The Thibaults

by Roger Martin Du Gard

  “Sponge him—quickly!” Antoine said. “Right. Now wrap him up in the blanket and slip the dry sheet under. Hurry up, or he’ll catch cold!”

  No sooner spoken than he thought: “And what matter if he does catch cold?”

  He glanced round the bathroom. There was not a dry spot anywhere; mattress, sheets, and towels sprawled in pools of water. In a corner a chair lay upside-down. The little room looked as if a free-for-all had taken place in it during a flood.

  “Back to your places now, and—hoist!” he ordered.

  The dry sheet bulged, and the body swayed for a moment as if suspended in a hammock; then staggering, floundering through pools of water, the little procession started on its way, and slowly receded round the corner of the passage, leaving in its wake a trail of sodden footprints.

  Some minutes later M. Thibault was lying pale and motionless in his new-made bed, his head in the centre of the pillow, his arms stretched limp upon the counterpane. For the first time in many days he seemed not to be in pain.

  The respite was short-lived. It was striking four and Jacques had just left the bedroom, intending to go down to the “ground-floor flat and snatch a few hours’ rest, when Antoine caught him up in the hall.

  “Quick! He’s suffocating. Ring up Coutrot. Fleurus 5402. Coutrot, Rue de Sevres. Tell him to send some oxygen at once, three or four containers. Fleurus 5402. Got it?”

  “Hadn’t I better take a taxi?”

  “No, they’ve a delivery car. Hurry up. I need your help.”

  The telephone was in M. Thibault’s study. Jacques dashed into it with such haste that M. Chasle jumped from his chair.

  “Father is suffocating!” Jacques cried to him as he unhooked the receiver.

  “Hallo! Are you Coutrot the pharmacist? What? Isn’t this Fleurus 5402? … Hallo! Please connect me at once; it’s urgent, a dying man. Fleurus 5402… . That Coutrot’s? Hallo. Dr. Thibault speaking. Yes. Please send …”

  Bending above the shelf on which the telephone stood, he had his back to the room. As he spoke, he looked up vaguely at the mirror on the wall. Reflected in it was an open door and, framed in the doorway, Gise stood gazing at him, mute with wonder.

  V

  THE day before, in London, Gise had received the cablegram which Clotilde, with Mademoiselle’s approval, had taken on herself to dispatch while Antoine was away at Lausanne. She had travelled by the early boat-train and arrived in Paris without warning anyone of her coming, had driven directly to the house, and, not daring to question the concierge, had gone, with a wildly beating heart, straight up to the flat.

  Léon had opened the door. Alarmed at seeing him on this floor, she had murmured:

  “And … how is …?”

  “Not yet, Mademoiselle.”

  Someone was shouting into the telephone in the next room. “What? Isn’t this Fleurus 5402?”

  A tremor ran through her body. Had her ears deceived her?

  “Hallo! Please connect me at once; it’s urgent.”

  The valise dropped from her hand. Her limbs seemed giving way under her. Not knowing what she did, she stumbled across the hall and with both hands pushed open the study door.

  Leaning on the shelf, Jacques had his back to her. Dimly she saw, or seemed to see, the outlines of his face, the half-closed eyes, wraithlike in the green depths of the tarnished mirror. So Jacques had been found again—she had never believed him dead—and he had come back to his dying father.

  “Hallo! Dr. Thibault speaking. Yes. Please send …”

  Slowly her gaze fastened on his, his eyes sank into hers. Then Jacques swung quickly round, still holding the receiver, from which came a drone of words.

  “Please send …” he repeated. His throat was choked. With a violent effort he gulped back saliva; all he would get out was a strangled cry: “Hallo!” He had lost all notion of where he was, why he was telephoning. It cost him a prodigious struggle to reconstruct it all—Antoine, the deathbed, oxygen. “Father’s suffocating,” he told himself. Shrill reverberations were jarring in his brain.

  “Go on! I’m listening!” An impatient voice at the other end.

  Suddenly he felt a blind rage sweep over him, rage against the intruder. What was she after? What did she want of him? Why remind him of her existence? Wasn’t everything over, dead and done with?

