Delphi complete works of.., p.128
Delphi Complete Works of Alphonse Daudet (Illustrated), page 128
“I am going to the hospital, my kind friend; it is impossible for me to stay here any longer. Do not attempt to detain me, for go I will.”
“But, Mr. Jack, you cannot walk there, weak as you are.”
“Yes, I can, if your husband will give me the help of his arm.”
It was useless to resist such determination, and Jack said farewell to Madame Bélisaire, and descended the stairs with one sad look of farewell at the humble home which had been illuminated by so many fair dreams and hopes. How long the walk was! They stopped occasionally, but dared not linger long, for the air was sharp. Under the lowering December skies the sick youth looked worse even than when he lay in his bed. His hair was wet with perspiration, the hurrying crowds made him dizzy and faint. Paris is like a huge battlefield where mere existence demands a struggle; and Jack seemed like a wounded soldier borne from the field by a comrade.
It was still early when they reached the hospital. Early as it was, however, they found the huge waiting-room filled with persons. An enormous stove made the air of the room almost intolerable, with its smell of hot iron. When Jack entered, assisted by Bélisaire/all eyes were turned upon him. They were awaiting the arrival of the physician, who would give, or refuse, a card of admittance. Each one was describing his symptoms to some indifferent hearer, and endeavoring to show that he was more ill than any one else. Jack listened to these dismal conversations, seated between a stout man who coughed violently, and a slender young girl whose thin shawl was so tightly drawn over her head that only her wild and affrighted eyes were to be seen. Then the door opened, and a small, wiry man appeared; it was the physician. A profound silence followed all along the benches. The doctor warmed his hands at the stove, while he cast a scrutinizing glance about the room. Then he began his rounds, followed by a boy carrying the cards of admission to the different hospitals. What joy for the poor wretches when they were pronounced sick enough to receive a ticket. What disappointment, what entreaties from those who were told that they must struggle on yet a little longer! The examination was brief, and if it seemed somewhat brutal at times, it must be remembered that the number of applicants was very large, and that the poor creatures loved to linger over the recital of their woes.
Finally the physician reached the stout man next to Jack. “And what is the matter with you, sir?” he asked.
“My chest burns like fire,” was the answer.
“Ah, your chest burns like fire, does it! Do you not sometimes drink too much brandy?”
“Never, sir,” answered the patient indignantly.
“Well, then, if you do not drink brandy, how about wine?”
“I drink what I want of that, of course.”
“Ah, yes, I understand! You drink with your friends.”
“On pay-days I do, certainly.”
“That is, you get drunk once in the week. Let me see your tongue.”
When the physician reached Jack, he examined him attentively, asked his age and how long he had been ill. Jack answered with much difficulty, and while he spoke, Bélisaire stood behind him with a face full of anxiety.
“Stand up, my man,” and the doctor applied his ear to the damp clothing of the invalid. “Did you walk here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It is most extraordinary that you were able to do so, in the state in which you are; but you must not try it again;” and he handed him a ticket and passed on to continue his inspection.
Of all the thousand rapid and confused impressions that one receives in the streets of Paris, do you remember any one more painful than the sight of one of those litters, sheltered from the sun’s rays by a striped cover, and borne by two men, one behind and the other in front, — the form of a human being vaguely defined under the linen sheets? Women cross themselves when these litters pass them, as they do when a crow flies over their heads.
Sometimes, a mother, a daughter, or a sister, walks at the side of the sick man, their eyes swimming in tears at this last indignity to which the poor are subjected. Jack thus lay, consoled by the sound of the familiar tread of his faithful Bélisaire, who occasionally took his hand to prove to him that he was not completely deserted.
The sick man at last reached the hospital to which he had been ordered. It was a dreary structure, looking out on one side upon a damp garden, on the other on a dark court. Twenty beds, two arm-chairs, and a stove, were the furniture of the large room to which Jack was carried. Five or six phantoms in cotton nightcaps looked up from a game of dominos to inspect him, and two or three more started from the stove as if frightened.
