The novels, romances, and memoirs of Alphonse Daudet (30 page)

the matter with me, but for some time I have felt quite worn out." A violent fit of coughing cut him short. He let his pen fall sadly, and went and threw himself on the sofa. As I saw him lying there, pale, horribly pale, the terrible vision of my dream again passed before my eyes; but it was but a flash, for almost immediately my Mother Jacques rose and began to laugh as he saw my scared face.

"It's nothing, you foolish boy; only a little fatigue. I have worked too hard lately; but now that you have found a place, I shall take it more easily, and in a week I shall be well again."

He said this so naturally, and with so cheerful an expression that my sad presentiments took flight, and for a whole long month I heard no more of the beating of their black wings.

The next day, I entered the Ouly Institute.

In spite of its pompous title, the Ouly Institute was a droll little school, kept by an old lady with side curls, whom the children called " sweetheart." There were some twenty little fellows there, but they were very little; of the kind, you know, that come to school carrying their lunch in a basket, and always have a little end of shirt-tail sticking out.

Such were our scholars. Mme. Ouly taught them psalms, and I initiated them into the mysteries of the alphabet. Besides this, it was my duty to superintend them at recreation, in a court-yard where there were chickens and a turkey-cock, of which the little gentlemen were greatly afraid.

Sometimes, too, when " sweetheart" had the gout, it was I who swept the schoolroom, a task much beneath the dignity of a general superintendent, but which nevertheless I performed without repugnance, so happy was I to earn my living. When I returned to the Hotel Pilois in the evening, I found dinner served and my Mother Jacques waiting for me. After dinner, we strode several times round the garden, and then sat down by the fireside. It was thus we lived. Occasionally, we had a letter from M. or Mme, Eyssette, and this was a great event for us. Mme. Eyssette continued to live with our Uncle Baptiste. M. Eyssette was always travelling for the company of wine-merchants. Things were not going too much amiss; the debts at Lyons were three-quarters paid. In a year or two, all would be in order, and we could think of livmg together again.

My idea was to get Mme. Eyssette to come to us meanwhile, but Jacques would not allow it. " No, not yet," said he, with a strange expression, " not yet. Let us wait a little." This reply of his, that was always the same, broke my heart. I said to myself: " He distrusts me; he is afraid of my doing some other foolish thing while our mother is here. It is for this he still wishes to wait." I was mistaken ; it was not for this Jacques said: " Let us wait a little."

CHAPTER XV.

Reader, if you are strong-minded, if you laugh at dreams, if you have never felt your heart pierced — pierced till you cried aloud — by the presentiment of things to come, if you are a man of positive opinions, and cast-iron intelligence, who never receives an impression from anything short of actual reality, nor allows a particle of superstition to remain in any corner of his brain; if you are willing in no case to believe in the supernatural, nor to admit the inexplicable, do not finish reading these memoirs. What remains for me to say in these last chapters is true as eternal truth; but you will not believe it.

It was the 4th of December.

I came home from the Only Institute more quickly than usual. On that morning I had left Jacques at home, complaining of great fatigue, and I was anxious to find out how he was. In going through the garden, I stumbled against M. Pilois, who was standing by the fig-tree, talking in a low voice with a short, stout individual, who had big fat hands, and seemed to find a great deal of trouble in buttoning his gloves.

I meant to excuse myself and pass on, but the hotel-keeper held me back.

"A word with you, Monsieur Daniel." Then, turning to his companion, he added:

"This is the young man we were speaking of. I think you would do well to inform him — "

I stopped, greatly puzzled. Of what did this stout fellow want to inform me? Of his gloves being much too small for his paws? The deuce, I could see that for myself.

There was a moment of silence and embarrassment, M. Pilois, with his head in the air, stared at the fig-tree as if he were looking for figs that were not there. The man with the gloves kept tugging at his buttonholes. In the end, however, he decided to speak, but without letting go the button, you may be sure.

" Sir," said he, " I have been the doctor of the Hotel Pilois for twenty years, and I venture to

II

say —

I did not let him finish his sentence. The word " doctor " had told me all. " You have come for my brother?" I asked, trembling. "He is very ill, is n't he .? "

I don't think the doctor was a bad man, but at that moment he was more occupied with his gloves than anything else, and without reflecting that he was speaking to Jacques' brother, or trying to soften the blow, he answered brutally: " I should think he was ill; he won't live through the night."

