When they returned from the country, the doctor, after examining
Germinie, said to Mademoiselle: "It has been very rapid, very rapid. The
left lung is entirely gone. The right has begun to be affected at the
top, and I fear that there is more or less difficulty all through it.
She's a dead woman. She may live six weeks, two months at most."
"Great Heaven!" said Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, "everyone I have ever
loved will go before me! Tell me, must I wait until everybody has gone?"
"Have you thought of placing her in some institution?" said the doctor,
after a moment's silence. "You can't keep her here. It's too great a
burden, too great a grief for you to have her with you," he added, at a
gesture from mademoiselle.
"No, monsieur, no, I haven't thought of it. Oh! yes, I am likely to send
her away. Why you must have seen, monsieur: that girl isn't a maid, she
isn't a servant in my eyes; she's like the family I never had! What
would you have me say to her: 'Be off with you now!' Ah! I never
suffered so much before on account of not being rich and having a
wretched four-sou apartment like this. I, mention such a thing to her!
why, it's impossible! And where could she go? To the Maison Dubois? Oh!
yes, to the Dubois! She went there once to see the maid I had before,
who died there. You might as well kill her! The hospital, then? No, not
there; I don't choose to have her die in that place!"
"Good God, mademoiselle, she'll be a hundred times better off there than
here. I would get her admitted at Lariboisiere, during the term of
service of a doctor who is a friend of mine. I would recommend her to an
intern, who is under great obligations to me. She would have a very
excellent Sister to nurse her in the hall to which I would have her
sent. If necessary, she could have a private room. But I am sure she
would prefer to be in a common room. It's the essential thing to do, you
see, mademoiselle. She can't stay in that chamber up there. You know
what these horrible servants' quarters are. Indeed, it's my opinion that
the health authorities ought to compel the landlords to show common
humanity in that direction; it's an outrage! The cold weather is coming;
there's no fireplace; with the window and the roof it will be like an
ice-house. You see she still keeps about. She has a marvelous stock of
courage, prodigious nervous vitality. But, in spite of everything, the
bed will claim her in a few days,--she won't get up again. Come, listen
to reason, mademoiselle. Let me speak to her, will you?"
"No, not yet. I must get used to the idea. And then, when I see her
around me I imagine she isn't going to die so quickly as all that.
There's time enough. Later, we'll see about it,--yes, later."
"Excuse me, mademoiselle, if I venture to say to you that you are quite
capable of making yourself sick nursing her."
"I? Oh! as for me!" And Mademoiselle de Varandeuil made a gesture
indicating that her life was of no consequence.