Part 59 (2/2)
Mimi strove to recover her gaiety to greet her old friends.
”I am no longer naughty,” said she to them, ”and Rodolphe has forgiven me. If he will keep me with him I will wear wooden shoes and a mob-cap, it is all the same to me. Silk is certainly not good for my health,” she added with a frightful smile.
At Marcel's suggestion, Rodolphe had sent for one of his friends who had just pa.s.sed as a doctor. It was the same who had formerly attended Francine. When he came they left him alone with Mimi.
Rodolphe, informed by Marcel, was already aware of the danger run by his mistress. When the doctor had spoken to Mimi, he said to Rodolphe: ”You cannot keep her here. Save for a miracle she is doomed. You must send her to the hospital. I will give you a letter for La Pitie. I know one of the house surgeons there; she will be well looked after. If she lasts till the spring we may perhaps pull her through, but if she stays here she will be dead in a week.”
”I shall never dare propose it to her,” said Rodolphe.
”I spoke to her about it,” replied the doctor, ”and she agreed. Tomorrow I will send you the order of admission to La Pitie.”
”My dear,” said Mimi to Rodolphe, ”the doctor is right; you cannot nurse me here. At the hospital they may perhaps cure me, you must send me there. Ah! You see I do so long to live now, that I would be willing to end my days with one hand in a raging fire and the other in yours.
Besides, you will come and see me. You must not grieve, I shall be well taken care of: the doctor told me so. You get chicken at the hospital and they have fires there. Whilst I am taking care of myself there, you will work to earn money, and when I am cured I will come back and live with you. I have plenty of hope now. I shall come back as pretty as I used to be. I was very ill in the days before I knew you, and I was cured. Yet I was not happy in those days, I might just as well have died. Now that I have found you again and that we can be happy, they will cure me again, for I shall fight hard against my illness. I will drink all the nasty things they give me, and if death seizes on me it will be by force. Give me the looking gla.s.s: it seems to me that I have little color in my cheeks. Yes,” said she, looking at herself in the gla.s.s, ”my color is coming back, and my hands, see, they are still pretty; kiss me once more, it will not be the last time, my poor darling,” she added, clasping Rodolphe round the neck, and burying his face in her loosened tresses.
Before leaving for the hospital, she wanted her friends the Bohemians to stay and pa.s.s the evening with her.
”Make me laugh,” said she, ”cheerfulness is health to me. It is that wet blanket of a viscount made me ill. Fancy, he wanted to make me learn orthography; what the deuce should I have done with it? And his friends, what a set! A regular poultry yard, of which the viscount was the peac.o.c.k. He marked his linen himself. If he ever marries I am sure that it will be he who will suckle the children.”
Nothing could be more heart breaking than the almost posthumous gaiety of poor Mimi. All the Bohemians made painful efforts to hide their tears and continue the conversation in the jesting tone started by the unfortunate girl, for whom fate was so swiftly spinning the linen of her last garment.
The next morning Rodolphe received the order of admission to the hospital. Mimi could not walk, she had to be carried down to the cab.
During the journey she suffered horribly from the jolts of the vehicle.
Admist all her sufferings the last thing that dies in woman, coquetry, still survived; two or three times she had the cab stopped before the drapers' shops to look at the display in the windows.
On entering the ward indicated in the letter of admission Mimi felt a terrible pang at her heart, something within her told her that it was between these bare and leprous walls that her life was to end. She exerted the whole of the will left her to hide the mournful impression that had chilled her.
When she was put to bed she gave Rodolphe a final kiss and bid him goodbye, bidding him come and see her the next Sunday which was a visitors' day.
”It does not smell very nice here,” said she to him, ”bring me some flowers, some violets, there are still some about.”
”Yes,” said Rodolphe, ”goodbye till Sunday.”
And he drew together the curtains of her bed. On hearing the departing steps of her lover, Mimi was suddenly seized with an almost delirious attack of fever. She suddenly opened the curtains, and leaning half out of bed, cried in a voice broken with tears:
”Rodolphe, take me home, I want to go away.”
The sister of charity hastened to her and tried to calm her.
”Oh!” said Mimi, ”I am going to die here.”
On Sunday morning, the day he was to go and see Mimi, Rodolphe remembered that he had promised her some violets. With poetic and loving superst.i.tion he went on foot in horrible weather to look for the flowers his sweetheart had asked him for, in the woods of Aulnay and Fontenay, where he had so often been with her. The country, so lively and joyful in the suns.h.i.+ne of the bright days of June and July, he found chill and dreary. For two hours he beat the snow covered thickets, lifting the bushes with a stick, and ended by finding a few tiny blossoms, and as it happened, in a part of the wood bordering the Le Plessis pool, which had been their favorite spot when they came into the country.
Pa.s.sing through the village of Chatillon to get back to Paris, Rodolphe met in the square before the church a baptismal procession, in which he recognized one of his friends who was the G.o.dfather, with a singer from the opera.
”What the deuce are you doing here?” asked the friend, very much surprised to see Rodolphe in those parts.
The poet told him what had happened.
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