Mysteries of Paris Volume III Part 47

"Scoundrel! you have stabbed me in the arm; but the wound is slight; you shall not escape me."

"Your wound is mortal. It is the poisoned dagger of Cecily which has stabbed you; I always carried it about me; await the effects of the poison.

Ah! you loosen your grasp; you are going to die. You should not have hindered me from going to find Cecily," added Jacques Ferrand, feeling in the dark for the door.

"Oh!" murmured Polidori, "my arm stiffens--a mortal coldness seizes me--my knees tremble under me--my blood thickens in my veins--my head turns.

Help!" cried the accomplice of Ferrand, collecting all his strength for a last cry; "help! I die!"

And he sunk under his own weight upon the floor. The crash of a gla.s.s door, opened with so much violence that several panes were broken to pieces, the ringing voice of Rudolph, and a noise of hasty footsteps, seemed to respond to Polidori's cry of anguish. Jacques Ferrand, having at length found the lock in the dark, opened the door leading into an adjoining apartment, and rushed into it, his dangerous weapon in his hand. At the same moment, threatening and formidable as the genius of vengeance, the prince entered the room from the opposite side.

"Monster!" cried Rudolph, advancing toward Jacques Ferrand, "it is my daughter whom you have killed! You are going--"

The prince did not finish; he recoiled alarmed. One would have said that his words had pierced Jacques Ferrand. Throwing his poniard aside, and placing both his hands before his eyes, the wretch fell with his face to the floor, uttering a howl that was anything but human. In consequence of the phenomenon of which we have spoken, of which a profound darkness had suspended the action, when Jacques Ferrand entered this chamber brilliantly lighted, he was struck with a vertigo, similar to that which we have already described, more intolerable than if he had been exposed to a torrent of light as incandescent as that of the disk of the sun. And the agony of this man was a fearful spectacle; he writhed in frightful convulsions, tearing the floor with his nails, as if he wished to dig a hole to escape from the horrible tortures caused by this glaring light.

Rudolph, one of his servants, and the porter of the house, who had been compelled to conduct the prince to this apartment, were transfixed with horror. Notwithstanding his just horror, Rudolph felt an emotion of pity for the unheard-of suffering of Jacques Ferrand; he ordered him to be laid on a sofa. This was not done without difficulty; for, fearing to be submitted again to the direct action of the light, the notary struggled violently, but when it streamed in his face he uttered another yell, which filled Rudolph with terror. After protracted torments, these attacks ceased, exhausted by their own violence. Arrived at the mortal period of his delirium, he remembered still the words of Cecily, who had called him her tiger; by degrees, his mind again wandered; he imagined himself a tiger! Crouched in one of the corners of the room, as in his den, his hoa.r.s.e, furious cries, the grinding of his teeth, the spasmodic contortions of the muscles of his forehead and face, his glaring look, gave him a vague and frightful resemblance to this ferocious beast.

"Tiger--tiger--tiger I am," said he, in a broken voice, gathering himself up in a heap; "yes, tiger. How much blood! In my lair--corpses--torn to pieces! La Goualeuse--the brother of this widow--the child of Louise--here are corpses; my tigress Cecily shall take her share." Then looking at his bony fingers, of which the nails had grown very long during his illness, he added these words: "Oh! my sharp nails: an old tiger I am, but more active, and strong, and bold. No one shall dare dispute my tigress, Cecily. Ah! she calls! she calls!" said he, looking around, and seeming to listen. After a moment's pause, he groped his way along the wall, saying, "No; I thought I heard her; she is not there, but I see her, oh! always, always! Oh! there she is! She calls me--she roars--she roars there! I come, I come."

And Jacques Ferrand dragged himself toward the middle of the chamber on his hands and knees. Although his strength was exhausted, from time to time he advanced by a convulsive spring: then he would pause, seeming to listen attentively.

"Where is she? where is she? I approach, she flies. Ah! there; oh! she awaits me; go; go, Cecily, your old tiger is yours," cried he.

