“No, at least I do not think so.”
“Do you guarantee that?”
“No, I just say that I hope I have only to deal with a simple abdominal contusion without internal lesions.”
“What do you call lesions?”
“Lacerations.”
“How do you know there are none?”
“I suppose so.”
“And if there were?”
“Ah! Then it would be serious.”
“Might he die of them?”
“Yes.”
“Very soon?”
“Very soon. In a few moments, or even in a few seconds. But take courage, madame. I am convinced that he will have recovered in a fortnight.”
She had listened with profound attention, to know all, to understand all. She continued, “What laceration might there be?”
“A laceration of the liver, for instance.”
“Would that be very dangerous?”
“Yes, but I should be surprised to meet with a complication now. Let us go in to him. It will do him good, for he expects you with great impatience.”
What she first saw on entering the room was a pale face on a white pillow. A few candles and the fire of the hearth threw their light upon it, brought out the profile, deepened the shadows; and in that livid face the countess saw two eyes that watched her coming.
All her courage, all her energy, all her resolution failed her, so much did those hollow and distorted features resemble those of a dying person. He whom she had seen only a little while ago had become that thing, that specter! She murmured between her lips “Oh! My God!” and walked toward him, palpitating with horror.
He tried to smile, to encourage her, and the grimace which followed that attempt was frightful.
When she was quite near the bed she gently laid both her hands upon Olivier’s that were stretched out alongside his body, and stammered, “Oh! My poor friend.”
“It is nothing,” he said in a low voice, without moving his head.
She was now gazing upon him, distracted by the change: he was so pale that he no longer seemed to have a drop of blood under his skin. His hollow cheeks appeared to be drawn to the inside of his face, and his eyes, too, were sunken, as if some thread had pulled them in.
He plainly saw his friend’s terror and sighed. “Here I am in a fine condition.”
She said to him, still looking at him fixedly, “How did it happen?”
He was making great efforts to speak, and at times his whole face was convulsed with nervous shocks. “I wasn’t looking . . . I was thinking of something else . . . something quite different. . . . Oh! yes—an omnibus knocked me down and ran over me. . . .”
As she listened she could see the accident, and she said, carried away by fright, “Did you bleed?”
“No. I’m only a little bruised—somewhat crushed.”
She asked, “Where did it happen?”
He answered very low, “I hardly know. It was quite far.”
The physician was rolling up an easy chair, into which the countess sank. The count remained standing at the foot of the bed, repeating between his teeth, “Oh! My poor friend, my poor friend, what a frightful misfortune!” And he felt, indeed, very great sorrow, for he really loved Olivier.
The countess said again, “But where did it take place?”
The physician answered, “I hardly know anything about it myself, or rather, I don’t understand it at all. It was in the Gobelins, almost outside of Paris. At least the coachman who brought him back stated to me that he picked him up at a pharmacy in that quartier, where he had been carried, at nine o’clock in the evening!”
Then, leaning toward Olivier, she asked, “Is it true that the accident happened near the Gobelins?”
Bertin closed his eyes as though to remember, then murmured, “I don’t know.”
“But where were you going?”
“I don’t remember. I was walking straight ahead!”
A groan she couldn’t suppress came from the countess’s lips; then, stifled and breathless for a few seconds, she took her handkerchief from her pocket and covered her eyes, weeping bitterly. She knew; she guessed! Something intolerable, overwhelming, had just fallen on her heart; remorse for not keeping Olivier at her house, for driving him out, for throwing him into the street where, staggering with grief, he had rolled under that carriage.
He said to her in that expressionless tone he now had, “Don’t weep. It distresses me.”
With a supreme effort of will she ceased sobbing, uncovered her face, and looked at him with eyes wide open, without a contraction of her features, though tears continued to flow slowly.
They gazed at each other, both motionless, their hands clasped under the covers. They gazed at each other, no longer knowing that anyone else was in the room, and their glances carried a superhuman emotion from one heart to the other.
It was between them, the rapid, silent, and terrible evocation of all their recollections, of all their love, crushed also; of all they had felt together, of all they had united and blended in their lives, in that impulse which made them give themselves to each other.
They gazed at each other, and the need of talking, of hearing those thousand intimate things, so sad, which they still had to speak arose to their lips irresistibly. She felt that she must at any price get rid of the two men behind her, that she must find some means, a subterfuge, an inspiration—she, the woman fruitful in resources. And she began to reflect, her eyes always fixed on Olivier.
Her husband and the physician were talking in low tones. They were discussing the care to be given.
Turning her head, she said to the physician, “Did you bring a nurse?”
“No. I prefer to send a house surgeon, who will be better able to watch the situation.”
“Send both. We can never be too careful. Can you obtain them tonight yet, for I do not suppose you will remain till morning?”
“Indeed I was about to return home. I have been here four hours already.”
“But, as you return you will send us the nurse and the house surgeon.”