I assure you the stroke was well-aimed. The house, garden, M. Pilois, and the doctor all spun round before my eyes, and I was obliged to lean against the fig-tree. The doctor of the H6tel Pilois

had a strong arm ! Moreover, he observed nothing, and continued with the greatest calm, still buttoning his gloves : " It is a fearful case of galloping consumption. There is nothing to be done, at least nothing of any account. Besides, I was sent for much too late, as usual."

" It is not my fault, doctor," said the good M. Pilois, who persisted in looking for figs with the greatest care, — this was his way of hiding his tears, — " it is not my fault. I have known for a long time that poor M. Eyssette was ill, and I have often advised him to send for somebody, but he never would. I am certain he was afraid of alarming his brother. Those boys are so united, you see."

A desperate sob burst from the depths of my being.

" Come, my boy, courage ! " said the man with the gloves, trying to appear kind. " Who can tell? Science has said the last word, but nature has not yet spoken. I shall come back to-morrow morning."

Thereupon, he turned about and walked off with a sigh of satisfaction; he had just succeeded in buttoning one button.

I stayed outside a moment longer to dry my eyes and calm myself a little; then, summoning all my courage, I entered the room with an air of deliberation.

What I saw as I opened the door, terrified me. Jacques, in order to leave me the bed, no doubt, had had a mattress placed on the sofa, and it was

there I found him, pale, horribly pale, entirely like the Jacques of my dream.

My first thought was to throw myself upon him, to take him in my arms, and carry him to the bed, no matter where, but to take him away from there, my God, to take him away from there. Then suddenly, I reflected: " You cannot, he is too tall for you to lift! " And then, seeing that my Mother Jacques remained stretched out in that place, where the dream had told me he was to die, my courage left me; the mask of constrained cheerfulness we put on our faces to reassure the dying, would no longer hold in place, and I fell on my knees by the sofa, shedding a torrent of tears.

Jacques turned painfully toward me.

" It's you, Daniel— You have met the doctor, have n't you ? I begged that fellow not to frighten you, but I see by your face that he paid no attention to me, and that you know all. Give me your hand, little brother. Who the deuce could have suspected anything like this? Some people go to Nice to cure a trouble in the lungs, but I went there to get one. It is quite original. Oh! you know, if you cry you will take away all my courage, and I am not so very brave at any rate. This morning, after you had gone away, I felt that I was breaking up; I sent for the cur6 of Saint-Pierre; he came to see me, and is coming back presently to administer the sacraments to me. It will please our mother, you know. The priest is a good fellow, and his name is like that of your friend at the school of Sarlande."

He could not speak any longer, and fell back on the pillow with his eyes shut. I thought he was going to die, and began to cry in a loud vo.ce: "Jacques, Jacques, dear Jacques! He made signs to me several times, without speakmg, to be

"^"Atthis moment the door opened, and M. Pilois entered the room, followed by a stout man who rolled like a ball toward the sofa, crymg: "What is it I hear. Monsieur Jacques? If I may be

allowed to say so — "

How do you do, Pierrotte? " said Jacques, opening his eyes; " how do you do, old friend? I was quite sure you would come at the first word from me. Let him sit down there, Daniel; we have to talk to each other."

Pierrotte bent over his big head to the pale lips of the dying man, and they remained thus for a long time, speaking in a low tone. I watched them, motionless in the middle of the room. I still had my books under my arm. M. Pilois took them gently away from me, saying something that I did not hear; then, he went to light the candles, and spread a large white napkin on the table I said to myself: " Why does he set the table? Are we going to dine? I am not hungry."

Night was falling. Outside, in the garden, the people of the hotel were making signs to one another, looking at our windows. Jacques and Pierrotte kept on talking. From time to time 1 could hear Pierrotte say in his powerful voice, lull of tears: "Yes, Monsieur Jacques; yes, Monsieur

Jacques," but I dared not go nearer. In the end, however, Jacques called me, and bade me sit down at the bedside, next Pierrotte.