The corner of the room was brightened by an altar to the Virgin, decorated with flowers, candles, and lace; and near by was the desk of the matron, who came forward, and in a soft voice, the tones of which seemed half lost among the folds of her veil, said:
“Poor fellow, how sick he looks! he must go to bed at once. We have no bed yet, but the one at the end there will soon be empty. While we are waiting, we will put him on a couch.”
This couch was placed close to the bed “that would soon be empty,” from whence were heard long sighs, dreary enough in themselves, but made a thousand times more melancholy by the utter indifference with which they were heard by the others in the room. The man was dying, but Jack was himself too ill to notice this. He hardly heard Bélisaire’s “au revoir” nor the rattling of dishes as the soup was distributed, nor a whispering at his side; he was not asleep, but exhausted by fatigue. Suddenly a woman’s voice, calm and clear, said, “Let us pray.”
He saw the dim outline of a woman kneeling near the altar, but in vain did he attempt to follow the words that fell rapidly from her lips. The concluding sentence reached him, however.
“Protect, O God, my friends and my enemies, all prisoners and travellers, the sick and the dying.”
Jack slept a feverish sleep, and his dreams were a confused mixture of prisoners rattling their chains, and of travellers wandering over endless roads. He was one of these travellers: he was on a highway, like that of Etiolles; Cécile and his mother were before him refusing to wait until he could reach them; this he was prevented from doing by a row of enormous machines, the pistons of which were moving with dizzy haste, and from whose chimneys were pouring out dark volumes of smoke. Jack determined to pass between them; he is seized by their iron arms, torn and mangled, and scalded with the hot steam; but he got through and took refuge in the Foret de Sénart, amid the freshness of which Jack became once more a child and was on his way to the forester’s; but there at the cross-road stood mother Salé; he turned to run, and ran for miles, with the old woman close behind him; he heard her nearer and nearer, he felt her hot breath on his shoulder; she seized him at last, and with all her weight crushed in his chest. Jack awoke with a start; he recognized the large room, the beds in a line, and heard the sighs and coughs. He dreamed no more, and yet he still felt the same weight across his body, something so cold and heavy that he called aloud in terror. The nurses ran, and lifted something, placed it in the next bed, and drew the curtains round it closely.
CHAPTER XXIV. DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL.
“COME, WAKE UP! Visitors are here.”
Jack opened his eyes, and the first thing that struck him was the curtains of the next bed, — they hung in such straight and motionless folds to the very ground.
“Well, my boy, you had a pretty bad time last night. The poor fellow in the next bed had convulsions and fell over on you. I suppose you were terribly frightened. Now raise yourself a little that we may see you. But you are very weak.”
The man who spoke was about forty years of age, wearing a velvet coat and a white apron. His beard was fair and his eyes bright. He feels the sick man’s pulse and asks him some questions.
“What is your trade?”
“A machinist.”
“Do you drink?”
“Not now; I did at one time.”
Then a long silence.
“What sort of a life have you led, my poor boy?”
Jack saw in the physician’s face the same sympathetic interest that he had perceived the previous day. The students surrounded the bed, and the doctor explained to them various symptoms that he observed. They were at once interesting and alarming, he said; and Jack listened with some curiosity to the words “inspiration,” “expiration,” “phthisis,” &c., and at last understood that his was looked upon as a most critical case, — so critical that, after the physician had left the room, the good sister approached, and with gentle discretion asked if his family were in Paris, and if he could send to them.
His family! Who were they? A man and a woman who were already there at the foot of the bed. They belonged to the lower classes; but he had no other friends than these, no other relatives.
“And how are we to-day?” said Bélisaire, cheerily, though he kept his tears back with difficulty. Madame Bélisaire lays on the table two fine oranges she has brought, and then, after a kind remark or two, sits in silence.
Jack does not speak; his eyes are wide open and fixed. Of what is he thinking?
