The novels, romances, and memoirs of Alphonse Daudet (31 page)

This name recalled to the Abbe a certain little under-master of his acquaintance, and he hastened to the Hotel Pilois without losing a moment. As he entered, he saw me standing, clinging to Jacques' hand. He did not wish to intrude upon my grief, and sent away everybody, saying that he would watch with me; then he knelt down, and it was not till very late at night that, becoming alarmed by my staying motionless for so long a time he tapped on my shoulder and made himself known to me.

From that moment I do not remember clearly what happened. The end of that terrible night, the following day, the day after that, and many other days still, have left me but vague and confused recollections. There is a great gap in my memory. Nevertheless, I remember, —■ but as things that occurred centuries ago, —a long interminable walk through the mud of Paris, behind a black carriage. I can see myself going bareheaded

between Pierrette and the Abbe Germane. A cold rain, mingled with sleet, beats in our faces; Pier-rotte has a big umbrella, but he holds it so awkwardly, and the rain falls so fast that the Abb6's cassock looks all glossy, and is dripping with water. It rains, and rains, oh, how it rains!

Near us, beside the carriage, walks a tall man, all in black, carrying an ebony rod. He is the master of ceremonies, a sort of chamberlain of death. Like all chamberlains, he wears a silk cloak, a sword, short trousers, and an opera hat. Is it an hallucination of my mind? It seems to me this man looks like M. Viot, the inspector-general of the school of Sarlande, He is tall like him; like him he holds his head bent to one side, and every time he looks at me, he puts on the same forced and icy smile that played over the lips of the terrible key-bearer. It is not M. Viot, but it is perhaps his shadow.

The black carriage keeps advancing, but so slowly, so slowly. It seems to me as if we should never reach the end of our road. At last here we are in a dreary garden, full of yellowish mud, in which we sink up to the ankles. We stop at the brink of a great pit. Men in short cloaks bring a large and very heavy box which must be lowered. The task is difficult, for the ropes are stiff with rain, and will not slip easily. I hear one of the men crying: " The feet foremost! The feet foremost." Opposite me, on the other side of the pit, the shadow of M. Viot, with his head on one side, continues to smile faintly at me. Tall, thin, and

muffled in mourning garments, his figure stands out against the gray sky, Hke a great black grasshopper, soaking wet.

Now I am alone with Pierrotte. We are passmg through the Faubourg Montmartre. Pierrotte is looking for a cab, but he cannot find one. I walk beside him, hat in hand; I think I am always following the hearse. All along the Faubourg, the people turn to see the stout man who is crying and calling for a cab. and the boy who is walking bareheaded through a pelting rain.

We keep on walking and walking. I am weary, and my head is heavy. Here at last we come to the Passage du Saumon, and to the china shop with its painted shutters, dripping with green water. Without entering the shop, we go up to Pier-rotte's apartment. On the first floor, my strength gives way. I sit down on the stairs. It is impossible for me to go farther; my head is too— Then Pierrotte takes me in his arms, and while he is carrying me up, more than half dead and shaking with fever, I hear the hail pattering against the windows that look out on the street, and the water spouting noisily from the gutters in the court-yard. It rains, and rains; oh, how it rains!

CHAPTER XVI.

THE END OF THE DREAM.

Little What 's-His-Name is ill; Little What's-His-Name is going to die. In front of the Passage du Saumon, a litter of straw that is changed every two or three days, makes the people in the street say: " There is some rich old fellow up there dying." It is not a rich old fellow who is going to die; it is Little What 's-His-Name. All the doctors have given him up. Two typhoid fevers in two years are a great deal too much for his little humming-bird brain. Come, quick, harness the black carriage! Let the black grasshopper prepare his ebony wand, and his mournful smile! Little What's-His-Name is ill; Little What's-His-Name is going to die.

You should see the consternation in Pierrotte's house. Pierrotte does not sleep, and the black eyes are in despair. The very deserving person turns the leaves of her Raspail in frenzy, imploring the blessed Saint Camphor to perform a new miracle in behalf of her dear patient. The yellow drawing-room is shut up, the piano mute, the flute silent. But the most heart-breaking of all, oh! the most heart-breaking of all is a little black

figure seated in a corner of the house, knitting from morning till night, speechless, and shedding big tears.

