Part 64 (1/2)
”And yet it is gnawing into you with iron teeth, which have been heated blood-red in the fires of h.e.l.l,” said the doctor, with a compa.s.sionate look at the pale, quivering face of the woman. ”Do not raise any quarrel, but quietly listen to me. We have an hour's time to talk together, and we want to use it. But let us speak softly, softly, together; for what we have to say to each other the deaf walls themselves ought not to hear.”
Simon had not returned from the platform with the boy, when Doctor Naudin ended his long and earnest conversation, and prepared to leave his patient, who was now quietly lying in her bed.
”You know every thing now that you have to do,” he said, extending his hand to her. ”You can reckon on me as I reckon on you, and we will both go bravely and cheerfully on. It is a n.o.ble work that we have undertaken, and if it succeeds your heart will be light again, and G.o.d will forgive you your sins, for two martyrs will stand and plead in your behalf at the throne of G.o.d! Now, do every thing exactly as I have told you, and speak with your husband to-night, but not sooner, that you may be safe, and for fear that in his first panic his face would betray him.”
”I shall do every thing just as you wish,” said Jeanne Marie, who had suddenly become humble and bashful, apparently entirely forgetful of the republican ”thou.” ”It seems to me, now that I have disburdened my heart to you, that I have become well and strong again, and certainly I shall owe it to you if I do live and get my health once more. But shall you come again to-morrow, doctor?”
”No,” he replied, ”I will send a man to-morrow who understands better than I do how to continue this matter, and to whom you can give unconditional confidence. He will announce himself to you as my a.s.sistant, and you can talk over at length every thing that we have been speaking of. Hus.h.!.+ I hear Simon coming! Farewell!”
He nodded to Jeanne Marie, and hastily left the room. Outside, in the corridor, he met Simon and his silent young ward.
”Well, citizen doctor,” asked Simon, ”how is it with our sick one?
She has intrusted all her secrets to you, and they must have made a long story, for you have been a whole hour together. It is fortunate that you are an old man, or else I should have been jealous of your long tete-a-tete with my wife.”
”Then you would be a great fool, and I have always held you to be a prudent and good man. But, as concerns your wife, I must tell you something very serious, and I beg you, Citizen Simon, to mark my words well. I tell you this: unless your wife Jeanne Marie is out of this Temple in less than a week, and enjoys her freedom, she will either lose her senses or take her life. I will say to you this, besides: if Citizen Simon does not, as soon as possible, leave this cursed place and give up his hateful business, it will be the same with him as with his wife. He will not become insane, but he will lapse into melancholy, and if he does not take his own life consumption will take it for him, the result of his idle, listless life, the many vexations here, and the wretched atmosphere of the Temple.”
”Consumption!” cried Simon, horrified. ”Do you suppose I am exposed to that?”
”You have it already,” said the doctor, solemnly. ”Those red spots on your cheeks, and the pain which you have so often in the breast, announce its approach. I tell you that if you do not take measures to leave the Temple in a week, in three months you will be a dead man, without giving the guillotine a chance at you. Good-by!
Consider well what I say, citizen, and then do as you like!”
”He is right,” muttered Simon, as he looked after the doctor with a horrified look, as Naudin descended the staircase; ”yes, I see, he is right. If I have to stay here any longer, I shall die. The vexations and the loneliness, and--something still more dreadful, frightful, that I can tell no one of-have made me sick, and the st.i.tch in my side will grow worse and worse every day, and--I must and will get away from here,” he said aloud, and with a decided air.
”I will not die yet, neither shall Jeanne Marie. To-morrow I will hand in my resignation, and then be away!”
While Simon was walking slowly and thoughtfully toward his wife, Doctor Naudin left the dark building, went with a light heart out into the street, and returned with a quick step to the Hotel Dieu.
The porter who opened the door for him, reported to him that during his absence the same old gentleman who had come the day before to consult him, had returned and was waiting for him in the anteroom.
Doctor Naudin nodded, and then walked, quickly toward his own apartments. Before the door he found his servant.
”Old Doctor Saunier is here again,” he said, taking off his master's cloak. ”He insisted on waiting for you. He said that he must consult you about a patient, and would not cease begging till you should consent to accompany him to the sick person's house. For, if a case seemed desperate, the great Naudin might still save it.”
”You are an a.s.s for letting him talk such nonsense, and for believing it yourself, Citizen Joly,” cried Naudin with a laugh, and then entering the anteroom.
An old gentleman, clad in the same old-fas.h.i.+oned costume with Doctor Naudin, came forward. Citizen Joly, as he closed the door somewhat slowly, heard him say:
”Thank G.o.d that you have come at last, citizen! I have waited for you impatiently, and now I conjure you to accompany me as quickly as possible to my patient.”
Naudin, opening the door of his study, said in reply, ”Come in, Citizen Saunier, and tell me first how it is with your sick one.”
Nothing more could Joly, Naudin's servant, understand, for the two doctors had gone into the study, and the door was closed behind them. After a short time, however, it was opened. Naudin ordered the valet to order a tiacre at once, and a few minutes later Director Naudin rode away at the side of Doctor Saunier.
At a house in the Rue Montmartre the carriage stopped, and the two physicians entered. The porter, opening the little, dusty window of his lodge, nodded confidentially to Saunier.
”That is probably the celebrated Doctor Naudin of the Hotel Dieu, whom you have with you?” he asked.
”Yes, it is he,” answered Saunier, ”and if anybody can help our patient, it is he. Citizen Crage is probably at home?”
”Certainly he is at home, for you know he never leaves his sick boy.