And with a desperate effort he succeeded in getting on his knees. But, suddenly, falling backward with alarm, his body crouched on his heels, his hair standing on end, his look wild, his mouth distorted with terror, his hands stretched out, he seemed to struggle with age against an invisible object, and cried, in a broken voice, "What a bite--help--my arms break--I cannot take it off--sharp teeth. No, no, oh! not the eyes--help--a black serpent--oh! its flat head--its burning eyeb.a.l.l.s. It looks at me--it is the devil. Ah! he knows me--Jacques Ferrand--at the church--holy man--always at the church-avaunt!" And the notary, raising himself a little and sustaining himself with one hand on the floor, tried with the other to make the sign of the cross.

His livid face was covered with sweat, and all the symptoms of approaching death were manifested. He fell immediately backward, stiff and inanimate; his eyes seemed to start from their sockets; horrible convulsions stamped his features with unearthly contortions, like those forced from dead bodies by a galvanic battery; a b.l.o.o.d.y foam inundated his lips, and the life of this monster became extinct in the midst of one of his horrid visions, for he muttered these words: "Night--dark! dark specters--brazen skeletons-- red-hot--twine around me their burning fingers--my flesh smokes--specter-- b.l.o.o.d.y--no! no--Cecily--fire--Cecily!" Such were the last words of Jacques Ferrand.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE HOSPITAL.

It will be remembered that Fleur-de-Marie, saved by La Louve, had been conveyed to the country house of Dr. Griffon, [Footnote: The name which I have the honor to bear, which my father, grandfather, grand-uncle, and great grandfather--one of the most learned men of the seventeenth century--have rendered celebrated by works on theoretical and practical medicine, would forbid me from any attack, or hasty reflection, concerning physicians; even though the gravity of the subject upon which I treat, and the just and deserved celebrity of the French Medical School, did not prevent me. In Dr. Griffon I have only wished to personify one, otherwise respectable, who allows himself to be carried away the ardor of art, and led to make experiments which are a serious abuse medical power (if I may express myself in this manner), forgetting that there is something more sacred than Science--Humanity.] not far from Ravageurs' Island. The worthy doctor, one of the physicians of the City Hospital where we shall conduct our readers, who had obtained this situation through a powerful interest, regarded his ward as a sort of place where he experimented on the poor the treatment which he applied afterward to his rich patients, never hazarding on the last any new cures before having first tried and retried the application _in anima vili_, as he said, with that kind of pa.s.sionless barbarity which a blind love for science produces. Thus, if the doctor wished to convince himself of the comparative effect of some new and hazardous treatment, in order to be able to deduce consequences favorable to such or such system, he took a certain number of patients, treated some according to the new system, others by the ancient method. Under some circ.u.mstances, be abandoned others to the care of nature. After which he counted the survivors. These terrible experiments were, truly, a human sacrifice on the altar of science. Dr. Griffon did not seem to think of this. In the eyes of this prince of science (as they phrase it) the patients of his hospital were only subjects for study and experiment; and as, after all, there resulted sometimes from these essays _in anima vili_ a fact or discovery useful to science, the doctor showed himself as entirely satisfied and triumphant as a general after a victory sufficiently costly in soldiers.

Homeopathy had never a more violent adversary than Dr. Griffon. He look upon this method as absurd and homicidal; thus, strong in his convictions, and wis.h.i.+ng, as he said, to drive the homeopathists to the wall, he offered to abandon to their care a certain number of patients, on whom they might experiment to their liking. But he affirmed in advance, sure of not being contradicted by the result, that, out of twenty patients submitted to this treatment, not over five, at the outside would survive. The homeopathists gave the go-by to this proposition, to the great chagrin of the doctor, who regretted the loss of this occasion to prove, by figures, the vanity of homeopathic practice. Dr. Griffon would have been stupefied if any one had said to him, in reference to this free and autocratic disposition of his subjects:

"Such a state of things would cause the barbarism of those days to be regretted when condemned criminals were exposed to undergo newly-discovered surgical operations; operations which they dared not practice on the uncondemned. If it were successful, the condemned was pardoned. Compared to what you do, sir, this barbarity was charity. After all, a chance for life was thus given to a poor creature for whom the executioner was waiting, and an experiment was rendered possible which might be useful to all. But to try your hazardous medicaments on unfortunate artisans, for whom the hospital is the sole refuge when sickness overtakes them; to try a treatment, perhaps fatal, on people whom poverty confides to you, trusting and powerless; to you, their only hope; to you, who will only answer for their life to G.o.d--do you know that this is to push the love of science to inhumanity, sir? How! the poorer cla.s.ses already people the workshops, the field, the army; in this world they only know misery and privations; and when, at the end of their sufferings and fatigues, they fall exhausted--half-dead--sickness even does not preserve them from a last and sacrilegious "experiment!" I ask your heart, sir, would not this be unjust and cruel?"

