Part 42 (1/2)

It was a dreary structure, looking out on one side upon a damp garden, on the other on a dark court. Twenty beds, two arm-chairs, and a stove, were the furniture of the large room to which Jack was carried. Five or six phantoms in cotton nightcaps looked up from a game of dominos to inspect him, and two or three more started from the stove as if frightened.

The corner of the room was brightened by an altar to the Virgin, decorated with flowers, candles, and lace; and near by was the desk of the matron, who came forward, and in a soft voice, the tones of which seemed half lost among the folds of her veil, said:

”Poor fellow, how sick he looks! he must go to bed at once. We have no bed yet, but the one at the end there will soon be empty. While we are waiting, we will put him on a couch.”

This couch was placed close to the bed ”that would soon be empty,” from whence were heard long sighs, dreary enough in themselves, but made a thousand times more melancholy by the utter indifference with which they were heard by the others in the room. The man was dying, but Jack was himself too ill to notice this. He hardly heard Belisaire's ”_au revoir_” nor the rattling of dishes as the soup was distributed, nor a whispering at his side; he was not asleep, but exhausted by fatigue.

Suddenly a woman's voice, calm and clear, said, ”Let us pray.”

He saw the dim outline of a woman kneeling near the altar, but in vain did he attempt to follow the words that fell rapidly from her lips. The concluding sentence reached him, however.

”Protect, O G.o.d, my friends and my enemies, all prisoners and travellers, the sick and the dying.”

Jack slept a feverish sleep, and his dreams were a confused mixture of prisoners rattling their chains, and of travellers wandering over endless roads. He was one of these travellers: he was on a highway, like that of Etiolles; Cecile and his mother were before him refusing to wait until he could reach them; this he was prevented from doing by a row of enormous machines, the pistons of which were moving with dizzy haste, and from whose chimneys were pouring out dark volumes of smoke. Jack determined to pa.s.s between them; he is seized by their iron arms, torn and mangled, and scalded with the hot steam; but he got through and took refuge in the Foret de Senart, amid the freshness of which Jack became once more a child and was on his way to the forester's; but there at the cross-road stood mother Sale; he turned to run, and ran for miles, with the old woman close behind him; he heard her nearer and nearer, he felt her hot breath on his shoulder; she seized him at last, and with all her weight crushed in his chest. Jack awoke with a start; he recognized the large room, the beds in a line, and heard the sighs and coughs. He dreamed no more, and yet he still felt the same weight across his body, something so cold and heavy that he called aloud in terror. The nurses ran, and lifted Something, placed it in the next bed, and drew the curtains round it closely.

CHAPTER XXIV.--DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL.

”Come, wake up! Visitors are here.”

Jack opened his eyes, and the first thing that struck him was the curtains of the next bed,--they hung in such straight and motionless folds to the very ground.

”Well, my boy, you had a pretty bad time last night. The poor fellow in the next bed had convulsions and fell over on you. I suppose you were terribly frightened. Now raise yourself a little that we may see you.

But you are very weak.”

The man who spoke was about forty years of age, wearing a velvet coat and a white ap.r.o.n. His beard was fair and his eyes bright. He feels the sick man's pulse and asks him some questions.

”What is your trade?”

”A machinist.”

”Do you drink?”

”Not now; I did at one time.”

Then a long silence.

”What sort of a life have you led, my poor boy?”

Jack saw in the physician's face the same sympathetic interest that he had perceived the previous day. The students surrounded the bed, and the doctor explained to them various symptoms that he observed. They were at once interesting and alarming, he said; and Jack listened with some curiosity to the words ”inspiration,” ”expiration,” ”phthisis,” &c., and at last understood that his was looked upon as a most critical case,--so critical that, after the physician had left the room, the good sister approached, and with gentle discretion asked if his family were in Paris, and if he could send to them.

His family! Who were they? a man and a woman who were already there at the foot of the bed. They belonged to the lower cla.s.ses; but he had no other friends than these, no other relatives.

”And how are we to-day?” said Belisaire, cheerily, though he kept his tears back with difficulty. Madame Belisaire lays on the table two fine oranges she has brought, and then, after a kind remark or two, sits in silence.

Jack does not speak; his eyes are wide open and fixed. Of what is he thinking?

”Jack,” said the good woman, suddenly, ”I am going to find your mother;”

and she smiled encouragingly.

Yes, that is what he wants; now that he knows that he must die, he forgets all the wrongs his mother has been guilty of toward him.