Germinie Lacerteux
She had other motives for suffering on her feet, for keeping constantlyabout her work despite her increasing weakness, than the repugnance ofcountry-people to take to their beds, or her fierce, jealousdetermination that no one but herself should attend to mademoiselle'sneeds: she had a constant terror of denunciation, which might accompanythe installation of a new servant. It was absolutely necessary that sheshould be there, to keep watch on mademoiselle and prevent anyone fromcoming near her. It was necessary, too, that she should show herself,that the quarter should see her, and that she should not appear to hercreditors with the aspect of a dead woman. She must make a pretence ofbeing strong, she must assume a cheerful, lively demeanor, she mustimpart confidence to the whole street with the doctor's studied words,with a hopeful air, and with the promise not to die. She must appear ather best in order to reassure her debtors and to prevent apprehensionson the subject of money from ascending the stairs and applying tomademoiselle.
She acted up to her part in this horrible, but necessary, comedy. Shewas absolutely heroic in the way she made her whole body lie,--indrawing up her enfeebled form to its full height as she passed theshops, whose proprietors' eyes were upon her; in quickening her trailingfootsteps; in rubbing her cheeks with a rough towel before going out inorder to bring back the color of blood to them; in covering the pallorof her disease and her death-mask with rouge.
Despite the terrible cough that racked her sleepless nights, despite herstomach's loathing for food, she passed the whole winter conquering andovercoming her own weakness and struggling with the ups and downs of herdisease.
At every visit that he made, the doctor told mademoiselle that he wasunable to find that any of her maid's vital organs were seriouslydiseased. The lungs were a little ulcerated near the top; but peoplerecovered from that. "But her body seems worn out, thoroughly worn out,"he said again and again, in a sad tone, with an almost embarrassedmanner that impressed mademoiselle. And he always had something to say,at the end of his visit, about a change of air--about the country.
LX
When August arrived, the doctor had nothing but that to advise orprescribe--the country. Notwithstanding the repugnance of elderly peopleto move, to change their abode and the habits and regular hours of theirlife; despite her domestic nature and the sort of pang that she felt atbeing torn from her hearthstone, mademoiselle decided to take Germinieinto the country. She wrote to the _chick's_ daughter, who lived, with abrood of children, on a small estate in a village of Brie, and who hadbeen, for many years, begging her to pay her a long visit. She requestedher hospitality for a month or six weeks for herself and her sick maid.
They set out. Germinie was delighted. On their arrival she feltdecidedly better. For some days her disease seemed to be diverted by thechange. But the weather that summer was very uncertain, with much rain,sudden changes, and high winds. Germinie had a chill, and mademoisellesoon heard again, overhead, just above the room in which she slept, thefrightful cough that had been so painful and hard to bear at Paris.There were hurried paroxysms of coughing that seemed almost to strangleher; spasms that would break off for a moment, then begin again; and thepauses caused the ear and the heart to experience a nervous, anxiousanticipation of what was certain to come next, and always didcome,--racking and tearing, dying away again, but still vibrating in theear, even when it had ceased: never silent, never willing to have done.
And yet Germinie rose from those horrible nights with an energy andactivity that amazed mademoiselle and at times reassured her. She wasout of bed as early as anybody in the house. One morning, at fiveo'clock, she went with the man-servant in a _char-a-banc_ to a mill-pondthree leagues away, for fish; at another time she dragged herself to thesaint's day ball, with the maids from the house, and did not returnuntil they did, at daybreak. She worked all the time; assisted theservants. She was always sitting on the edge of a chair, in a corner ofthe kitchen, doing something with her fingers. Mademoiselle was obligedto force her to go out, to drive her into the garden to sit. ThenGerminie would sit on the green bench, with her umbrella over her head,and the sun in her skirts and on her feet. Hardly moving, she wouldforget herself utterly as she inhaled the light and air and warmth,passionately and with a sort of feverish joy. Her distended lips wouldpart to admit the fresh, clear air. Her eyes burned, but did not move;and in the light shadow of the silk umbrella her gaunt, wasted, haggardface stared vacantly into space like an amorous death's head.
Weary as she was at night, no persuasion could induce her to retirebefore her mistress. She insisted upon being at hand to undress her.Seated by her side, she would rise from time to time to wait upon her asbest she could, assist her to take off a petticoat, then sit down again,collect her strength for a moment, rise again, and insist upon doingsomething for her. Mademoiselle had to force her to sit down and orderher to keep quiet. And all the time that the evening toilet lasted shehad always upon her lips the same tiresome chatter about the servants ofthe house.
"Why, mademoiselle, you haven't an idea of the eyes they make at eachother when they think no one sees them--the cook and the man--I mean.They keep quiet when I am by; but the other day I surprised them in thebakery. They were kissing, fancy! Luckily madame here don't suspect it."
"Ah! there you are again with your tale-bearing! Why, good God!"mademoiselle would exclaim, "what difference does it make to you whetherthey _coo_ or don't _coo_? They're kind to you, aren't they? That's allthat's necessary."
