第 23 页

How can we possibly manage with so few? Things are bad enough as it is."

Ferrand looked and listened, quite bewildered by the extraordinary

behaviour of the people amongst whom he had been thrown by chance since

the previous day. He who did not believe, who was only present out of

friendship and charity, was amazed at this extraordinary scramble of

wretchedness and suffering rushing towards the hope of happiness. And, as

a medical man of the new school, he was altogether upset by the careless

neglect of precautions, the contempt which was shown for the most simple

teachings of science, in the certainty which was apparently felt that, if

Heaven should so will it, cure would supervene, sudden and resounding,

like a lie given to the very laws of nature. But if this were the case,

what was the use of that last concession to human prejudices--why engage

a doctor for the journey if none were wanted? At this thought the young

man returned to his little room, experiencing a vague feeling of shame as

he realised that his presence was useless, and even a trifle ridiculous.

"Get some opium pills ready all the same," said Sister Hyacinthe, as she

went back with him as far as the linen-room. "You will be asked for some,

for I feel anxious about some of the patients."

While speaking she looked at him with her large blue eyes, so gentle and

so kind, and ever lighted by a divine smile. The constant exercise which

she gave herself brought the rosy flush of her quick blood to her skin

all dazzling with youthfulness. And like a good friend who was willing

that he should share the work to which she gave her heart, she added:

"Besides, if I should need somebody to get a patient in or out of bed,

you will help me, won't you?"

Thereupon, at the idea that he might be of use to her, he was pleased

that he had come and was there. In his mind's eye, he again beheld her at

his bedside, at the time when he had so narrowly escaped death, nursing

him with fraternal hands, with the smiling, compassionate grace of a

sexless angel, in whom there was something more than a comrade, something

of a woman left. However, the thought never occurred to him that there

was religion, belief, behind her.

"Oh! I will help you as much as you like, Sister," he replied. "I belong

to you, I shall be so happy to serve you. You know very well what a debt

of gratitude I have to pay you."

In a pretty way she raised her finger to her lips so as to silence him.

Nobody owed her anything. She was merely the servant of the ailing and

the poor.

At this moment a first patient was making her entry into the

Sainte-Honorine Ward. It was Marie, lying in her wooden box, which

Pierre, with Gerard's assistance, had just brought up-stairs. The last to

start from the railway station, she had secured admission before the

others, thanks to the endless complications which, after keeping them all

in suspense, now freed them according to the chance distribution of the

admission cards. M. de Guersaint had quitted his daughter at the hospital

door by her own desire; for, fearing the hotels would be very full, she

had wished him to secure two rooms for himself and Pierre at once. Then,

on reaching the ward, she felt so weary that, after venting her chagrin

at not being immediately taken to the Grotto, she consented to be laid on

a bed for a short time.

"Come, my child," repeated Madame de Jonquiere, "you have three hours

before you. We will put you to bed. It will ease you to take you out of

that case."

Thereupon the lady-superintendent raised her by the shoulders, whilst

Sister Hyacinthe held her feet. The bed was in the central part of the

ward, near a window. For a moment the poor girl remained on it with her

eyes closed, as though exhausted by being moved about so much. Then it

became necessary that Pierre should be readmitted, for she grew very

fidgety, saying that there were things which she must explain to him.

"Pray don't go away, my friend," she exclaimed when he approached her.

"Take the case out on to the landing, but stay there, because I want to

be taken down as soon as I can get permission."

"Do you feel more comfortable now?" asked the young priest.

"Yes, no doubt--but I really don't know. I so much want to be taken

yonder to the Blessed Virgin's feet."