  Gisèle had not moved. In the brown face, the big black melting eyes, luminous with dog-like devotion, had a tender glow, intensified by wonder. She had grown much thinner. An impression crossed Jacques’s mind—so fleeting that he hardly noticed it—that she had become quite pretty.

  Into the silence burst M. Chasle’s voice, like a belated bomb.

  “Ah, so it’s you,” he said with a half-witted grin.

  Jacques was pressing the receiver nervously to his cheek. He could not bring himself to take his eyes off the charming figure in the doorway, but they had gone blank and betrayed nothing of his seething rage. He stammered into the telephone:

  “Please send me at—at once some oxygen. Yes, by a—a delivery car. What? In rubber containers, of course. For a patient who’s suffocating.”

  Rooted to the spot, Gise watched him, without a flicker of her eyelids. She had pictured to herself a hundred times this moment—the moment when, after the years of waiting, she would see him again, let herself sink into his arms. Well, she was living out that moment here and now. He was there, only a few yards away, but taken up by others; not hers—a stranger. And in Jacques’s eyes her eyes had met a hardness, a presage of rebuff. The reality confronting her, so different from her dreams, had given her an intuition—though she was hardly conscious of it yet—that she was still to suffer by him.

  He, too, while speaking, had his eyes fixed on her all the time; they seemed linked together by that mutual, unfaltering gaze. Meanwhile Jacques had straightened up; his voice became assured again, over-assured.

  “Yes, three or four containers. At once!”

  Higher-pitched than usual, his voice had an unwonted vibrancy, almost a nasal twang, a bluffness that was unlike him. “Ah, yes, so sorry, the address! Dr. Thibault, 4A Rue de l’Université. No. 4A, I said. Come straight up to the third floor. And be quick, please; it’s extremely urgent.”

  Without haste but with an unsteady hand he hung up the receiver. Neither he nor Gise felt able to make a move.

  “Hallo, Gise!” he said at last.

  A tremor ran through her body. Her lips half parted in an answering smile. Then as if he had suddenly awakened to reality, Jacques moved abruptly forward.

  “Antoine’s waiting for me,” he explained, as he hurried across the room. “M. Chasle will tell you all about it. He … he’s suffocating. You’ve come at the worst possible moment… .”

  “Yes,” she said, drawing aside as he passed close in front of her. “Go at once, at once!”

  Her eyes filled with tears. She had no clear thought, no definite regret; only an aching sense of weakness and disheartenment. Her eyes followed Jacques along the hall. Now that she saw him moving he seemed more alive, more as he used to be. When he was out of sight she clasped her hands impulsively, murmuring: “Jacquot!”

  Stolid as a piece of furniture, M. Chasle had watched the whole scene and had noticed nothing. Left by himself with Gise, he felt called on to make conversation.

  “Well, Mile. Gise, here I am, such as I am, at my post.” He patted the chair on which he was perched. Gise turned her head, to hide her tears. After a moment he added: “We’re waiting to begin.”

  His tone was so impressive that Gise was taken aback.

  “Begin what?” she inquired.

  The little man’s eyes flickered behind the glasses; he pursed his lips confidentially.

  This time Jacques had fled to his father’s room as to a place of refuge.

  The ceiling-lamp was on. M. Thibault, who was being propped up in the sitting position, was a terrifying sight; his head flung back, his mouth agape, he seemed to have lost consciousness. The wide-
open eyes, starting out of their sockets, were glazing. Leaning over the bed, Antoine was holding his father in his arms while Sister Céline was shoring up his back with cushions the older nun was passing to her.

  “Open the window!” Antoine shouted when he saw his brother.

  Cold air poured in, bathing the trance-bound face. And now the nostrils began to flutter; a little air was penetrating to the lungs. The inhalations were feeble and jerky, the expirations interminably protracted; it seemed with each slow sigh that it must be the last.

  Jacques had gone up to Antoine. He whispered in his ear: “Gise has just come.”

