When she spoke to him of her husband’s illness, René shook his head. It was probable that Mr. Haviland was treating himself wrongly. According to the symptoms described to him, the army doctor’s diagnosis was that it was not a case of a natural disease following its usual course; he was inclined to attribute it rather to the intermittent action of some injurious agent, some poison. The dilatation of the pupil seemed to him to be unquestionably due to an immoderate use of belladonna or atropine. To light against his rheumatism, Haviland had evidently made use of chloro-hydrated sulphate of atropine, and now according to appearances was making a most disastrous abuse of this drug.
Hélène resolved to act on Rene’s urgent advice to call in a doctor, also to nurse the sick man herself.
The following day she found him in an attic which he used as a workshop. He was planing a board with the greatest care, for he was a carpenter as well as a chemist. Seeing him so calm and rested, she thought she must have been dreaming. He talked about the cook, who was a thief, and whom he had sent away; it was Groult who had discovered his peculations. Every now and then he would lay his plane down on the bench and delicately remove a shaving caught in the guipure of his wife’s dressing-gown. His eyes were clear and normal, and he had never shown such a lack of imagination.
She thought of René, so lively, so intelligent, his mind as full of interesting things as a well written book, his soul bursting with youth and strength; and her heart swelled with hate when she looked at the old man bent over his plane. Groult came at the usual time to bring his master his syrup. When he saw Hélène in the attic, where she had never before put her foot, he rolled his eyes at her like a furious cat.
Then, as on a previous occasion, while Haviland was drinking his syrup, he looked at her impudently, and growled something between his twisted lips. He was so ugly and so cynical that there and then in a flash she understood clearly and certainly without any question what it was he was doing.
She stretched out her hand, as though to snatch the glass from the old man’s lips. Groult whispered in her ear, in an ill-mannered and menacing tone:
“Don’t be childish.”
She stood still, incapable of moving, white to the lips. Haviland finished the syrup and wiped his mouth.
The miserable woman rushed down the stairs, overcome, giddy, feeling as though at each step she would fall through the ground, frightened at her own immeasurable cowardice.
She did not dare to reappear before her husband: she heard that evening from her maid that he had been violently delirious, but that then he was resting. She had imagined him to be dead, and heaved a sigh of relief. She said to herself, “He lives; there is still time to speak, to act. I will not be the accomplice of a...”
Her nerves had been stretched beyond endurance, and she sank down exhausted and heavy with sleep. She thought of René, and her imagination pictured him clothed with all the visionary charm and magic of an absent loved one; her thoughts grew confused and painful. Her head was burning, yet she shivered and her teeth chattered. She experienced a sensation akin to joy, as she slipped into bed; then she lost all grasp on reality. She saw terrible figures passing so quickly she had not time to recognise them. Where was she? And what did this crowd of strangers, dressed in all sorts of theatrical costumes, want with her? Something hot, which she kept pushing from her with horror, weighed on her chest and stifled her. It was a red cat whose eyes kept changing colour. She stuck out her elbows and bent her knees.
A nun came and straightened her bedclothes, but what was she doing there? There were two or three others, who prevented her from going out; yet she had something most important to do, something which could not be put off for one moment, though she was no longer sure what it was.
“Oh, my head! my poor head!” she cried. She was suffering so in her brain that she looked about for a wall, an iron wall, against which to strike her skull, and thus obtain relief. Oh! quick! If she could only make a good wide crack in it so as to let out the water which was boiling inside. An unfamiliar voice said, “Yes, more ice”; but she saw no ice. She was lost on a shore of burning sand, on the edge of a sea of molten lead. She called out, “René! René! take me to the woods at Meudon! Have you forgotten the time when you used to gather hawthorn there for me?”
She fell asleep. When she awoke she was quite childish, and recited in the monotonous tone of a schoolgirl bits of the Catechism and scraps of fables.
“I can’t learn my lessons,” she murmured. “Madame, my head aches; let me go home. I want to see Papa.”