However, when Pierre had removed the case, the successive arrivals of the

other patients supplied her with some little diversion. Madame Vetu, whom

two bearers had brought up-stairs, holding her under the arms, was laid,

fully dressed, on the next bed, where she remained motionless, scarce

breathing, with her heavy, yellow, cancerous mask. None of the patients,

it should be mentioned, were divested of their clothes, they were simply

stretched out on the beds, and advised to go to sleep if they could

manage to do so. Those whose complaints were less grievous contented

themselves with sitting down on their mattresses, chatting together, and

putting the things they had brought with them in order. For instance,

Elise Rouquet, who was also near Marie, on the other side of the latter's

bed, opened her basket to take a clean fichu out of it, and seemed sorely

annoyed at having no hand-glass with her. In less than ten minutes all

the beds were occupied, so that when La Grivotte appeared, half carried

by Sister Hyacinthe and Sister Claire des Anges, it became necessary to

place some mattresses on the floor.

"Here! here is one," exclaimed Madame Desagneaux; "she will be very well

here, out of the draught from the door."

Seven other mattresses were soon added in a line, occupying the space

between the rows of beds, so that it became difficult to move about. One

had to be very careful, and follow narrow pathways which had been left

between the beds and the mattresses. Each of the patients had retained

possession of her parcel, or box, or bag, and round about the improvised

shakedowns were piles of poor old things, sorry remnants of garments,

straying among the sheets and the coverlets. You might have thought

yourself in some woeful infirmary, hastily organised after some great

catastrophe, some conflagration or earthquake which had thrown hundreds

of wounded and penniless beings into the streets.

Madame de Jonquiere made her way from one to the other end of the ward,

ever and ever repeating, "Come, my children, don't excite yourselves; try

to sleep a little."

However, she did not succeed in calming them, and indeed, she herself,

like the other lady-hospitallers under her orders, increased the general

fever by her own bewilderment. The linen of several patients had to be

changed, and there were other needs to be attended to. One woman,

suffering from an ulcer in the leg, began moaning so dreadfully that

Madame Desagneaux undertook to dress her sore afresh; but she was not

skilful, and despite all her passionate courage she almost fainted, so

greatly was she distressed by the unbearable odour. Those patients who

were in better health asked for broth, bowlfuls of which began to

circulate amidst the calls, the answers, and the contradictory orders

which nobody executed. And meanwhile, let loose amidst this frightful

scramble, little Sophie Couteau, who remained with the Sisters, and was

very gay, imagined that it was playtime, and ran, and jumped, and hopped

in turn, called and petted first by one and then by another, dear as she

was to all alike for the miraculous hope which she brought them.

However, amidst this agitation, the hours went by. Seven o'clock had just

struck when Abbe Judaine came in. He was the chaplain of the

Sainte-Honorine Ward, and only the difficulty of finding an unoccupied

altar at which he might say his mass had delayed his arrival. As soon as

he appeared, a cry of impatience arose from every bed.

"Oh! Monsieur le Cure, let us start, let us start at once!"

An ardent desire, which each passing minute heightened and irritated, was

upbuoying them, like a more and more devouring thirst, which only the

waters of the miraculous fountain could appease. And more fervently than

any of the others, La Grivotte, sitting up on her mattress, and joining

her hands, begged and begged that she might be taken to the Grotto. Was

there not a beginning of the miracle in this--in this awakening of her

will power, this feverish desire for cure which enabled her to set

herself erect? Inert and fainting on her arrival, she was now seated,

turning her dark glances in all directions, waiting and watching for the

happy moment when she would be removed. And colour also was returning to

her livid face. She was already resuscitating.

"Oh! Monsieur le Cure, pray do tell them to take me--I feel that I shall

be cured," she exclaimed.

With a loving, fatherly smile on his good-natured face, Abbe Judaine

listened to them all, and allayed their impatience with kind words. They

would soon set out; but they must be reasonable, and allow sufficient

time for things to be organised; and besides, the Blessed Virgin did not

like to have violence done her; she bided her time, and distributed her

divine favours among those who behaved themselves the best.

As he paused before Marie's bed and beheld her, stammering entreaties

with joined hands, he again paused. "And you, too, my daughter, you are

in a hurry?" he said. "Be easy, there is grace enough in heaven for you

all."

