The Thibaults (106 page)

There was no one in the kitchen. Jacques ran to the linen-room. Only Gise was there, with her aunt. He hesitated for a moment. There was no time to lose… .

Why not? Yes. “Come, Gise!” He steered the old lady out into the hall. “Wait on the landing. Some oxygen gas-bags will be coming. Bring them to us at once.”

When they entered the bedroom M. Thibault was sinking into a coma. His face had turned a purplish blue, and a brown sordes was drooling from the corners of his lips.

“Quickly!” Antoine said. “Stand here!”

Jacques took his brother’s place; Gise, that of Sister Céline.

Antoine turned to the sister. “Pull his tongue forward… . No, with a towel. With a towel.”

Gise had always shown a certain aptitude for nursing and had been attending first-aid classes in London. While preventing the old man from slipping sideways, she grasped his wrist, and after glancing at Antoine to see if he approved, began performing artificial respirations, keeping time with the nurse, who was pulling at his tongue. Jacques took the other arm and copied her movements. But M. Thibault’s face was growing darkly suffused with blood, as if he was being strangled.

“One, two. One, two,” Antoine repeated, keeping them in rhythm.

The door opened.

Adrienne ran in with one of the containers in her arms.

Antoine snatched it from her and without a moment’s delay turned on the tap and applied it to the old man’s mouth.

The following minute seemed interminable. But before it was over there had been a visible improvement. Gradually the breathing became stronger, more regular. And soon, unmistakably, the face was getting less blue; the circulation of the blood was coming back.

At a signal from Antoine, who, keeping his eyes fixed on his father, was gently pressing the gas-bag to his side, Jacques and Gise ceased raising and lowering the arms.

Gise could not have gone on; she was at the end of her endurance. The whole room seemed spinning round her. The smell from the bed was more than she could bear. She moved away and clung to the back of a chair to prevent herself from collapsing.

The two brothers remained bending over the bed.

Propped on the cushions, his lips kept open by the mouthpiece of the gas-bag, M. Thibault was breathing easily, his features calm. Immediate danger was over, though it was necessary to keep him in the sitting position and watch his breathing with attention.

Handing the container to the sister, Antoine seated himself on the edge of the mattress to take his father’s pulse. He too was suddenly conscious of his utter weariness. The pulse was irregular and very slow. “Ah,” he thought, “if only he could pass away as he now is, peacefully!” It did not strike him yet, the inconsistency between this wish and the desperate fight he had just been putting up against the onset of asphyxiation.

Looking up, he caught Gise’s eye, and smiled. A moment past he had been using her as a convenient assistant, without a thought for who she was; now suddenly he felt a thrill of joy at seeing her there. Then his gaze swung back towards the dying man. And now at last he could not withhold the thought: “If only the oxygen had come five minutes later, by now all would be over.”

THE fit of choking had deprived M. Thibault of the temporary relief which the hot bath might otherwise have given him. Very soon another attack of convulsions came on, and what strength the dying man had drawn from his brief repose served only to enable him to suffer more.

There was an interval of more than half an hour between the first and second attacks. But evidently the visceral pain and neuralgia had set in again with extreme intensity, for all the time he continued groaning and tossing on the bed. The third attack came on a quarter of an hour after the second, and, after that, attacks of varying violence followed in quick succession, at only a few minutes’ interval.

Dr. Thérivier had looked in that morning and telephoned several times during the afternoon. When he came again, a little before nine, the paroxysms were of such violence that those who held the patient down were losing control, and the doctor hurried up to help them. But the leg he had grasped wrenched itself free, dealing him a kick that almost knocked him over. How the old man still had such reserves of strength passed their understanding.

When the convulsions had subsided, Antoine led his friend to the far end of the room. He tried to speak, and indeed managed to get out a few words—which the screams coming from the bed prevented Thérivier from hearing—then suddenly stopped short. His lips were quivering, and Thérivier was shocked by the change that had come over his face. With an effort Antoine pulled himself together, and stammered a few phrases in his friend’s ear:

“Look here, old man, you can see—see for yourself. It can’t go on like—this this. I can’t—stand any more.” There was an affectionate insistence in his gaze, as if he were appealing to his friend for some miraculous intervention.

