireplace, and applied a match to it.”
The woman made no answer.
I left the room and descended to my study, where I procured my
instruments and the requisite anæsthetic.