Part 14

Very bright, very airy, is this vast room, running the whole length of one side of the house, with numerous windows and cots, separated one from another by a little distance, hung with fleecy white curtains like clouds. Women go and come through the large arch in the centre, with piles of linen on their arms, or keys in their hands, nurses with the special duty of washing the babies.

Here too much has been attempted and the first impression of the visitors is a bad one. All this whiteness of muslin, this polished parquet, the brightness of the window-panes reflecting the sky sad at beholding these things, seem to throw into bold relief the thinness, the unhealthy pallor of these dying little ones, already the colour of their shrouds. Alas! the oldest are only aged some six months, the youngest barely a fortnight, and already there is in all these faces, these faces in embryo, a disappointed expression, a scowling, worn look, a suffering precocity visible in the numerous lines on those little bald foreheads, cramped by linen caps edged with poor, narrow hospital lace. What are they suffering? What diseases can they have? They have everything, everything that one can have: diseases of children and diseases of men. The fruit of vice and poverty, they bring into the world hideous phenomena of heredity at their very birth. This one has a perforated palate, and this great copper-coloured patches on the forehead, all of them rickety. Then they are dying of hunger. Notwithstanding the spoonfuls of milk, of sweetened water, which are forced down their throats, notwithstanding the feeding-bottle employed now and then, though against orders, they perish of inanition. These little creatures, worn out before birth, require the most tender and the most strengthening food; the goats might perhaps be able to give it, but apparently they have sworn not to suck the goats. And this is what makes the dormitory mournful and silent, not one of those little clinched-fisted tempers, one of those cries showing the pink and firm gums in which the child makes trial of his lungs and strength; only a plaintive moaning, as it were the disquiet of a soul that turns over and over in a little sick body, without being able to find a comfortable place to rest there.

Jenkins and the director, who have seen the bad impression produced on their guests by this inspection of the dormitory, try to put a little life into the situation, talk very loudly in a good-natured, complacent, satisfied way. Jenkins shakes hands warmly with the superintendent.

“Well, Mme. Polge, and how are our little nurslings getting on?”

“As you see, M. le Docteur,” she replies, pointing to the beds.

This tall Mme. Polge is funereal in her green dress, the ideal of dry-nurses. She completes the picture.

But where has Monsieur the Departmental Secretary gone? He has stopped before a cot which he examines sadly, as he stands nodding his head.

“_Bigre de bigre!_” says Pompon in a low voice to Mme. Polge. “It is the Wallachian.”

The little blue placard hung over the cot, as in the foundling hospitals, states the child’s nationality: “Moldo, Wallachian.” What a piece of ill-luck that Monsieur the Secretary’s attention should have been attracted to that particular child! Oh, that poor little head lying on the pillow, its linen cap askew, with pinched nostrils, and mouth half opened by a quick, panting respiration, the breathing of the newly born, of those also who are about to die.

“Is he ill?” asked Monsieur the Secretary softly of the director, who has come up to him.

“Not the least in the world,” the shameless Pompon replies, and, advancing to the side of the cot, he tries to make the little one laugh by tickling him with his finger, straightens the pillow, and says in a hearty voice, somewhat overcharged with tenderness: “Well, old fellow?” Shaken out of his torpor, escaping for a moment from the shades which already are closing on him, the child opens his eyes on those faces leaning over him, glances at them with a gloomy indifference, then, returning to his dream which he finds more interesting, clinches his little wrinkled hands and heaves an elusive sigh. Mystery! Who shall say for what end that baby had been born into life? To suffer for two months and to depart without having seen anything, understood anything, without any one even knowing the sound of his voice.

“How pale he is!” murmurs M. de la Perriere, very pale himself. The Nabob is livid also. A cold breath seems to have passed over the place. The director assumes an air of unconcern.

“It is the reflection. We are all of us green here.”

“Yes, yes, that is so,” remarks Jenkins, “it is the reflection of the lake. Come and look, Monsieur the Secretary.” And he draws him to the window to point out to him the large sheet of water with its dipping willows, while Mme. Polge makes haste to draw over the eternal dream of the little Wallachian the parted curtains of his cradle.

The inspection of the establishment must be continued very quickly in order to destroy this unfortunate impression.