One day she found herself sitting up in bed, very weak but very hungry. She learnt from the nun who was nursing her that she had been very ill for three weeks, but was now out of danger. She made a great effort to collect her thoughts, and asked:
“And my husband?”
The nun told her not to worry; he was well. Hélène breathed again.
During her convalescence she had several lapses of memory, and suffered from the great mental fatigue which ordinarily follows brain fever. There was only one clearly-defined feeling in her mind — terror at the thought of seeing her husband again. When she was told that Mr. Haviland, who was now convalescent himself, was coming to visit her in her room, she had a violent attack of palpitation of the heart. He looked at her affectionately, told her how much he loved her, and for the first time she saw a smile on his grave face. The smile came from within, so profound and so true that she could not but be moved and touched by it. She began to cry, and, turning to the old man, like a loving child put her arms round his neck; but he had already regained his usual stiffness.
By dint of a great effort she recalled across the vapours of her mind the memory of the two potions she had seen Groult pour out. She took her husband’s hands in her own and said to him supplicatingly:
“If you love me, if you wish to save us both from a horrible death, send away, I conjure you, your valet; send him away to-day, at once. What he has done is horrible — horrible. I cannot speak of it. Send him away; send him away.”
Mr. Haviland remembered that Hélène had always shown an aversion for the valet, and, seeing her so feeble, shaken by convulsive sobs and half fainting, he decided that though she was speaking unreasonably it was necessary for him to sacrifice his servant. He called him down from the laboratory and said to him:
“Groult, we must separate. I am quite satisfied with you, and I should have liked to keep you with me until my death — yes. But your presence in this house has become impossible, for reasons which I need not explain to you — no. I shall not change in any way the dispositions I have made in your favour. I tell you so, and you may believe me. You will leave the house on Friday. I will look after you until you get another place. I should like your wife to remain in my service, and I wish to continue in direct communication with you on all matters which concern Samuel Ewart. I have nothing more to say.”
Groult did not answer; he simply bent his head and left the room.
CHAPTER VI
IT was on a Friday that Groult was given notice to leave. On Saturday Haviland felt better than he had done for several months. He drove in the Bois de Boulogne with Hélène, whose health was now almost re-established.
The slight shaking of the carriage and the fresh air agreeably fatigued the two convalescents. Hélène was in the indifferent state born of lassitude. She accepted for the nonce with all her deadened heart the insipid husband and the monotonous fate which had fallen to her lot. Weakness brings with it such consolations. From sheer sick egoism she grew affectionate to the man seated by her side in the barouche, his knees under the fur rug which warmed her own. She glanced coldly at the trees, the lamp-posts, the foot-passengers whom the carriage left behind, at the houses in the Champs Élysées, with their coachmakers’ showrooms, at the sanded alleys, where bowlegged grooms were leading horses up and down by the bridle in the shade; then at the Arc de Triomphe dominating the open space around it with heavy emphasis; then, to the left, at the avenue le
ading to the Bois, bordered on each side by a band of English gardens; she could see, to the right, horsemen galloping on the gravelled paths: all was bathed in the spring sunlight. The watering-pipes had already made their appearance, and men were dragging the long tubes on their little castors about the roads and sprinkling the legs of the half-frightened horses. Sometimes the wind and the shadow of a rapidly driven victoria passed over her face. A pale girl with red hair and painted lips, with her elbows well in as she held the reins, would drive quickly by, a groom with folded arms seated behind her. When the fresh air of the Bois was reached they drove more slowly; carriages gay with tiger skins, with bright spring toilets and happy faces followed one behind the other at a footpace. Salutations were exchanged between one carriage and another, smiling cavaliers bent down to talk to women lying back on the soft cushions beneath the shade of the lowered hoods. A workman’s wedding-party went by on foot, in couples, in the opposite direction.