"Oh! very kind, mademoiselle; as far as that's concerned I haven't aword to say. Marie got up in the night last night to give me somewater--and as for him, when there's any dessert left, it's always forme. Oh! he's very polite to me--in fact, Marie don't like it very wellthat he thinks so much about me. You understand, mademoiselle----"
"Come, come! go to bed with all your nonsense!" said her mistresssharply, sad, and annoyed as well, to find such a keen interest inothers' love-affairs in one so ill.
LXI
When they returned from the country, the doctor, after examiningGerminie, said to Mademoiselle: "It has been very rapid, very rapid. Theleft lung is entirely gone. The right has begun to be affected at thetop, 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 everloved 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 aburden, too great a grief for you to have her with you," he added, at agesture from mademoiselle.
"No, monsieur, no, I haven't thought of it. Oh! yes, I am likely to sendher away. Why you must have seen, monsieur: that girl isn't a maid, sheisn't a servant in my eyes; she's like the family I never had! Whatwould you have me say to her: 'Be off with you now!' Ah! I neversuffered so much before on account of not being rich and having awretched 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, notthere; I don't choose to have her die in that place!"
"Good God, mademoiselle, she'll be a hundred times better off there thanhere. I would get her admitted at Lariboisiere, during the term ofservice of a doctor who is a friend of mine. I would recommend her to anintern, who is under great obligations to me. She would have a veryexcellent Sister to nurse her in the hall to which I would have hersent. If necessary, she could have a private room. But I am sure shewould prefer to be in a common room. It's the essential thing to do, yousee, mademoiselle. She can't stay in that chamber up there. You knowwhat these horrible servants' quarters are. Indeed, it's my opinion thatthe health authorities ought to compel the landlords to show commonhumanity 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 anice-house. You see she still keeps about. She has a marvelous stock ofcourage, prodigious nervous vitality. But, in spite of everything, thebed will claim her in a few days,--she won't get up again. Come, listento reason, mademoiselle. Let me speak to her, will you?"
"No, not yet. I must get used to the idea. And then, when I see heraround 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 quitecapable of making yourself sick nursing her."
"I? Oh! as for me!" And Mademoiselle de Varandeuil made a gestureindicating that her life was of no consequence.
LXII
Amid Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's desperate anxiety concerning hermaid's health, she became conscious of a strange feeling, a sort of fearin the presence of the new, unfamiliar, mysterious creature thatsickness had made of Germinie. Mademoiselle had a sense of discomfortbeside that hollow, ghostly face, which was almost unrecognizable in itsimplacable rigidity, and which seemed to return to itself, to recoverconsciousness, only furtively, by fits and starts, in the effort toproduce a pallid smile. The old woman had seen many people die; hermemories of many painful years recalled the expressions of many dear,doomed faces, of many faces that were sad and desolate andgrief-stricken in death; but no face of all those she remembered hadever assumed, as the end drew near, that distressing expression of aface retiring within itself and closing the doors.
Enveloped in her suffering, Germinie maintained her savage, rigid,self-contained, impenetrable demeanor. She was as immovable as bronze.Mademoiselle, as she looked at her, asked herself what it could be thatshe brooded over thus without moving; whether it was her life rising inrevolt, the dread of death, or a secret remorse for something in herpast. Nothing external seemed to affect the sick woman. She was nolonger conscious of things about her. Her body became indifferent toeverything, did not ask to be relieved, seemed not to desire to becured. She complained of nothing, found no pleasure or diversion inanything. Even her longing for affection had left her. She no longermade any motion to bestow or invite a caress, and every day somethinghuman left her body, which seemed to be turning to stone. Often shewould bury herself in profound silence that made one expect aheart-rending shriek or word; but after glancing about the room, shewould say nothing and begin again to stare fixedly, vacantly, at thesame spot in space.
When mademoiselle returned from the friend's house with whom she dined,she would find Germinie in the dark, sunk in an easy-chair with her legsstretched out upon a chair, her head hanging forward on her breast, andso profoundly absorbed that sometimes she did not hear the door open. Asshe walked forward into the room it seemed to Mademoiselle de Varandeuilas if she were breaking in upon a ghastly _tete-a-tete_ between Diseaseand the Shadow of Death, wherein Germinie was already seeking, in theterror of the Invisible, the blindness of the grave and the darkness ofdeath.
LXIII
Throughout the month of October, Germinie obstinately refused to take toher bed. Each day, however, she was weaker and more helpless than theday before. She was hardly able to ascend the flight of stairs that ledto her sixth floor, dragging herself along by the railing. One day shefell on the stairs: the other servants picked her up and carried her toher chamber. But that did not stop her; the next day she went downstairsagain, with the fitful gleam of strength that invalids commonly have inthe morning. She prepared mademoiselle's breakfast, made a pretence ofworking, and kept moving about the apartment, clinging to the chairs anddragging herself along. Mademoiselle took pity on her; she forced her tolie down on her own bed. Germinie lay there half an hour, an hour, wideawake, not speaking, but with her eyes open, fixed, and staring intovacancy like the eyes of a person in severe pain.