“It is rather difficult in the middle of the night. However, I shall try.”
“You must.”
“They may promise, but will they come?”
“My husband will accompany you and bring them back, whether they will or not.”
“But you, madame, cannot remain here alone.”
“I”—she made a sort of cry of defiance, of indignant protest against any resistance to her will. Then she explained, in that authoritative way which leaves no room for a reply, the necessities of the situation. It was necessary that, to avoid all accidents, the house surgeon and the nurse should be procured inside of an hour. To do so someone must get them out of bed and bring them. Her husband alone could do that. During this time she would remain near the sick, she whose duty and right it was. She was simply fulfilling her role of friend, of woman. In any case, she wished it so, and no one could dissuade her from it.
Her argument was sensible. They could but grant that, and they decided to act accordingly.
She had risen, filled with the thought of their going, in haste to feel them away and herself left alone. Now, in order that she might be guilty of no clumsiness during their absence, she listened, trying to comprehend clearly, to remember everything, to forget nothing of the physician’s recommendations. The painter’s valet, standing near her, was listening also, and behind him his wife, the cook, who had assisted during the first dressings, indicated by signs of the head that she also understood. When the countess had received all these instructions, like a lesson, she hurried the two men away, repeating to her husband, “Come back quickly, whatever you do, come back quickly.”
“I shall take you in my coupé,” said the physician to the count. “It will bring you back faster. You will be here in an hour.”
Before starting, the doctor again examined the patient at length, in order to make sure that his condition was satisfactor
y.
Guilleroy was still hesitating. He said, “You don’t think we are acting imprudently?”
“No, there is no danger. He only needs rest and calm. Madame de Guilleroy will please not let him speak and speak to him as little as possible.”
The countess was dumbfounded and replied, “Then he must not be spoken to?”
“Oh no, madame. Take an armchair and sit near him. He will not feel alone, and it will be good for him, but no fatigue, no fatigue of words or even of thought. I shall be here at about nine o’clock in the morning. Goodbye, madame. I am your faithful servant.”
He went off, bowing very low, followed by the count who kept repeating, “Be of good heart, my dear. I shall be back in less than an hour, and you will be able to return home.”
When they were gone she listened to the noise of the door below being closed, then the rumbling off of the coupé in the street.
The servant and the cook had remained in the room waiting for orders. The countess dismissed them. “You may retire,” she said. “I shall ring if I need anything.”
They also went off, and she remained alone near him.
She had come back quite close to the bed, and laying her hands upon the two edges of the pillow, on both sides of that beloved head, she bent down to gaze upon it. Then she asked, her face so near his that she seemed to breathe her words upon his skin, “Did you throw yourself under that carriage?”
He answered, still trying to smile, “No, it was the carriage that threw itself on me.”
“It is not true. It was you.”
“No, I assure you it was it.”
After a few moments of silence, moments in which their souls seemed to be entwined in glances, she murmured, “Oh my dear, dear Olivier! To think that I let you go and did not detain you!”
He answered with an air of conviction, “It would have happened to me, just the same, some day or other.”
They still gazed on each other, trying to perceive their most secret thoughts. He went on, “I do not think I shall recover. I suffer too much.”
She whispered, “Are you suffering much?”
“Oh yes!”
Bending a little more, she grazed his forehead, then his eyes, then his cheeks with slow kisses, light, delicate as caresses. She touched him with the tip of her lips, with that little breathing noise that children make when they embrace. And that lasted a long, long time. He let that shower of sweet little caresses fall on him, and it seemed to soothe, to refresh him, for his contracted face quivered less than before.
Then he said, “Any?”
She ceased kissing to hear him. “What, my friend?”
“You must make me a promise.”
“I will promise you all you like.”
“If I am not dead before morning swear to me that you will bring Annette to me, once, only once! I so wish not to die without having seen her again. . . . Only think that . . . tomorrow . . . at this hour . . . I shall perhaps . . . I shall surely have closed my eyes for the last time . . . and that I shall never see you again . . . I . . . neither you . . . nor her—”
She stopped him, her heart breaking. “Oh hush! Hush—yes, I promise you to bring her.”
“Will you swear it?”
“I swear it, my friend—but be silent, speak no more. You pain me horribly—hush!”
A rapid convulsion passed over all his features, then when it was over, he said, “If we have but a few moments more to spend together, let’s not waste them; let’s take advantage of them to speak our farewell. I have loved you so—”
She sighed. “And I—how I still love you—”
Again he said, “I have known happiness only through you. The last days only have been hard—it is not your fault. Ah! My poor Any—how life seems sad at times—and how difficult it is to die!”
“Hush, Olivier. I beg of you—”
Without listening, he continued, “I’d have been such a happy man had you not had your daughter.”
“Hush! My God! Do be silent—”
He seemed to dream rather than speak. “Ah! He who invented this existence and made man was very blind or very wicked—”
“Olivier, I beseech you—if you ever loved me, be silent—do not speak this way anymore.”
