Complete Works of Emile Zola (798 page)

‘We cannot leave Louise like this,’ insisted Pauline. ‘We must go and talk to her. Come with me.’

They found her half-way on the first flight of stairs, lacking the strength to go either up or down.

‘My dear girl,’ said Pauline tenderly, ‘we are quite distressed about you. We are going to send for Madame Bouland.’

At this Louise grew angry. ‘Why do you torment me like this,’ she cried, ‘when all that I want is to be left alone? I shan’t need Madame Bouland for a long time yet. Leave me alone and don’t torture me!’

Louise showed herself so obstinate and displayed so much temper that Lazare, in his turn, grew angry; however, Pauline was compelled to promise that she would not send for Madame Bouland. This person was an
accoucheuse
of Verchemont, who possessed an extraordinary reputation throughout the district for skill and energy. She was con­sidered to have no equal at Bayeux or even at Caen. It was on account of this great reputation of hers that Louise, who was very timid and had a presentiment of disaster, had resolved to place herself in her hands. None the less she experienced a great fear of Madame Bouland — the same irrational fear, indeed, with which patients contemplate a dentist whom it is necessary they should visit, though they defer doing so as long as possible.

At six o’clock Louise felt much better again, and showed herself very triumphant in consequence. But she was worn out, and, when she had eaten a cutlet, she went back to her room. She would be all right, she said, if she could only get to sleep. Thus she obstinately refused to let anyone sit upstairs with her, and insisted upon being left alone. The others then sat down to a stew and a piece of roast veal. The dinner began in silence, for Louise’s illness increased the gloom which was caused by Pauline’s approaching depar­ture. They made as little noise as possible with their spoons and forks, for fear it might reach the ears of the invalid and still further distress her. Chanteau, however, grew very loquacious by degrees, and had begun relating some wonder­ful stories, when Véronique, as she was handing round the veal, suddenly exclaimed:

‘I’m not quite sure, but I fancy I can hear Madame Lazare groaning upstairs.’

Lazare sprang from his seat and opened the door. They all gave over eating, and strained their ears to listen. At first they could hear nothing, but soon the sound of pro­longed groaning reached them.

Pauline thereupon threw down her napkin and ran up­stairs, followed by Lazare. And now Louise, whom they found seated on her bed in a dressing-gown, rather peevishly consented to let them send for Madame Bouland. When Lazare, however, suggested that they had better send for Doctor Cazenove as well, on the chance of complications arising, his wife burst into tears. Hadn’t they the least pity for her, she cried? Why did they go on torturing her? They knew very well that the idea of being attended by a doctor was intolerable to her. She would have nobody but Madame Bouland.

‘If you send for the Doctor,’ said she, ‘I’ll get into bed and turn my face to the wall and refuse to say another word to anybody.’

‘At any rate, go for Madame Bouland,’ said Pauline to Lazare by way of conclusion. ‘She may be able to give her some relief.’

They both went downstairs again, and found Abbé Horteur, who had come to pay a short visit, standing in silence before the alarmed Chanteau. An attempt was made to persuade Lazare to eat a little veal before starting, but he declared that a single mouthful would choke him, and forth­with he set off at a run to Verchemont.

‘I think I hear her calling me!’ Pauline exclaimed a moment later, hastening towards the staircase. ‘If I want Véronique I will knock, on the floor. You can finish your dinner without me, can’t you, uncle?’

The priest, much embarrassed at finding himself in the midst of this confusion, could not summon up his customary consolatory phrases, and he also soon retired, promising, however to return after he had been to the Gonins’, where the crippled old man was very ill. Thus Chanteau was left alone before the disordered table. The glasses were half full, the veal was growing cold on the plates, and the greasy forks and half-eaten pieces of bread still lay where they had been dropped in the sudden alarm which had come upon the diners. As Véronique put a kettle of water on the fire, by way of precaution, in case it might be wanted, she began to grumble at not knowing whether she ought to clear the table or leave things in their present state of confusion.