"I am dying of love, Father," she murmured in reply. "My heart is so

swollen with prayers, it stifles me--"

He was greatly touched by the passion of this poor emaciated child, so

harshly stricken in her youth and beauty, and wishing to appease her, he

called her attention to Madame Vetu, who did not move, though with her

eyes wide open she stared at all who passed.

"Look at madame, how quiet she is!" he said. "She is meditating, and she

does right to place herself in God's hands, like a little child."

However, in a scarcely audible voice, a mere breath, Madame Vetu

stammered: "Oh! I am suffering, I am suffering."

At last, at a quarter to eight o'clock, Madame de Jonquiere warned her

charges that they would do well to prepare themselves. She herself,

assisted by Sister Hyacinthe and Madame Desagneaux, buttoned several

dresses, and put shoes on impotent feet. It was a real toilette, for they

all desired to appear to the greatest advantage before the Blessed

Virgin. A large number had sufficient sense of delicacy to wash their

hands. Others unpacked their parcels, and put on clean linen. On her

side, Elise Rouquet had ended by discovering a little pocket-glass in the

hands of a woman near her, a huge, dropsical creature, who was very

coquettish; and having borrowed it, she leant it against the bolster, and

then, with infinite care, began to fasten her fichu as elegantly as

possible about her head, in order to hide her distorted features.

Meanwhile, erect in front of her, little Sophie watched her with an air

of profound interest.

It was Abbe Judaine who gave the signal for starting on the journey to

the Grotto. He wished, he said, to accompany his dear suffering daughters

thither, whilst the lady-hospitallers and the Sisters remained in the

ward, so as to put things in some little order again. Then the ward was

at once emptied, the patients being carried down-stairs amidst renewed

tumult. And Pierre, having replaced Marie's box upon its wheels, took the

first place in the _cortege_, which was formed of a score of little

handcarts, bath-chairs, and litters. The other wards, however, were also

emptying, the courtyard became crowded, and the _defile_ was organised in

haphazard fashion. There was soon an interminable train descending the

rather steep slope of the Avenue de la Grotte, so that Pierre was already

reaching the Plateau de la Merlasse when the last stretchers were barely

leaving the precincts of the hospital.

It was eight o'clock, and the sun, already high, a triumphant August sun,

was flaming in the great sky, which was beautifully clear. It seemed as

if the blue of the atmosphere, cleansed by the storm of the previous

night, were quite new, fresh with youth. And the frightful _defile_, a

perfect "Cour des Miracles" of human woe, rolled along the sloping

pavement amid all the brilliancy of that radiant morning. There was no

end to the train of abominations; it appeared to grow longer and longer.

No order was observed, ailments of all kinds were jumbled together; it

seemed like the clearing of some inferno where the most monstrous

maladies, the rare and awful cases which provoke a shudder, had been

gathered together. Eczema, roseola, elephantiasis, presented a long array

of doleful victims. Well-nigh vanished diseases reappeared; one old woman

was affected with leprosy, another was, covered with impetiginous lichen

like a tree which has rotted in the shade. Then came the dropsical ones,

inflated like wine-skins; and beside some stretchers there dangled hands

twisted by rheumatism, while from others protruded feet swollen by oedema

beyond all recognition, looking, in fact, like bags full of rags. One

woman, suffering from hydrocephalus, sat in a little cart, the dolorous

motions of her head bespeaking her grievous malady. A tall girl afflicted

with chorea--St. Vitus's dance--was dancing with every limb, without a

pause, the left side of her face being continually distorted by sudden,

convulsive grimaces. A younger one, who followed, gave vent to a bark, a

kind of plaintive animal cry, each time that the tic douloureux which was

torturing her twisted her mouth and her right cheek, which she seemed to

throw forward. Next came the consumptives, trembling with fever,

exhausted by dysentery, wasted to skeletons, with livid skins, recalling

the colour of that earth in which they would soon be laid to rest; and

there was one among them who was quite white, with flaming eyes, who

looked indeed like a death's head in which a torch had been lighted. Then