“Jack,” said the good woman, suddenly, “I am going to find your mother;” and she smiled encouragingly.
Yes, that is what he wants; now that he knows that he must die, he forgets all the wrongs his mother has been guilty of toward him.
But Bélisaire does not wish his wife to go. He knows that she holds in utter contempt “the fine lady,” as she calls Jack’s mother, that she detests the man with the moustache, and that she will make a scene, and perhaps — who knows but the police may be called in?
“No,” she said, “that is all nonsense;” but finally yielded to the persuasions of her husband, and allowed him to go in her stead.
“I will bring her this time, never fear!” he said, with an air of confidence.
“Where are you going?” asked the concierge, stopping him at the foot of the staircase.
“To M. D’Argenton’s.”
“Are you the man who was here last night?”
“Precisely,” answered Bélisaire, innocently.
“Then you need not go up, for there is no one there; they have gone to the country, and will not return for some time.”
In the country, in all this cold and snow! It seemed impossible. In vain did he insist, in vain did he say that the lady’s son was very ill — dying in the hospital. The concierge held to his statement, and would not permit Bélisaire to go one step further.
The poor man retreated to the street again. Suddenly a brilliant idea struck him. Jack had never told him any of the particulars of what had taken place between the Rivals and himself; he had merely stated the fact that the marriage was broken off. But at Indret and in Paris he had often spoken of the goodness and charity of the kind doctor. If he could only be induced to come to Jack’s bedside, so that the poor boy could have some familiar face about him! Without further hesitation he started for Etiolles. Alas, we saw him at the end of this long walk!
During all this time, his wife sat at their friend’s side, and knew not what to think of this prolonged absence, nor how to calm the agitation into which the sick youth was thrown by the expectation of seeing his mother. His excitement was unfortunately increased by the crowd that always appeared on Sundays at the hospital. Each moment some one of the doors was thrown open, and each time Jack expected to see his mother. The visitors were clean and neatly dressed who gathered about the patients they had come to see, telling them family news and encouraging them. Sometimes the voices were choked with tears, though the eyes were dry, Jack heard a constant murmur of voices, and the perfume of oranges filled the room. But what a disappointment it was, after being lifted by the aid of a little stick hung by cords, when he saw that his mother had not come! He fell back more exhausted, more despairing than ever.
With him, as with all others who are on the threshold of death, the slender thread of life that remained to him was too fragile to attach itself to the robust years of his manhood, and took him beyond them into the far away days when he was little Jack, the velvet-clad darling of Ida de Barancy.
The crowd still came, women and little children, who stood in displeased surprise at their father’s emaciation and at his nightcap, and uttered exclamations of delight at the sight of the beautifully dressed altar. But Jack’s mother did not appear. Madame Bélisaire knows not what to say. She has hinted that M. D’Argenton may be ill, or that his mother is driving in the Bois, and now she spreads a colored handkerchief on her knees and pares an orange.
“She will not come!” said Jack. These very words he had spoken in that little home at Charonne which he had prepared with so much tender care. But his voice was now weaker, and had even a little anger in its accents. “She will not come!” he repeated; and the poor boy closed his eyes, but not in sleep. He thought of Cécile. The sister heard his sighs, and said to Madame Bélisaire, whose large face was shining with tears, —
“What is the matter with him? I am afraid he is suffering more.”
“It is on account of his mother, whom he expects, and he is troubled that she does not come.”
“But she must be sent for.”
“My husband went long ago. But she is a fine lady; she won’t come to a hospital and run the risk of soiling her silk skirts.”
Suddenly the woman rose in a fit of anger.
“Don’t cry, dear,” said she to Jack, as she would have spoken to her little child; “I am going for your mother.”
Jack understood what she said, understood that she had gone, but still continued to repeat, in a harsh voice, the words, “She will not come! she will not come!”
The sister tried to soothe him. “Calm yourself, my child.”