Thérivier dropped his eyes. “Now let’s keep calm!” he murmured, adding after a pause: “And let’s review the facts. The pulse is weak. No micturition for thirty hours. The uremic intoxication is getting worse, and the symptoms are becoming masked. I quite understand how you’re feeling. But, be patient—the end is near.”

His shoulders bent, his eyes fixed vaguely on the bed, Antoine made no reply. The expression of his face had changed completely. He seemed half asleep. “The end is near!” After all, it might be true!

Jacques came in, followed by Adrienne and the old nun. It was the change of shift.

Thérivier went up to Jacques. “I’ll spend the night here, so that your brother can get a bit of rest.”

Antoine had heard. The temptation of escaping for a while from the sick-room, of rest and silence, of being able to lie down, to sleep perhaps, and to forget, was so strong that he was on the point of accepting Thérivier’s offer. But almost at once he pulled himself together.

“No, old man.” His voice was firm. “Thanks—but I’d rather not.” Something within him had told him—though he could not have accounted for it—that it was his duty to refuse. He must face his responsibility alone; confront fatality alone. When his friend seemed about to protest, he added: “Don’t insist. I’ve made up my mind. Tonight we’re in full force and fairly fit. Later on, perhaps, I’ll call on you.”

Thérivier shrugged his shoulders. Still, as he suspected the present state of things might last another day or two, and as in any case he had the habit of always giving in to Antoine, he now made no protest.

“Very well. But tomorrow night, whether you agree or not …”

Antoine did not flinch. “Tomorrow night?” Would they still be going on—these paroxysms and screams of pain? Obviously that was possible. And the next day, too. Why not? His eyes met his brother’s. Jacques alone guessed his anguish, and shared it.

Hoarse cries were coming from the bed, announcing another attack. They had to go back to their posts. Antoine held out his hand to Thérivier, who clasped it warmly, on the point of whispering: “Courage, old man!”; but he dared not, and left without a word. Antoine watched his receding back. How often had he, too, when leaving the bedside of a patient on the brink of death—after he had shaken a husband’s hand, forcing his mouth into an optimistic smile, or shunned a mother’s eyes—how often had he, too, once he had turned his back on them, hurried from the room with the same sense of relief that Thérivier’s brisk step betrayed!

At ten that night the attacks, which were now proceeding without intermission, seemed to reach a climax.

Antoine felt that the energies of his helpers were flagging, their endurance weakening; they were getting slower and less careful in their movements. As a general rule such lapses would have spurred him on to greater personal efforts. But he had reached the stage when his morale could no longer cope with bodily fatigue. It was his fourth night without sleep since leaving for Lausanne. He had given up eating; with an effort he had forced himself to drink a glass of milk earlier in the day, but he had been living most of the time on cold tea, gulping down a cupful every few hours. His nerves were getting steadily worse, though their tension gave him a semblance—but no more—of energy. For what a situation like the present one called for—never-ending patience, coupled with bursts of spurious activity sapped by the knowledge of its impotence—was something against which his whole character rebelled. His endurance was being taxed to the breaking-point; yet he must keep on, wear himself out in never-ending efforts, without an instant’s respite.

Towards eleven, when an attack was just ending, and the four of them were stooping over the bed, watching its last paroxysms, Antoine suddenly straightened up, with a movement of annoyance. Another patch of moisture was spreading on the sheet; the kidney had begun working again, copiously.

Dropping his father’s arm, Jacques made a rageful gesture. This was the last straw! The only thing keeping him on his feet had been the thought that, owing to the spread of the toxaemia, the end was imminent. What would happen now? Impossible to know. It was as if, during these past two days, death had been persistently setting his trap, and each time the spring was drawn tight, the teeth about to close, the catch had slipped—and all had to begin again.