Two anxious hours went by; nine o’clock came, and still Madame Bouland did not arrive. Louise was now anxiously longing for her to come, and bitterly complained that they must want her to die, since they left her so long without assistance. It only took twenty five minutes to get to Verchemont, and an hour ought to have been sufficient to fetch the woman. Lazare must be amusing himself some­where, or, perhaps, an accident had happened, and no one would ever come at all. Then, however, the young wife ceased complaining, for an attack of sickness came upon her, and the whole house was once more in a state of alarm.

Eleven o’clock struck, and the delay became intolerable. So Véronique in her turn set off for Verchemont. She took a lantern with her, and was instructed to search all the ditches. Meantime Pauline remained with Louise, unable to assist her in spite of her desire to do so.

It was nearly midnight when the sound of wheels at last impelled the girl to rush downstairs.

‘Why, where is Véronique?’ she cried out from the steps, as she recognised Lazare and Madame Bouland. ‘Haven’t you met her?’

Lazare replied that they had come by the Port-en-Bessin road, after encountering all sorts of hindrances. On reach­ing Verchemont he had found that Madame Bouland was eight miles away attending to another woman. He could procure no horse or vehicle to go after her, and had been obliged to make the whole journey on foot, running all the way. And, besides, there had been endless other troubles. Fortunately, however, Madame Bouland had a trap with her.

‘But the woman!’ exclaimed Pauline. ‘She has been attended to all right, I suppose, since Madame Bouland has been able to come with you?’

Lazare’s voice trembled as he replied hoarsely:

‘The woman is dead.’

They went into the hall, which was dimly lighted by a candle placed on the stairs. There was an interval of silence while Madame Bouland hung up her cloak. She was a short, dark woman, very thin, and as yellow as a lemon, with a large prominent nose. She spoke loudly, and had an extremely authoritative manner, which caused her to be much respected by the peasantry.

‘Will you be good enough to follow me?’ Pauline said to her. ‘I have been quite at a loss to know what to do; she has never ceased complaining since the beginning of the evening.’

Louise still stood before a chest of drawers in her room, pawing the floor with her feet. She burst into tears as soon as she saw Madame Bouland, who forthwith began to ques­tion her. But the young wife turned a glance of entreaty towards Pauline, which the latter well understood. She therefore led Lazare from the room, and they both remained on the landing, unable to take themselves further away. The candle, which was still burning below, threw a dim light, broken by weird shadows, up the stairs, and the two cousins stood, Lazare leaning against the wall and Pauline against the banisters, gazing at each other in motionless silence. They strained their ears to catch the sounds that came from Louise’s room; and when Madame Bouland at last opened the door they would have entered, but she pushed them back, came out, and closed the door behind her.

‘Well?’ Pauline murmured.

She signed to them to go downstairs, and it was not till they had reached the ground floor that she opened her mouth. It was a premature and very difficult case.

‘It seems likely to be extremely serious,’ she said. ‘It is my duty to warn the family.’

Lazare turned pale. An icy breath passed over his brow. Then in stammering accents he asked for particulars.

Madame Bouland gave them, adding: ‘I cannot undertake the responsibility. The presence of a doctor is absolutely necessary.’

Silence fell once more. Lazare was overcome with despair. Where were they to find a doctor at that time of night? His wife might die twenty times before they could get the surgeon from Arromanches.

‘I don’t think there is any immediate danger,’ said Madame Bouland; ‘still, you had better lose no time. I myself can do nothing further.’

And as Pauline besought her, in the name of humanity, to try something, at any rate, to alleviate the sufferings of Louise, whose groans echoed through the house, she replied in her clear sharp voice: ‘No, indeed; I can do nothing of that kind. That other poor woman over yonder is dead, and I would rather not be responsible for this one.’

Again did Lazare shudder. At this moment, however, a tearful call was heard from Chanteau in the dining-room.

‘Are you there? Come in! No one has been to tell me anything. I have been waiting to hear something ever so long.’

They entered the room. They had forgotten all about poor Chanteau since the interrupted dinner. He had remained at the table, twisting his thumbs and patiently waiting with all the drowsy resignation which he had acquired during his long periods of lonely quiescence. This new catastrophe, which was revolutionising the house, had greatly saddened him; he had not even had heart enough to go on eating, his food still remained untouched on his plate.

