Jack Part 42

It was a dreary structure, looking out on one side upon a damp garden, on the other on a dark court. Twenty beds, two arm-chairs, and a stove, were the furniture of the large room to which Jack was carried. Five or six phantoms in cotton nightcaps looked up from a game of dominos to inspect him, and two or three more started from the stove as if frightened.

The corner of the room was brightened by an altar to the Virgin, decorated with flowers, candles, and lace; and near by was the desk of the matron, who came forward, and in a soft voice, the tones of which seemed half lost among the folds of her veil, said:

"Poor fellow, how sick he looks! he must go to bed at once. We have no bed yet, but the one at the end there will soon be empty. While we are waiting, we will put him on a couch."

This couch was placed close to the bed "that would soon be empty," from whence were heard long sighs, dreary enough in themselves, but made a thousand times more melancholy by the utter indifference with which they were heard by the others in the room. The man was dying, but Jack was himself too ill to notice this. He hardly heard Belisaire's "_au revoir_" nor the rattling of dishes as the soup was distributed, nor a whispering at his side; he was not asleep, but exhausted by fatigue.

Suddenly a woman's voice, calm and clear, said, "Let us pray."

He saw the dim outline of a woman kneeling near the altar, but in vain did he attempt to follow the words that fell rapidly from her lips. The concluding sentence reached him, however.

"Protect, O G.o.d, my friends and my enemies, all prisoners and travellers, the sick and the dying."

Jack slept a feverish sleep, and his dreams were a confused mixture of prisoners rattling their chains, and of travellers wandering over endless roads. He was one of these travellers: he was on a highway, like that of Etiolles; Cecile and his mother were before him refusing to wait until he could reach them; this he was prevented from doing by a row of enormous machines, the pistons of which were moving with dizzy haste, and from whose chimneys were pouring out dark volumes of smoke. Jack determined to pa.s.s between them; he is seized by their iron arms, torn and mangled, and scalded with the hot steam; but he got through and took refuge in the Foret de Senart, amid the freshness of which Jack became once more a child and was on his way to the forester's; but there at the cross-road stood mother Sale; he turned to run, and ran for miles, with the old woman close behind him; he heard her nearer and nearer, he felt her hot breath on his shoulder; she seized him at last, and with all her weight crushed in his chest. Jack awoke with a start; he recognized the large room, the beds in a line, and heard the sighs and coughs. He dreamed no more, and yet he still felt the same weight across his body, something so cold and heavy that he called aloud in terror. The nurses ran, and lifted Something, placed it in the next bed, and drew the curtains round it closely.

CHAPTER XXIV.--DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL.

"Come, wake up! Visitors are here."

Jack opened his eyes, and the first thing that struck him was the curtains of the next bed,--they hung in such straight and motionless folds to the very ground.

"Well, my boy, you had a pretty bad time last night. The poor fellow in the next bed had convulsions and fell over on you. I suppose you were terribly frightened. Now raise yourself a little that we may see you.

But you are very weak."

The man who spoke was about forty years of age, wearing a velvet coat and a white ap.r.o.n. His beard was fair and his eyes bright. He feels the sick man's pulse and asks him some questions.

"What is your trade?"

"A machinist."

"Do you drink?"

"Not now; I did at one time."

Then a long silence.

"What sort of a life have you led, my poor boy?"

Jack saw in the physician's face the same sympathetic interest that he had perceived the previous day. The students surrounded the bed, and the doctor explained to them various symptoms that he observed. They were at once interesting and alarming, he said; and Jack listened with some curiosity to the words "inspiration," "expiration," "phthisis," &c., and at last understood that his was looked upon as a most critical case,--so critical that, after the physician had left the room, the good sister approached, and with gentle discretion asked if his family were in Paris, and if he could send to them.

His family! Who were they? a man and a woman who were already there at the foot of the bed. They belonged to the lower cla.s.ses; but he had no other friends than these, no other relatives.