Now, while in Pierrotte's house they are lamenting day and night, Little What's-His-Name is lying very tranquilly in a great feather-bed, without knowing anything about the tears he is causing. His eyes are open, but he sees nothing; the objects about him do not reach his soul. Neither does he hear anything except a hollow murmur, a confused humming, as if he had two sea-shells for ears, those big pink-lipped shells in which one can hear the roar of the sea. He does not speak, he does not think: he is like a sick flower. Provided a compress of cool water be held on his head, and a bit of ice put in his mouth, it is all he asks. When the ice is melted, or when the compress has dried with the heat of his brain, he utters a groan: that is all his conversation.

Several days pass thus, days without hours, days of chaos, and then, suddenly, one fine morning, Little What 's-His-Name experiences a strange sensation. He feels as if he had been drawn up from the bottom of the sea. His eyes see, his ears hear. He breathes; he begins to revive. The thinking-machine that was slumbering in some corner of his brain, with its wheels fine as fairy hair, wakes and sets itself in motion; slowly at first, then a little more quickly, then with mad swiftness, — tic, tic, tic ! — until it seems as if it were going to pieces. It is evident this pretty machine was not made for sleeping, and that it wants to

make up for lost time. Tic, tic, tic! The ideas cross and become entangled like silken threads. "O God! where am I? What is this big bed? And those three ladies over there by the window, what are they doing? Don't I know that little figure in a black gown, with her back turned? I might almost think — "

And in order to get a look at the black figure he thinks he recognizes, Little What's-His-Name raises himself with difficulty on his elbow, and leans out of bed ; then suddenly he throws himself back in terror. There, before him, in the middle of the room, he has seen a walnut wardrobe, with old iron-work ornaments climbing up the front. He knows that wardrobe ; he has already seen it in a dream, in a horrible dream. Tic, tic, tic ! The thinking-machine goes like the wind. Oh ! now Little What 's-His-Name remembers ; he sees the Hotel Pilois again, Jacques' death and burial, his arrival at Pierrette's in the rain; he recalls everything. Alas! in being born anew to life, the poor boy is born anew to sorrow, and his first word is a groan.

At this groan, the three women, working across the room, by the window, shudder. One of them, the youngest, rises, crying: " Ice, ice ! " And she runs quickly to the mantelpiece to get a piece of ice that she brings to Little What's-His-Name; but Little What's-His-Name does not want it. Gently he pushes away the hand that seeks his lips; it is a very delicate hand for a nurse to have! At any rate, he says in a trembling voice:

" Good-morning, Camille ! "

Camilla Pierrette is so amazed to hear the dying man speak, that she stands stupefied, with her bit of transparent ice shaking on the tips of her fingers that are pink with cold.

" Good-morning, Camille," repeats Little What's-His-Name. "Oh! I know you very well indeed; I have all my wits now. And you? Do you see me? Are you able to see me?"

Camille Pierrotte opens her eyes wide.

" Do I see you, Daniel? Of course I see you ! "

Then, at the thought that the wardrobe has lied, that Camille Pierrotte is not blind, and that the dream, the horrible dream will not be true to the end. Little What 's-His-Name takes courage, and ventures to ask other questions.

" I have been very ill, haven't I, Camille?"

" Oh, yes ! Daniel, very ill."

" Have I been lying here for a long time?"

" It will be three weeks to-morrow."

" Mercy ! Three weeks ! Already three weeks since poor Jacques — "

He does not finish his sentence, and hides his head in the pillow, sobbing.

At this moment Pierrotte enters the room, bringing with him a new doctor. (If the illness only continue, all the Academy of Medicine will be called in.) This one is the illustrious Doctor Broum-Broum, a fellow who goes straight to his business, and does not amuse himself with buttoning his gloves at the bedside of his patients. He approaches Little What 's-His-Name, feels his

pulse, looks at his eyes and tongue ; then, turning to Pierrotte, says:

"What were you talking about? That boy is well again."

"Well!" exclaims the good Pierrotte clasping his hands.

" So well that I want you to throw all that ice out of the window, and to give your patient a wing of chicken, and let him wash it down with a glass of claret. Come, don't grieve, my little lady; in a week this young scapegrace will be on his feet, I can answer for it. In the meanwhile, keep him quiet in bed; avoid all emotions and shocks, that is the chief point. We may leave the rest to nature: she understands how to take care of him better than you and I."