" My dearest Daniel," said he, after a long pause; " I am very sad to be obliged to leave you, but one thing gives me comfort: I do not leave you alone in life. You will have Pierrotte with you, kind Pierrotte who forgives you, and promises to take my place with you."

"Oh, yes! Monsieur Jacques, I promise, — if I may be allowed to say so, — I promise."

" Do you see, poor little boy," continued my Mother Jacques, " you will never succeed alone in rebuilding the hearth. I don't say this to pain you, but you are a bad rebuilder of hearths. Yet I think that, with Pierrotte's aid, you will succeed in realizing our dream. I don't ask you to try to be a man, for, like the Abb6 Germane, I think you will be a child all your life. But I implore you to be always a good child, a brave child, and, above all, — come a little nearer, so I may say this in your ear, — and, above all, don't make the black eyes cry."

Here my poor dear brother stopped again to rest a minute; then he went on :

" When all is over, you must write to Papa and Mamma ; only you must let them know gradually, for it would give them too much pain to learn it all at once. Do you understand now why I would not send for Mamma to come here? I did not want her to be here now, for it would be too hard for a mother."

He broke off and looked toward the door.

" There is the holy sacrament," said he with a smile, and made us a sign to stand aloof.

It was the priest coming with the sacrament. The eucharist and holy oils were placed on the white cloth, in the midst of the candles. After this, the priest approached the bed and the ceremony began.

When it was over — and oh, how long the time seemed to me!—when it was over, Jacques called me softly to him.

** Kiss me," said he, and his voice was so weak that it sounded as if he were speaking from far away; and indeed he must have been far away, as it was now nearly twelve hours since the swift and horrible disease had thrown him down on his wasted back and was carrying him off to death at a triple gallop.

Then, as I stooped to kiss him, my hand met his hand, his dear hand damp with the death-sweat. I seized it, and never let it go. We remained thus, for I know not how much time, — perhaps an hour, perhaps an eternity, I cannot tell at all. He could see me no longer, he no longer spoke ; only several times his hand stirred in mine, as if to say: "I feel that you are there," Suddenly a long tremor quivered through his poor body from head to foot. I saw his eyes open and gaze about, as if he were looking for somebody, and, as I bent over him, I heard him say twice, very low: "Jacques, you are an ass ; Jacques, you are an ass ! " — then, nothing more. He was dead.

Oh, my dream!

There was a great deal of wind that night, December was flinging sleet in handfuls against the panes. On the table, at the other end of the room, a silver crucifix shone between two candles. On his knees before the Christ, a strange priest was praying in a strong voice, above the noise of the wind. I neither prayed nor wept. I had but one idea, a fixed idea, and that was to warm the hand of my beloved, that I was holding tightly clasped in mine. Alas! the nearer morning approached, the heavier and icier grew the hand.

All at once, the priest who was reciting the Latin prayers across the room, before the Christ, rose, came to me, and tapped me on the shoulder. " Try to pray," said he ; " it will do you good."

It was then only that I recognized him. He was my old friend at the school of Sarlande, the Abbe Germane himself, with his noble, scarred face, and his look of a dragoon in a cassock.

I was so overwhelmed with misery that I was not surprised to see him; it seemed to me quite natural. But this is how he happened to be there.

The day Little What's-His-Name w^as leaving the school, the Abbe Germane had said to him: " I have a brother in Paris, a good fellow who is a priest, — but pooh! why should I give you his address? I am sure you would not go to see him." See the hand of destiny in this! The Abb6's brother was parish priest of the church of Saint-Pierre at Montmartre, and it was he whom my poor Mother Jacques had called to his death-bed.

Just at that time it fell out that the Abbe Germane was passing through Paris and staying at the priest's house. On the evening of the 4th of December, his brother said to him as he came in:

" I have just carried extreme unction to a poor boy who is dying very near here. You must pray for him, Abb6."

The Abbe answered: " I will go in there tomorrow, after saying mass. What is his name?"

" Wait a moment, it is a name of the South, rather hard to remember — Jacques Eyssette; yes, that's it, Jacques Eyssette."