"And how are we to-day?" said Belisaire, cheerily, though he kept his tears back with difficulty. Madame Belisaire lays on the table two fine oranges she has brought, and then, after a kind remark or two, sits in silence.

Jack does not speak; his eyes are wide open and fixed. Of what is he thinking?

"Jack," said the good woman, suddenly, "I am going to find your mother;"

and she smiled encouragingly.

Yes, that is what he wants; now that he knows that he must die, he forgets all the wrongs his mother has been guilty of toward him.

But Belisaire does not wish his wife to go. He knows that she holds in utter contempt "the fine lady," as she calls Jack's mother, that she detests the man with the moustache, and that she will make a scene, and perhaps--who knows but the police may be called in?

"No," she said, "that is all nonsense;" but finally yielded to the persuasions of her husband, and allowed him to go in her stead.

"I will bring her this time, never fear!" he said, with an air of confidence.

"Where are you going?" asked the concierge, stopping him at the foot of the staircase.

"To M. D'Argenton's."

"Are you the man who was here last night?"

"Precisely," answered Belisaire, innocently.

"Then you need not go up, for there is no one there; they have gone to the country, and will not return for some time."

In the country, in all this cold and snow! It seemed impossible. In vain did he insist, in vain did he say that the lady's son was very ill--dying in the hospital. The concierge held to his statement, and would not permit Belisaire to go one step further.

The poor man retreated to the street again. Suddenly a brilliant idea struck him. Jack had never told him any of the particulars of what had taken place between the Rivals and himself; he had merely stated the fact that the marriage was broken off. But at Indret and in Paris he had often spoken of the goodness and charity of the kind doctor. If he could only be induced to come to Jack's bedside, so that the poor boy could have some familiar face about him! Without further hesitation he started for Etiolles. Alas, we saw him at the end of this long walk!

During all this time, his wife sat at their friend's side, and knew not what to think of this prolonged absence, nor how to calm the agitation into which the sick youth was thrown by the expectation of seeing his mother. His excitement was unfortunately increased by the crowd that always appeared on Sundays at the hospital. Each moment some one of the doors was thrown open, and each time Jack expected to see his mother.

The visitors were clean and neatly dressed who gathered about the patients they had come to see, telling them family news and encouraging them. Sometimes the voices were choked with tears, though the eyes were dry, Jack heard a constant murmur of voices, and the perfume of oranges filled the room. But what a disappointment it was, after being lifted by the aid of a little stick hung by cords, when he saw that his mother had not come! He fell back more exhausted, more despairing than ever.

With him, as with all others who are on the threshold of death, the slender thread of life that remained to him was too fragile to attach itself to the robust years of his manhood, and took him beyond them into the far away days when he was little Jack, the velvet-clad darling of Ida de Barancy.

The crowd still came, women and little children, who stood in displeased surprise at their father's emaciation and at his nightcap, and uttered exclamations of delight at the sight of the beautifully dressed altar.

But Jack's mother did not appear. Madame Belisaire knows not what to say. She has hinted that M. D'Argenton may be ill, or that his mother is driving in the Bois, and now she spreads a colored handkerchief on her knees and pares an orange.

"She will not come!" said Jack. These very words he had spoken in that little home at Charonne which he had prepared with so much tender care. But his voice was now weaker, and had even a little anger in its accents. "She will not come!" he repeated; and the poor boy closed his eyes, but not in sleep. He thought of Cecile. The sister heard his sighs, and said to Madame Belisaire, whose large face was s.h.i.+ning with tears,--

"What is the matter with him? I am afraid he is suffering more."

"It is on account of his mother, whom he expects, and he is troubled that she does not come."

"But she must be sent for."

"My husband went long ago. But she is a fine lady; she won't come to a hospital and run the risk of soiling her silk skirts."

Suddenly the woman rose in a fit of anger.

"Don't cry, dear," said she to Jack, as she would have spoken to her little child; "I am going for your mother."

Jack understood what she said, understood that she had gone, but still continued to repeat, in a harsh voice, the words, "She will not come!

she will not come!"

The sister tried to soothe him. "Calm yourself, my child."