‘Is she no better?’ he inquired.

Lazare ragefully shrugged, his shoulders. But Madame Bouland, who retained all her accustomed calmness, pressed the young man to lose no further time.

‘Take my trap!’ she said. ‘The horse is tired out; still, you will be able to get back in two hours or two hours and a half. I will stay here and look after her.’

Then with sudden determination Lazare rushed out of the room, feeling convinced that he would find his wife dead upon his return. They could hear him shouting and lashing the horse with his whip as the conveyance clattered noisily away.

Madame Bouland went upstairs again, and Pauline followed her, after briefly replying to her uncle’s questions. When she had offered to put him to bed he had refused to go, insisting on staying up in order that he might know how things went on. If he felt drowsy, he said, he could sleep very well in his easy-chair, for he often slept in it the whole afternoon. He had only just been left alone again when Véronique returned with her lantern extinguished. She was boiling over with rage. For two years she had never poured forth so many words at one time.

‘Of course they took the other road!’ she cried. ‘And there have I been looking into all the ditches and nearly kill­ing myself to get to Verchemont! And I waited, too, for a whole half-hour down there in the middle of the road!’

Chanteau looked at her with his big eyes.

‘Well, my girl, it was scarcely likely that you would meet each other.’

‘And then, as I was coming back,’ she continued, ‘I met Monsieur Lazare galloping on like a madman in a crazy gig. I shouted out to him that they were anxiously waiting for him, but he only whipped his horse the more violently and nearly ran over me. I’ve had quite enough of these errands, of which I can make neither head nor tale. To make matters worse, too, my lantern went out.’

She hustled her master about, and tried to make him finish eating his food, so that she might, at any rate, get the table cleared. He was not at all hungry, but he ate a little of the cold veal for the sake of doing something. He was worried now by the Abbé’s failure to return that evening. What was the use of the priest promising to come and keep him com­pany if he had made up his mind to stay at home? However, priests certainly cut a comical figure on such occasions as the present; and, this idea amusing Chanteau, he set himself cheerfully to take his supper in solitude.

‘Come, sir, make haste!’ cried Véronique. ‘It is nearly one o’clock, and it won’t do to have the plates and dishes and things lying about like this till to-morrow. There’s always something going wrong in this awful house!’

She was just beginning to clear the table when Pauline called to her from the staircase. Then Chanteau was once more left alone and forgotten in front of the table, and nobody came again to give him any news.

Louise was in quite a desperate condition, and her strength seemed to be rapidly ebbing away, when, about half-past three o’clock, Véronique privately warned Pauline of Lazare’s arrival with Doctor Cazenove. Madame Bouland insisted on remaining alone with the Doctor beside the patient, while the others betook themselves to the dining-room, where Chanteau was now fast asleep. And then there again came a long, weary, and very anxious wait. When the Doctor joined them his voice betrayed his emotion.

‘I have done nothing yet,’ said he; ‘I wouldn’t do any­thing without consulting you.’

And thereupon he passed his hand over his forehead, as if to drive away some irksome thought.

‘But it is not for us to decide, Doctor,’ said Pauline, for Lazare was incapable of speech; ‘we leave her in your hands.’

He shook his head. ‘I must tell you,’ said he, ‘that both mother and child seem to me lost. Perhaps I might save one or the other.’

Lazare and Pauline rose up shuddering. Chanteau, aroused by the conversation, opened his heavy eyes and listened with an expression of amazement.

‘Which of the two must I try to save?’ repeated the Doctor, who trembled as much as those of whom he asked the question—’the child or the mother?’

‘Which, o God?’ cried Lazare. ‘Do I know? Can I say?’

Tears choked him once again, whilst his cousin, ghastly pale, remained silent in presence of that awful alternative.

But Cazenove went on giving explanations. ‘It is a case of conscience,’ he concluded. ‘I beg of you, decide yourselves.’

Sobs now prevented Lazare from answering. He had taken his handkerchief and was twisting it convulsively whilst striving to recover a little of his reason. Chanteau still looked on in stupefaction. And only Pauline was able to say, ‘Why did you come down? It is cruel to torture us like this, when you alone know the best course, and alone are able to act.’