  Only a slight lift of the eyebrows betrayed Antoine’s surprise. Not for a second would he let his attention be diverted from the duel he was fighting with death. The least inadvertence, and that feeble breath might fail for ever. Like a boxer with his eyes riveted on his opponent, brain alert and every muscle set for action, he kept watch. Not for a moment did he pause to think that for the past two days he would have welcomed as a deliverer that last enemy whose onset he was now resisting with all his might. He had even forgotten, or all but forgotten, that the life in peril was his father’s.

  “The oxygen’s on its way,” he was thinking. “We can hold out five minutes more, perhaps ten. Once it’s here … But I’ll have to have my arms free, so will the sister.”

  He called to his brother. “Jacques, go and fetch someone else. Adrienne, Clotilde—anyone. Two will be enough to hold him up.”

  There was no one in the kitchen. Jacques ran to the linen-room. Only Gise was there, with her aunt. He hesitated for a moment. There was no time to lose… .

  Why not? Yes. “Come, Gise!” He steered the old lady out into the hall. “Wait on the landing. Some oxygen gas-bags will be coming. Bring them to us at once.”

  When they entered the bedroom M. Thibault was sinking into a coma. His face had turned a purplish blue, and a brown sordes was drooling from the corners of his lips.

  “Quickly!” Antoine said. “Stand here!”

  Jacques took his brother’s place; Gise, that of Sister Céline.

  Antoine turned to the sister. “Pull his tongue forward… . No, with a towel. With a towel.”

  Gise had always shown a certain aptitude for nursing and had been attending first-aid classes in London. While preventing the old man from slipping sideways, she grasped his wrist, and after glancing at Antoine to see if he approved, began performing artificial respirations, keeping time with the nurse, who was pulling at his tongue. Jacques took the other arm and copied her movements. But M. Thibault’s face was growing darkly suffused with blood, as if he was being strangled.

  “One, two. One, two,” Antoine repeated, keeping them in rhythm.

  The door opened.

  Adrienne ran in with one of the containers in her arms.

  Antoine snatched it from her and without a moment’s delay turned on the tap and applied it to the old man’s mouth.

  The following minute seemed interminable. But before it was over there had been a visible improvement. Gradually the breathing became stronger, more regular. And soon, unmistakably, the face was getting less blue; the circulation of the blood was coming back.

  At a signal from Antoine, who, keeping his eyes fixed on his father, was gently pressing the gas-bag to his side, Jacques and Gise ceased raising and lowering the arms.

  Gise could not have gone on; she was at the end of her endurance. The whole room seemed spinning round her. The smell from the bed was more than she could bear. She moved away and clung to the back of a chair to prevent herself from collapsing.

  The two brothers remained bending over the bed.

  Propped on the cushions, his lips kept open by the mouthpiece of the gas-bag, M. Thibault was breathing easily, his features calm. Immediate danger was over, though it was necessary to keep him in the sitting position and watch his breathing with attention.

  Handing the container to the sister, Antoine seated himself on the edge of the mattress to take his father’s pulse. He too was suddenly conscious of his utter weariness. The pulse was irregular and very slow. “Ah,” he thought, “if only he could pass away as he now is, peacefully!” It did not strike him yet, the inconsistency between this wish and the desperate fight he had just been putting up against the onset of asphyxiation.

  Looking up, he caught Gise’s eye, and smiled. A moment past he had been using her as a convenient assistant, without a thought for who she was; now suddenly he felt a thrill of joy at seeing her there. Then his gaze swung back towards the dying man. And now at last he could not withhold the thought: “If only the oxygen had come five minutes later, by now all would be over.”

  VI

  THE fit of choking had deprived M. Thibault of the temporary relief which the hot bath might otherwise have given him. Very soon another attack of convulsions came on, and what strength the dying man had drawn from his brief repose served only to enable him to suffer more.

  There was an interval of more than half an hour between the first and second attacks. But evidently the visceral pain and neuralgia had set in again with extreme intensity, for all the time he continued groaning and tossing on the bed. The third attack came on a quarter of an hour after the second, and, after that, attacks of varying violence followed in quick succession, at only a few minutes’ interval.