Alas! Dr. Griffon would have been touched, perhaps, by these severe words, but not convinced. Man is made the creature of circ.u.mstances. The captain thus accustoms himself to consider his soldiers as nothing more than the p.a.w.ns of the b.l.o.o.d.y game called battle. And it is because man is thus made, that society ought to protect those whom fate exposes to the action of these "humane necessities." Now the character of Dr. Griffon once admitted (and it can be admitted without much hyperbole), the inmates of this hospital had then no guarantee, no recourse against the scientific barbarity of his experiments; for there exists a grievous hiatus in the organization of the civil hospitals. We will point it out here, so that we may be understood. Military hospitals are each day visited by a superior officer charged to receive the complaints of the sick soldiers, and to attend to them if they appear reasonable. This oversight completely distinct from the government of the hospital, is excellent--it has always produced the best results. It is, besides, impossible to see establishments better kept than the military hospitals; the soldiers are nursed with much care, and treated, we would say, almost with respectful commiseration. Why not have a similar superintendence established in the civil hospitals, by men completely independent of the government and medical faculty? The complaints of the poor (if they were well founded) would thus have an impartial organ, while at present this organ is absolutely wanting. Thus the doors of the hospital of Dr. Griffon once shut on a patient, he belonged body and soul to science. No friendly or disinterested ear can hear his grief. He is told plainly that, being admitted out of charity, he becomes henceforth a part of the experimental domain of the doctor, and that patient and malady must serve as subjects of study and observation, a.n.a.lysis, or instruction, to the young students who accompany a.s.siduously the visits of M. Griffon. In effect, the subject soon had to answer to interrogations often the most painful, the most sorrowful; and that, not to the doctor alone, who like the priest, fulfills a duty, and has the right to know everything--no, he must reply in a loud voice before a curious and greedy crowd of students. Yes, in this pandemonium of science, old or young, maid or wife, were obliged to abjure every feeling or sentiment of shame, and to make the most confidential communications, submit to the most material investigations, before a numerous public; and almost always these cruel formalities aggravated their disease. And this is neither humane nor just; it is because the poor enter the hospital in the holy name of charity, that they should be treated with compa.s.sion and with respect, for misfortune has its dignity.

On reading the following lines, it will be perceived why we have caused them to be preceded by these reflections. Nothing could be more sad than the nocturnal aspect of the vast ward of the hospital, where we will introduce our readers. Along the whole length of its gloomy walls were ranged two parallel rows of beds, vaguely lighted by the sepulchral glimmering of a lamp suspended from the ceiling; the narrow windows were barred with iron, like a prison's. The atmosphere is so sickening, so filled with disease, that the new patients did not often become acclimated without danger: this increase of suffering is a kind of premium which every new-comer inevitably pays for a hospital residence. The air of this immense hall is, then, heavy and corrupted. At intervals, the silence of night is interrupted, now by plaintive moans, now by profound sighs, uttered by the feverish sleepers; then all is quiet, and naught is heard but the regular and monotonous tickings of a large clock, which strikes the hours, so long for sleepless suffering. One of the extremities of this hall was almost plunged into obscurity. Suddenly was heard a great stir, and the noise of rapid footsteps; a door was opened and shut several times; a sister of charity, whose large white cap and black dress were visible from the light which she carried in her hand, approached one of the last beds on the right side of the hall. Some of the patients, awaking with a start, sat up in bed, attentive to what was pa.s.sing. Soon the folding doors were opened. A priest entered, bearing a crucifix--the two sisters knelt. By the pale light which shone like a glory around this bed, while the other parts of the hall remained in obscurity, the almoner of the hospital was seen leaning over this couch of misery, p.r.o.nouncing some words, the slow sounds of which were lost in the silence of night. At the end of a quarter of an hour the priest took a sheet, which he threw over the bed.

