Part 10 (2/2)

I disregarded these injunctions, and did what was necessary. Throughout the process, Monsieur Levy was snoring, be it said. But he woke up at last, uttered one or two piercing cries, and stigmatised me as a ”brute.” All right.

Then I showed him the big pieces of cast-iron I had removed from his back and his b.u.t.tock respectively. Monsieur Levy's eyes at once filled with tears; he murmured a few feeling words about his family, and then pressed my hands warmly: ”Thank you, thank you, dear Doctor.”

Since then, Monsieur Levy has suffered a good deal, I must admit. There are the plugs! And those abominable india-rubber tubes we push into the wounds! Monsieur Levy, kneeling and prostrating himself, his head in his bolster, suffered every day and for several days without stoicism or resignation. I was called an ”a.s.sa.s.sin” and also on several occasions, a ”brute.” All right.

However, as I was determined that Monsieur Levy should get well, I renewed the plugs, and looked sharply after the famous india-rubber tubes.

The time came when my hands were warmly pressed and my patient said: ”Thank you, thank you, dear Doctor,” every day.

At last Monsieur Levy ceased to suffer, and confined himself to the peevish murmurs of a spoilt beauty or a child that has been scolded. But now no one takes him seriously. He has become the delight of the ward; he laughs so heartily when the dressing is over, he is naturally so gay and playful, that I am rather at a loss as to the proper expression to a.s.sume when, alluding to the past, he says, with a look in which good nature, pride, simplicity, and a large proportion of playful malice are mingled:

”I suffered so much! so much!”

XIX

He was no grave, handsome Arab, looking as if he had stepped from the pages of the ”Arabian Nights,” but a kind of little brown monster with an overhanging forehead and ugly, scanty hair.

He lay upon the table, screaming, because his abdomen was very painful and his hip was all tumefied. What could we say to him? He could understand nothing; he was strange, terrified, pitiable....

At my wits' ends, I took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips.

His whole face changed. He took hold of the cigarette delicately between two bony fingers; he had a way of holding it which was a marvel of aristocratic elegance.

While we finished the dressing, the poor fellow smoked slowly and gravely, with all the distinction of an Oriental prince; then, with a negligent gesture, he threw away the cigarette, of which he had only smoked half.

Presently, suddenly becoming an animal, he spit upon my ap.r.o.n, and kissed my hand like a dog, repeating something which sounded like ”Bouia! Bouia!”

XX

Gautreau looked like a beast of burden. He was heavy, square, solid of base and majestic of neck and throat. What he could carry on his back would have crushed an ordinary man; he had big bones, so hard that the fragment of sh.e.l.l which struck him on the skull only cracked it, and got no further into it. Gautreau arrived at the hospital alone, on foot; he sat down on a chair in the corner, saying:

”No need to hurry; it's only a scratch.”

We gave him a cup of tea with rum in it, and he began to hum:

En courant par les epeignes Je m'etios fait un ecourchon, Et en courant par les epeignes Et en courant apres not' couchon.

”Ah!” said Monsieur Boissin, ”you are a man! Come here, let me see.”

Gautreau went into the operating ward saying:

”It feels queer to be walking on dry ground when you've just come off the slime. You see: it's only a scratch. But one never knows: there may be some bits left in it.”

Dr. Boussin probed the wound, and felt the cracked bone. He was an old surgeon who had his own ideas about courage and pain. He made up his mind.

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