One morning she did not come down. Mademoiselle climbed to the sixthfloor, turned into a narrow corridor in which the air was heavy with theodors from servants' water-closets and at last reached Germinie's door,No. 21. Germinie apologized for having compelled her to come up. It wasimpossible for her to put her feet out of the bed. She had terriblepains in her bowels and they were badly swollen. She begged mademoiselleto sit down a moment and, to make room for her, removed the candlestickthat stood on the chair at the head of her bed.
Mademoiselle sat down and remained a few moments, looking about thewretched room,--one of those where the doctor has to lay his hat on thebed, and where there is barely room to die! It was a small attic room,without a chimney, with a scuttle window in the sloping roof, whichadmitted the heat of summer and the cold of winter. Old trunks, clothesbags, a foot-bath, and the little iron bedstead on which Germinie'sniece had slept, were heaped up in a corner under the sloping roof. Thebed, one chair, a little disabled washstand with a broken pitcher,comprised the whole of the furniture. Above the bed, in an imitationviolet-wood frame, hung a daguerreotype of a man.
The doctor came during the day. "Aha! peritonitis," he said, whenmademoiselle described Germinie's condition.
He went up to see the sick woman. "I am afraid," he said, when he camedown, "that there's an abscess in the intestine communicating with anabscess in the bladder. It's a serious case, very serious. You must tellher not to move about much in her bed, to turn over with great care.She might die suddenly in horrible agony. I suggested to her to go toLariboisiere,--she agreed at once. She seemed to have no repugnance atall. But I don't know how she will bear the journey. However, she hassuch an unlimited stock of energy; I have never seen anything like it.To-morrow morning you shall have the order of admission."
When mademoiselle went up to Germinie's room again, she found hersmiling in her bed, gay as a lark at the idea of going away.
"It's a matter of six weeks at most, mademoiselle," said she.
LXIV
At two o'clock the next day the doctor brought the order for heradmission to Lariboisiere. The invalid was ready to start. Mademoisellesuggested that they should send to the hospital for a litter. "Oh! no,"said Germinie, hastily, "I should think I was dead." She was thinking ofher debts; she must show herself to her creditors on the street, alive,and on her feet to the last!
She got out of bed. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil assisted her to put onher petticoat and her dress. As soon as she left her bed, all signs oflife disappeared from her face, the flush from her complexion: it seemedas if earth suddenly took the place of blood under her skin. She wentdown the steep servants' stairway, clinging to the baluster, and reachedher mistress's apartments. She sat down in an arm-chair near the windowin the dining-room. She insisted upon putting on her stockings withoutassistance, and as she pulled them on with her poor trembling hands, thefingers striking against one another, she afforded a glimpse of herlegs, which were so thin as to make one shudder. The housekeeper,meanwhile, was putting together in a bundle a little linen, a glass, acup, and a pewter plate, which she wished to carry with her. When thatwas done, Germinie looked about her for a moment; she cast one lastglance around the room, a glance that seemed to long to take everythingaway with her. Then, as her eyes rested on the door through which thehousekeeper had just gone out, she said to mademoiselle: "At all eventsI leave a good woman with you."
She rose. The door closed noisily behind her, as if to say adieu, and,supported by Mademoiselle de Varandeuil, who almost carried her, shewent down the five flights of the main stairway. At every landing shepaused to take breath. In the vestibule she found the concierge, who hadbrought her a chair. She fell into it. The vulgar fellow laughinglypromised her that she would be well in six weeks. She moved her headslightly as she said _yes_, a muffled _yes_.
She was in the cab, beside her mistress. It was an uncomfortable cab andjolted over the pavements. She sat forward on the seat to avoid theconcussion of the jolting, and clung to the door with her hand. Shewatched the houses pass, but did not speak. When they reached thehospital gate, she refused to be carried. "Can you walk as far as that?"said the concierge, pointing to the reception-room some sixty feetdistant. She
made an affirmative sign and walked: it was a dead womanwalking, because she was determined to walk!
At last she reached the great hall, cold and stiff and clean and bareand horrible, with a circle of wooden benches around the waiting litter.Mademoiselle de Varandeuil led her to a straw chair near a glazed door.A clerk opened the door, asked Mademoiselle de Varandeuil Germinie'sname and age, and wrote for a quarter of an hour, covering ten or moresheets of paper with a religious emblem at the top. That done,Mademoiselle de Varandeuil kissed her and turned to go; she saw anattendant take her under the arms, then she saw no more, but turned andfled, and, throwing herself upon the cushions of the cab, she burst intosobs and gave vent to all the tears with which her heart had beensuffocated for an hour past. The driver on his box was amazed to hearsuch violent weeping.
LXV
On the visiting day, Thursday, mademoiselle started at half-past twelveto go and see Germinie. It was her purpose to be at her bedside at themoment the doors were thrown open, at one o'clock precisely. As she rodethrough the streets she had passed through four days before, sheremembered the ghastly ride of Monday. It seemed to her as if she wereincommoding a sick person in the cab, of which she was the onlyoccupant, and she sat close in the corner in order to make room for thememory of Germinie. In what condition should she find her? Should shefind her at all? Suppose her bed should be empty?