Then he retired. One of the kneeling sisters arose, closed the curtains, and returned to her prayers alongside of her companion. Then everything became once more silent. One of the patients had just died. Among the women who did not sleep, and who had witnessed this mute scene, were three persons whose names have already been mentioned in the course of this history: Mademoiselle de Fermont, daughter of the unhappy widow ruined by the cupidity of Jacques Ferrand; La Lorraine, a poor washer-woman, to whom Fleur-de-Marie had formerly given what money she had left; and Jeanne Duport, sister of Pique-Vinaigre, the patterer of La Force. We know Mademoiselle de Fermont and the juggler's sister. La Lorraine was a woman of about twenty, with a sweet face, but extremely pale and thin: she was in the last stage of consumption; there was no hope of saving her; she knew it, and was wasting away slowly. The distance was not so great between the beds of these two women but they could speak in a low tone, and not be overheard by the sisters.

"There is another one gone," whispered La Lorraine, thinking of the dead, and speaking to herself. "She will not suffer more--she is very happy."

"She is very happy, if she has left no children," added Jeanne.

"Oh! you are not asleep, neighbor," said La Lorraine, to her. "How do you get on, for your first night here? Last night, as soon as you were brought in, you were placed in bed, and I did not dare to speak to you; I heard you sob.

"Oh! yes; I have wept much."

"You are, then, in much pain?"

"Yes, but I am used to pain; it is from sorrow I weep. At length I fell asleep; I was still sleeping when the noise of the doors awoke me. When the priest came in, and the good sisters knelt, I soon saw it was a woman who was dying; then I said to myself a pater and an ave for her."

"I also; and, as I have the same complaint, as this woman had, who is just dead, I could not prevent myself from saying, 'Here is another whose sufferings are ended; she is very happy!'"

"Yes, as I told you, if she had no children."

"You have children, then?"

"Three," said the sister of Pique-Vinaigre, with a sigh,

"And you?"

"I had a little girl, but I did not keep her long. I am a washer-woman at the boats; I worked as long as I could. But everything has an end; when my strength failed me, my bread failed me also. They turned me oat of my lodgings; I do not know what would have become of me, except for a poor woman who gave me shelter in a cellar, where she had concealed herself to escape from her husband, who wished to kill her. There I was confined on the straw; but, happily, this good woman knew a young girl, beautiful and charitable as an angel from heaven: this young girl had a little money; she took me from the cellar, and placed me in a furnished room, paying the rent in advance, giving me, besides, a willow cradle for my child, and forty francs for myself, with some clothes."

"Good little girl! I also have met, by chance, with one who may be called her equal, a young dressmaker, very obliging. I had gone to see my poor brother, who is a prisoner," said Jeanne, after a moment of hesitation; "and I met in the visitors' room this young girl of whom I speak; having heard me say to my brother that I was not happy, she came to me, much embarra.s.sed, to offer what services were in her power."

"How kind that was in her!"

"I accepted; she gave me her address, and, two days after, this dear little Rigolette--that's her dear name--gave me employment."

"Rigolette!" cried La Lorraine.

"You know her?"

"No; but the young girl who was so generous to me, several times mentioned the name of Rigolette: they were friends together."

"Well!" said Jeanne, smiling sadly, "since we are neighbors in sickness, we should be friends like our two benefactresses."

"Willingly: my name is Annette Gerbier, otherwise La Lorraine, washer-woman."

"And mine, Jeanne Duport, fringe-maker. Ah! it is so good, at the hospital, to find some one who is not altogether a stranger, above all, when you come for the first time, and you have many troubles! But I do not wish to think of this. Tell me, La Lorraine, what was the name of the young girl who has been so kind to you?"

"She was called La Goualeuse. All my sorrow is that I have not seen her for a long time. She was as beautiful as the Holy Virgin, with fine flaxen hair and blue eyes, so sweet--so sweet! Unfortunately, notwithstanding her a.s.sistance, my poor child died at two months," and Lorraine wiped away a tear.

"Poor Lorraine!"

"I regret, my child, for myself, not for her, poor little dear! She would have too much to struggle with, for she soon would have been an orphan. I have not a long time to live."

"You should not have such ideas at your age. Have you been sick for a long time?"

"It will soon be three months. Bless me! when I had to work for myself and my child, I increased my labor; the winter was cold, I caught a cold on my chest; at this time I lost my little girl. In watching her I forgot myself.

To that add sorrow, and I am what you see me, consumptive, doomed--as was the actress who has just died."

"At your age there is always hope."