Then Jack rose in a sort of delirium. “I tell you she will not come. You do not know her, she is a heartless mother; all the misery of my miserable life has come from her! My heart is one huge wound, from the gashes she has cut in it. When he pretended to be ill, she went to him on wings, and would never again leave him; and I am dying, and she refuses to come to me. What a cruel mother! it is she who has killed me, and she does not wish to see me die!”
Exhausted by this effort, Jack let his head fall back on the pillow, and the sister bent over him in gentle pity, while the brief winter’s day ended in a yellow twilight and occasional gusts of snow.
Charlotte and D’Argenton descended from their carriage. They had just returned from a fashionable concert, and were carefully dressed in velvet and furs, light gloves and laces. She was in the best of spirits. Remember that she had just shown herself in public with her poet, and had shown herself, too, to be as pretty as she was ten years before. The complexion was heightened by the sharp wintry air, and the soft wraps in which she was enveloped added to her beauty as does the satin and quilted lining of a casket enhance the brilliancy of the gems within. woman of the people stood on the sidewalk, and rushed forward on seeing her.
“Madame, madame! come at once!”
“Madame Bélisaire!” cried Charlotte, turning pale.
“Your child is very ill; he asks for you!”
“But this is a persecution,” said D’Argenton. “Let us pass. If the gentleman is ill, we will send him a physician.”
“He has physicians, and more than he wants, for he is at the hospital.”
“At the hospital!”
“Yes, he is there just now, but not for very long. I warn you, if you wish to see him you must hurry.”
“Come on, Charlotte, come on! It is a frightful lie. It is some trap laid ready for you;” and the poet drew Charlotte to the stairs.
“Madame, your son is dying! Ah, God, is it possible that a mother can have a heart like this!”
Charlotte turned toward her. “Show me where he is,” she said; and the two women hurried through the streets, leaving D’Argenton in a state of rage, convinced that it was a mere device of his enemies.
Just as Madame Bélisaire left the hospital, two persons hurried in, — a young girl and an old man.
A divine face bent over Jack. “It is I, my love, it is Cécile.”
It was indeed she. It was her fair pale face, paler than usual by reason of her tears and her watchings; and the hand that held his was the slender one that had already brought the youth such happiness, and yet did its part in bringing him where we now see him; for fate is often cruel enough to strike you through your dearest and best. The sick youth opens his weary eyes to see that he is not dreaming. Cécile is really there; she implores his pardon, and explains why she gave him such pain. Ah, if she had but known that their destinies were so similar!
As she spoke, a great calm came to Jack, following all the bitterness and anger of the past weeks.
“Then you love me?” he whispered.
“Yes, Jack; I have always loved you.”
Whispered in this alcove, that had heard so many dying groans, this word love had a most extraordinary sweetness, as if some wandering bird had taken refuge there.
“How good you are to come, Cécile! Now I shall not utter another murmur. I am ready to die, with you at my side.”
“Die! Who is talking of dying?” said the old doctor in his heartiest voice. “Have no fear, my boy, we will pull you through. You do not look like the same person you were when we came.”
This was true enough. He was transfigured with happiness. He pressed Cécile’s hand to his cheek, and whispered an occasional word of tenderness.
“All that was lacking to me in life, you have given me, dear. You have been friend and sister, wife and mother.”
But his excitement soon gave place to exhaustion, his feverish color to frightful pallor. The ravages made by disease were only too plainly visible. Cécile looked at her grandfather in fright; the room was full of shadows, and it seemed to her that she recognized a Presence more sombre, more mysterious than Night.
Suddenly Jack half lifted himself: “I hear her,” he whispered; “she is coming!”
But the watchers at his side heard only the wintry wind in the corridors, the steps of the retreating crowd in the court below, and the distant noises in the street. He listened a moment, said a few unintelligible words, then his head fell back and his eyes closed. But he was right. Two women were running up the stairs. They had been allowed to enter, though the hour for the admittance of visitors had long since passed. But it was one of those occasions where rules may be broken and set aside.
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