The stiffly-correct attitude of Haviland was not displeasing to Hélène; she liked his impassibility and his good style. The silence of the man, the calm expression of his face, the simplicity of his ideas pleased her now as so many delicate attentions bestowed on a convalescent. He was dearer to her now she felt she had saved his life. She was afraid of thinking too deeply, and enjoyed the delights of a restricted fatigue and a daily increasing strength. She cosetted herself with the luxuriousness of a chilly cat.
They got out at the Cascade, and drank a glass of milk at the Café.
The tables on each side of them were occupied by whispering old men and the rustle of dresses intermingled with the faint murmur of chattering women. In front of her three young fellows were talking at the top of their voices. She did not know the two facing her, but the one whose back was turned to her and who was almost wholly hidden by one of the waiters she recognised by the outline of his shoulders.
She felt a painful inward spasm, and something in her throat seemed to stifle her, the blood rushed hotly to her cheeks, an indescribable anguish which was at the same time a rapture of overpowering delight took possession of her.
Longuemare, the cause of all this trouble, was far from thinking she was so near him, and went on with the conversation so noisily begun, exaggerating outrageously, as was his habit, his views on the subject under discussion.
“The only practitioner whom I admire,” he said to his comrades (who seemed, like himself, to have been lunching well), “the only one, is Pinel. He never gave any medicine to his patients for fear of checking the normal course of their disease. Satisfied if he could describe and classify a lesion, he prudently abstained from attempting to heal it. Before the magnificent progress of an open wound he remained attentive, respectful, motionless. What a doctor Pinel was!”
Renés voice was drowned in a burst of laughter; interruptions spouted forth and the three friends all began to talk at once. Hélène’s throat grew dry, there was a buzzing in her head, her sight failed her, and perspiration broke out on her brow. Her husband, seeing her so pale, asked if she was tired, if she wished to return home. She looked at him, and he appeared odious to her. His face was covered with a network of little violet veins, and his cheeks were white and scaly, his eyes were dim and vacant: she almost regretted his recovery now.
When they rose up to go, Longuemare saw her; the look which he exchanged with Hélène seemed to draw them closely together.
The next day the old man could not leave his bed; all the symptoms of his intermittent malady had returned, and in a few days they became alarming. On Friday morning Hélène sent for a doctor. Her husband’s appearance was alarming; his eyes were bloodshot and half out of their sockets; he was raving in delirium.
Dr. Hersent, who came while the attack was at its worst, gave him an antispasmodic and sedative medicine, which produced no visible effect. He declared that the case was very grave, that there was probably a profound lesion in the nerve centres, and, fearing that a serious termination might swiftly succeed his visit, insisted on holding a consultation that very evening. Just at this time Groult, having got his wife to attend to his packing, had taken a cab and was leaving the house in accordance with the orders he had received.
Hélène remained with the sick man. Crushed by a nameless terror, she dared not look at him; then, suddenly seized with horrible curiosity, she stared at him with all her eyes; she must see — see what was passing, even if it killed her. The unhappy Haviland was struggling with two men-servants, who by great efforts kept him between the bedclothes. He was calling for his wife and for Samuel Ewart. Every note in his voice was altered; it sounded like the voice of another man and by so much the more appalling. He would whisper Hélène’s name plaintively, and the next moment would break into shrill yells and sinister laughter. The contrast was so sudden it was impossible to understand how even a madman could change so rapidly from sad tenderness to furious irony. Horrible enough as the scene was in reality, Hélène’s sick imagination increased it tenfold. She felt as if red hot wires were running from her head to her heels; a burning garment wrapped her round behind and before.
She listened attentively to what her husband was saying, but was the more distressed that she could not discover the vaguest meaning in his wanderings. If at that moment he had pointed his finger at her, denounced her openly and cursed her, it would have been a positive relief.
At ten o’clock in the evening the doctors, Hersent, Guérard, and Baldec, were gathered round the patient, who, in their presence, was seized with a trembling in every limb; then he sank back and appeared to be sleeping. A new torment, the worst of all, began for Hélène. All the old feelings of friendship and respect for the man who had so loyally loved her returned. She could not help weeping, yet her tears disgusted her; they were hypocritical tears, for was she not to blame?