After that, he did not even try to conceal his mortification. Between the attacks, he flung himself angrily into the nearest chair, and dozed for a few minutes, his elbows on his knees and his fists against his eyes. When a new attack developed, he had to be called, tapped on the shoulder, shaken into wakefulness.

Shortly before midnight, things had come to such a pass that it looked as if the struggle could no longer be kept up. Three exceptionally violent attacks had followed in quick succession, and there were signs of a fourth under way.

It promised to be catastrophic; all the usual symptoms were present, but in a hideously intensified form. The breathing had nearly stopped, the face was congested, the eyes were starting from their sockets, the forearms tensely contracted and flexed so sharply that the hands were hidden and the wrists, folded beneath the beard, had the look of amputated stumps. All the limbs were quivering with the formidable tension, and the sinews seemed on the point of snapping under the strain. Never before had the phase of rigidity lasted so long; the seconds went by and it showed no sign of easing. Antoine fully believed the end had come.

Then a feeble, gasping breath issued from the mouth, while a frothy saliva formed on the lips. The arms relaxed suddenly, and he passed into the convulsive state. From the very start the paroxysms had a maniacal violence that nothing less than a strait-jacket could have restrained. Helped by Adrienne and the older nun, Antoine and Jacques clung to the old man’s arms and legs. He was flinging himself about like a madman, and the four of them were dragged this way and that, hurled against each other, their arms half wrenched from their sockets. Adrienne was the first to let go, and after that, try as she might, could not recapture the leg she had been holding. Then, swept almost off her feet, the nun lost her balance and the other ankle broke free. Out of all constraint, the two legs beat the air; blood spurted from the heels drumming on the frame of the bed. Panting, streaming with sweat, Antoine and Jacques braced themselves to prevent the huge heaving mass from rolling off the bed.

Then, as suddenly as they had begun, the frenzied paroxysms ceased. After settling his father in the middle of the bed, Antoine stepped back some paces. His nerves were frayed to such a point that his teeth were chattering; he was shivering with cold. Going towards the fire to warm himself, he suddenly caught sight of his reflected self, lit by the firelight, in the mirror. His face was haggard, his hair in disorder, there was blind fury in his eyes. He swung round, dropped into a chair, and, letting his forehead sink between his hands, broke into sobs. No, he could bear no more… . What little capacity for reaction yet remained to him centred in a wild desire for it all to end—anything rather than to have another night, another day, and perhaps a second night to pass watching this hellish agony, for which he could do nothing, nothing …!

Jacques went up to him. At any other moment he would have flung himself into his brother’s arms; but, like his energies, his feelings had been blunted, and the sight of Antoine’s prostration, instead of quickening his emotion, numbed it. As he gazed down wonderingly on the twisted, tear-stained cheeks, suddenly it seemed to him he was discovering a picture from the past, the tearful face of a litde boy whom he had never known.

Then a thought which had several times already crossed his mind came back.

“Look here, Antoine! Supposing you called someone else in, for a consultation …?”

Antoine merely shrugged his shoulders. Obviously he would have been the first to call in all his colleagues if the case had presented any difficulties. He muttered some impatient remark that his brother could not hear; the screams of pain had started again, indicating that an attack would soon be coming on.

Jacques lost his temper. “But, damn it, Antoine—think of something! There must be
something
you can do.”

Antoine clenched his jaws. When he raised his eyes towards his brother, they were tearless, hard.

“Yes. There’s always
one
thing can be done.”

Jacques understood. He did not flinch.

Antoine threw him a questioning look; then murmured:

“And you, Jacques, haven’t you ever thought of that?”

Jacques gave an almost imperceptible nod. As his gaze sank deep into his brother’s, he had a fleeting impression that at that moment they must be looking very much alike—with the same crease between the eyebrows, the same expression of reckless despair, the same ruthlessness.

They were in shadow, near the fire, Jacques standing, Antoine seated. The screaming was so loud that the two women kneeling beside the bed, half stunned by fatigue, could not overhear what they were saying.

After a short pause Antoine spoke again:

“What about you, Jacques? Would
you
do it?”