He gazed at her bending toward him, so livid that she too looked as if she were dying, and he was silent.
Then she sat in the armchair, quite close to his couch, and again took the hand stretched under the cover.
“Now I forbid you to speak,” she said. “Do not stir—think of me as I think of you.”
Once more they gazed at each other, motionless, joined by the burning clasp of their hands. She pressed with gentle motions the feverish hand she was holding, and he responded to these calls by tightening his fingers a little. Every one of these pressures said something to them, evoked some portion of their finished past, stirring up in their memories the stagnant recollections of their love. Each one of them was a silent question, each one of them a mysterious answer, sad questions and sad replies, the “Do you remember?” of an old love.
Their minds in this agonizing meeting, which might perhaps be the last, followed back through the years the whole history of their passion, and in the room nothing but the crackling of the fire was heard.
Suddenly, as if coming out of a dream, he said with a start of terror, “Your letters!”
She asked, “What about my letters?”
“I might have died without destroying them.”
She exclaimed, “Eh, what matters it to me? As if that were of any importance now. Let them find and read them. What do I care?”
He answered, “I do not wish it. Rise, Any. Open the lower drawer of my desk, the larger one—they’re all there, every one. You must take them and throw them into the fire.”
She did not stir and remained crouching, as if he had asked her to do a cowardly act.
He continued, “Any, I beseech you. If you do not do this you will torment me, excite me, and drive me mad. Reflect that they might fall into the hands of anyone, a notary, a servant—or even your husband—I do not wish—”
She rose, still hesitating, and repeating, “No, it’s too hard, it’s too cruel. I feel as though you’d make me burn both our hearts.”
He was pleading, his face contracted by anguish. Seeing him suffer thus she resigned herself and walked toward the desk.
As she opened the drawer she found it filled to the top with a thick layer of letters piled one on top of the other, and she recognized upon all the envelopes the two lines of the address she had written so often. She knew those two lines—a man’s name, the name of a street—as well as her own name, as well as one may know the few words that during life have represented all hope and all happiness.
She looked at them, those little square things which contained all that she had known how to say of her love, all that she had been able to take out of herself, to give it to him, with a little ink upon white paper.
He had tried to turn his head on the pillow to look at her, and he said once more, “Burn them up, quickly.”
Then she took two handfuls and kept them a few minutes in her hands. They seemed heavy to her, painful, living yet dead, so many different things were contained therein, at this moment so many things that were ended, so sweet, felt, dreamed. It was the soul of her soul, the heart of her heart, the essence of her loving being that she was holding there; and she recalled with what rapture she had dashed off some of them, with what exaltation, what intoxication of living, of adoring someone and expressing it.
Olivier repeated, “Burn then, burn them, Any.”
With the same motion of both hands she threw into the fireplace the two packages of papers, which settled as they fell upon the wood. Then she took others from the desk and threw them on top, then more still, with rapid movements, stooping and rising again hastily to finish the distressing task quickly.
When the fireplace was full and the drawer empty she remained standing, waiting, look
ing at the almost smothered flame as it climbed up from all points on that mountain of envelopes. It attacked them on the sides, gnawed the corners, ran along the edge of the paper, went out, revived again, and spread. Presently all around that white pyramid there was a bright circle of clear fire that filled the hearth with light; and this light, illuminating that woman bowed in grief and that man lying prostrate, was their burning love, their love turned to ashes.
The countess turned around, and in the brilliant glare of that fire she perceived her friend leaning with a haggard face on the edge of the bed.
He was asking, “Are they all there?”
“Yes, everything.”
But before she went back to him she threw a last glance on that destruction, and on the pile of papers already half consumed, which were twisting and turning black, she saw something red flowing. One would have thought it drops of blood. It seemed to come out of the very heart of the letters, of each letter, as out of a wound, and flowed slowly toward the flame, leaving a purple train.
The countess felt in her soul the shock of supernatural fear, and stepped back as if she had been witnessing the assassination of a person; then she understood, she suddenly understood that she had simply seen the melting of the wax seals.
She returned to the wounded man, and raising his head gently, placed it with caution in the center of the pillow. But he had stirred, and the pains increased. He was panting now, his face contorted by frightful suffering, and he seemed no longer to know that she was there.
She waited for him to be a little more calm, to lift up his eyes, which he had kept obstinately closed, to be able to say, still, a word to her.
Finally she asked, “Are you suffering much?”
He did not answer.
And she stooped down toward him and placed a finger on his forehead to force him to look at her.
He did indeed open his eyes, bewildered, mad.
She repeated, terrified, “Are you suffering? Olivier! Answer me. Shall I call—make an effort, say something to me.”
She thought she heard him mutter, “Bring her . . . you swore it to me. . . .”
Then he stirred about under the bedding, his body twisted, his face convulsed.