Speaking thus, the illustrious Doctor Broum-Broum gives a slap to the young scapegrace, and a smile to Mdlle. Pierrotte, and moves rapidly away, escorted by the good Pierrotte, who is crying with joy and keeps repeating all the time: " Oh, Doctor ! if I may be allowed to say so, if I may be allowed to say so—•"

After they have gone, Camille wants the patient to go to sleep, but he refuses energetically to do so.

" Don't go away, Camille, please don't. Don't leave me alone. How can you expect me to sleep, with all the trouble I have?"

" Yes, Daniel, you must. You must go to sleep. You need rest; the doctor said so. Come, be sensible, shut your eyes, and try not to think. I

will come back to see you in a little while, and, if you have slept, I will stay a long time with you."

" I will sleep, then, I will sleep," said Little What 's-His-Name, shutting his eyes. Then, changing his mind : " One word more, Camille. Whose was that little figure in black, I saw here just now? "

"A figure in black?"

" Yes, you know: that little figure in black who was working over there with you, by the window. Now, she is n't there any more, but I saw her a little while ago, I am sure."

" Oh, no, Daniel, you are mistaken. I was working here all the morning with Mme. Tribou, — your old friend, Mme. Tribou, you know; the lady you used to call the very deserving person. But Mme. Tribou is not in black; she always has on the same green gown. No, indeed, there is not a black gown in the house. You must have dreamed it. Now, I am going away; sleep well."

Thereupon, Camille Pierrotte makes a hasty escape, confused and blushing as if she had been telling a lie.

Little What's-His-Name is left alone, but he does not sleep the better for it. The machine with fine wheels plays the devil in his brain. The silk threads cross and become entangled with one another. He thinks of his dearly beloved who is sleeping under the grass of Montmartre; he thinks of the black eyes, too, those beautiful sombre luminaries that Providence seemed to have kindled expressly for him, and that now—-

Here the door of the room opens a httle way, softly, very softly, as if some one wanted to come in; but, almost immediately, he hears Camilla Pierrette saying in a low tone:

" Don't go in ! The emotion will kill him if he wakes up."

And the door closes softly, very softly, as it opened. Unluckily, a fold of a black gown is caught in the crack, and from his bed, Little What's-His-Name can see this fold hanging through the door.

With this his heart gives a leap, his eyes flame, and raising himself on his elbow, he begins to cry very loud : " Mother ! Mother ! Why don't you come here and kiss me?"

The door opens at the same moment, and the little black figure, who can stand it no longer, rushes into the room, but, instead of going toward the bed, she goes straight to the other end of the room, with her arms open, crying:

" Daniel! Daniel! "

"This way, mother," cries Little What's-His-Name, stretching out his arms, and laughing: "This way, don't you see me?"

And then Mme. Eyssette, half turned toward the bed, and groping in the air about her with trembling hands, answers in a heart-breaking voice:

" Alas ! no, my dearest treasure, I cannot see you. I shall never see you again, I am blind! "

On hearing this, Little What's-His-Name utters a great cry, and falls back on the pillow.

Certainly, after twenty years of misery and misfortune, after the death of her two children, the ruin of her home and her separation from her husband, it is nothing very extraordinary that the divine eyes of Mme. Eyssette should be burnt out with tears as they are. But for Little What 's-His Name, what a coincidence with his dream ! What a last terrible blow destiny held in reserve for him ! Will not he die of this?

No, Little What's-His-Name will not die. He must not die. What would become of his poor blind mother, left alone? Where would she find tears to weep for her third son? What would become of M. Eyssette, that victim of commercial honor, that wandering Jew of the grape industry, who has not even time to come and embrace his sick child, nor to bring a flower to the one who is dead? Who would restore the family fortunes, and rebuild that dear family hearth where the two old people can one day come to warm their poor chilled hands? No, no, Little What's-His-Name does not want to die. On the contrary, he clings to life, and with all his might They told him that, to get well more quickly, he must not think,— so he does not think; that he must not speak, — so he does not speak; that he must not cry, — so he does not cry; it is a pleasure to see him in his bed, with his eyes open, and a peaceful expression on his face, amusing himself by playing with the tassels of his eider-down coverlet. It is an easy convalescence.