Haviland’s breathing was so rapid and so painful that all who heard it, with the exception of the doctors, felt oppressed. His bony hands were spread on the counterpane and scratched and plucked clumsily at it. Dr. Hersent took his left wrist; the pulse was weaker, his extremities were growing cold. His nose was pinched, his eyes sunk in. He rolled them round as though to see and recognise things for one last time, then he dropped his head back on the pillow and sighed three times. A gesture from the doctor announced that all was over; he was at rest.
When Hélène, who had been standing stiffly upright throughout his death agony, heard that he was dead, she felt a delicious sensation; it was as though the ground was opening beneath her and she was slipping away into nothingness. How sweet to cease from troubling, to cease to be: she fell fainting to the ground.
As the doctors, Guérard and Baldec, were leaving the house, they met a short gentleman, with big whiskers and tortoiseshell-mounted spectacles, in the hall. He took them by the hand and said with a solemn accent:
“Gentlemen, your efforts have been in vain; human skill, no matter how great it may be, has its limits. The princes of science cannot control Nature. I am one of those who respect courage even in defeat. I declare to you that Fellaire de Sisac will never forget the enlightened care you have lavished on his honourable and sympathetic son-in-law.”
Then Monsieur Fellaire marched with a slow grave step to the dining-room, where he ordered a light repast to be served to him.
Madame Groult, bathed in sweat and tears, was clucking mournfully in her lodge.
Dr. Hersent followed Hélène to her room, for he considered that her condition demanded some attention. When she saw this tall man all in black, whom she did not recognise, come in, she became delirious with fear. She stretched out her arms to him and shrieked:
“It was not I who did it! I swear to you it was not I!”
CHAPTER VII
MONSIEUR FELLAIRE showed immense activity after the death of his son-in-law. Attired in deep mourning he walked, with the nephew of the deceased, at the head of the funeral procession. The cortège went slowly down the outer boulevards to the Montparnasse Cemetery, where Haviland, who ha
d adopted his wife’s country, had bought a grave for himself and her. Fellaire’s face was white and puffy from lack of sleep; he was not accustomed to rise so early in the morning. His reddened eyes and swollen eyelids behind his tortoiseshell spectacles gave an opportune expression of fatigue and melancholy to his face. Being stout, he naturally walked slowly and pompously. Aware of this advantage he made no effort to subdue or conceal his bulky importance. By a strange freak of fortune he was now able to wear a hat very different from that which he had deposited on the table in Haviland’s drawing-room; the one he now carried was new and lustrous, with an immaculate lining. It lay on his arm like a gun on its carriage and appeared to be levelled at the hearse. His boots did not creak as loudly as usual; they only emitted a sort of discreet sigh at each step as though the funeral genii were hidden in them. He stood motionless before the Gothic tomb, his eyes behind their spectacles turned to heaven with a spiritual expression, while the workmen let the coffin down, spitting on their hands as the cords ran through them, and murmuring their “Oh’s” and “Eh’s” under their breath. One understood by his attitude that his thoughts had passed beyond the bronze portals of the mausoleum and were floating on wings of sublime philosophy in ethereal regions. He was wandering thus in the domain of idealism, detached from earthly existence, when a little fit of coughing reminded him that he still lived and was tight in the chest. Behind him and towering above him by a head was a group of fair-haired, large-framed Englishmen, erect and stiff in their well-cut clothes. Two business men, habitués of the Brasserie de Colmar and constant companions of Fellaire’s at billiards and dominoes, stood a little way off whispering together. The servants were huddled in the pathway to the side of the tomb, and the sun, shining strongly, showed up the footmen’s whiskers and the black ribbons in the maids’ caps, revealed sleeves that were too full and glimpses of black trousers so much too long as to fall in great folds over the boots.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 289