  Dr. Thérivier had looked in that morning and telephoned several times during the afternoon. When he came again, a little before nine, the paroxysms were of such violence that those who held the patient down were losing control, and the doctor hurried up to help them. But the leg he had grasped wrenched itself free, dealing him a kick that almost knocked him over. How the old man still had such reserves of strength passed their understanding.

  When the convulsions had subsided, Antoine led his friend to the far end of the room. He tried to speak, and indeed managed to get out a few words—which the screams coming from the bed prevented Thérivier from hearing—then suddenly stopped short. His lips were quivering, and Thérivier was shocked by the change that had come over his face. With an effort Antoine pulled himself together, and stammered a few phrases in his friend’s ear:

  “Look here, old man, you can see—see for yourself. It can’t go on like—this this. I can’t—stand any more.” There was an affectionate insistence in his gaze, as if he were appealing to his friend for some miraculous intervention.

  Thérivier dropped his eyes. “Now let’s keep calm!” he murmured, adding after a pause: “And let’s review the facts. The pulse is weak. No micturition for thirty hours. The uremic intoxication is getting worse, and the symptoms are becoming masked. I quite understand how you’re feeling. But, be patient—the end is near.”

  His shoulders bent, his eyes fixed vaguely on the bed, Antoine made no reply. The expression of his face had changed completely. He seemed half asleep. “The end is near!” After all, it might be true!

  Jacques came in, followed by Adrienne and the old nun. It was the change of shift.

  Thérivier went up to Jacques. “I’ll spend the night here, so that your brother can get a bit of rest.”

  Antoine had heard. The temptation of escaping for a while from the sick-room, of rest and silence, of being able to lie down, to sleep perhaps, and to forget, was so strong that he was on the point of accepting Thérivier’s offer. But almost at once he pulled himself together.

  “No, old man.” His voice was firm. “Thanks—but I’d rather not.” Something within him had told him—though he could not have accounted for it—that it was his duty to refuse. He must face his responsibility alone; confront fatality alone. When his friend seemed about to protest, he added: “Don’t insist. I’ve made up my mind. Tonight we’re in full force and fairly fit. Later on, perhaps, I’ll call on you.”

  Thérivier shrugged his shoulders. Still, as he suspected the present state of things might last another day or two, and as in any case he had the habit of always giving in to Antoine, he now made no protest.

 
“Very well. But tomorrow night, whether you agree or not …”

  Antoine did not flinch. “Tomorrow night?” Would they still be going on—these paroxysms and screams of pain? Obviously that was possible. And the next day, too. Why not? His eyes met his brother’s. Jacques alone guessed his anguish, and shared it.

  Hoarse cries were coming from the bed, announcing another attack. They had to go back to their posts. Antoine held out his hand to Thérivier, who clasped it warmly, on the point of whispering: “Courage, old man!”; but he dared not, and left without a word. Antoine watched his receding back. How often had he, too, when leaving the bedside of a patient on the brink of death—after he had shaken a husband’s hand, forcing his mouth into an optimistic smile, or shunned a mother’s eyes—how often had he, too, once he had turned his back on them, hurried from the room with the same sense of relief that Thérivier’s brisk step betrayed!

  At ten that night the attacks, which were now proceeding without intermission, seemed to reach a climax.

  Antoine felt that the energies of his helpers were flagging, their endurance weakening; they were getting slower and less careful in their movements. As a general rule such lapses would have spurred him on to greater personal efforts. But he had reached the stage when his morale could no longer cope with bodily fatigue. It was his fourth night without sleep since leaving for Lausanne. He had given up eating; with an effort he had forced himself to drink a glass of milk earlier in the day, but he had been living most of the time on cold tea, gulping down a cupful every few hours. His nerves were getting steadily worse, though their tension gave him a semblance—but no more—of energy. For what a situation like the present one called for—never-ending patience, coupled with bursts of spurious activity sapped by the knowledge of its impotence—was something against which his whole character rebelled. His endurance was being taxed to the breaking-point; yet he must keep on, wear himself out in never-ending efforts, without an instant’s respite.