To begin with, M. de la Perriere is shown a splendid laundry, with stoves, drying-rooms, thermometers, immense presses of polished walnut, full of babies’ caps and frocks, labelled and tied up in dozens. When the linen has been warmed, the linen-room maid passes it out through a little door in exchange for the number left by the nurse. A perfect order reigns, one can see, and everything, down to its healthy smell of soap-suds, gives to this apartment a wholesome and rural aspect. There is clothing here for five hundred children. That is the number which Bethlehem can accommodate, and everything has been arranged upon a corresponding scale; the vast pharmacy, glittering with bottles and Latin inscriptions, pestles and mortars of marble in every corner, the hydropathic installation, its large rooms built of stone, with gleaming baths possessing a huge apparatus including pipes of all dimensions for douches, upward and downward, spray, jet, or whip-lash, and the kitchens adorned with superb kettles of copper, and with economical coal and gas ovens. Jenkins wished to institute a model establishment; and he found the thing easy, for the work was done on a large scale, as it can be when funds are not lacking. You feel also over it all the experience and the iron hand of “our intelligent superintendent,” to whom the director cannot refrain from paying a public tribute. This is the signal for general congratulations. M. de la Perriere, delighted with the manner in which the establishment is equipped, congratulates Dr. Jenkins upon his fine creations, Jenkins compliments his friend Pondevez, who, in his turn, thanks the Departmental secretary for having consented to honour Bethlehem with a visit. The good Nabob makes his voice heard in this chorus of eulogy, finds a kind word for each one, but is a little surprised all the same that he has not been congratulated himself, since they were about it. It is true that the best of congratulations awaits him on the 16th March on the front page of the _Official Journal_ in a decree which flames in advance before his eyes and makes him glance every now and then at his buttonhole.

These pleasant words are exchanged as the party passes along a big corridor in which the voices ring out in all their honest accents; but suddenly a frightful noise interrupts the conversation and the advance of the visitors. It seems to be made up of the mewing of cats in delirium, of bellowings, of the howlings of savages performing a war-dance, an appalling tempest of human cries, reverberated, swelled, and prolonged by the echoing vaults. It rises and falls, ceases suddenly, then goes on again with an extraordinary effect of unanimity.

Monsieur the Director begins to be uneasy, makes an inquiry. Jenkins rolls furious eyes.

“Let us go on,” says the director, rather anxious this time. “I know what it is.”

He knows what it is; but M. de la Perriere wishes to know also what it is, and, before Pondevez has had the time to unfasten it, he pushes open the massive door whence this horrible concert proceeds.

In a sordid kennel which the great cleansing has passed over, for, in fact, it was not intended to be exhibited, on mattresses ranged on the floor, a dozen little wretches are laid, watched over by an empty chair on which the beginning of a knitted vest lies with an air of dignity, and by a little broken saucepan, full of hot wine, boiling on a smoky wood fire. These are the children with ringworm, with rashes, the disfavoured of Bethlehem, who had been hidden in this retired corner with recommendation to their dry-nurse to rock them, to soothe them, to sit on them, if need were, in order to keep them from crying; but whom this country-woman, stupid and inquisitive, had left alone there in order to see the fine carriage standing in the court-yard. Her back turned, the infants had very quickly grown weary of their horizontal position; and then all these little scrofulous patients raised their lusty concert, for they, by a miracle, are strong, their malady saves and nourishes them. Bewildered and kicking like beetles when they are turned on their backs, helping themselves with their hips and their elbows, some fallen on one side and unable to regain their balance, others raising in the air their little benumbed, swaddled legs, spontaneously they cease their gesticulations and cries as they see the door open; but M. de la Perrier’s nodding goatee beard reassures them, encourages them anew, and in the renewed tumult the explanation given by the director is only heard with difficulty: “Children kept separate--Contagion--Skin-diseases.” This is quite enough for Monsieur the Departmental Secretary; less heroic than Bonaparte on his visit to the plague-stricken of Jaffa, he hastens towards the door, and in his timid anxiety, wishing to say something and yet not finding words, murmurs with an ineffable smile: “They are char-ar-ming.”

Next, the inspection at an end, see them all gathered in the salon on the ground floor, where Mme. Polge has prepared a little luncheon. The cellar of Bethlehem is well stocked. The keen air of the table-land, these climbs up and downstairs have given the old gentleman from the Tuileries an appetite such as he has not known for a long time, so that he chats and laughs as if he were at a picnic, and at the moment of departure, as they are all standing, raises his glass, nodding his head, to drink, “To Be-Be-Bethlehem!” Those present are moved, glasses are touched, then, at a quick trot, the carriage bears the party away down the long avenue of limes, over which a red and cold sun is just setting. Behind them the park resumes its dismal silence. Great dark masses gather in the depths of the copses, surround the house, gain little by little the paths and open spaces. Soon all is lost in gloom save the ironical letters embossed above the entrance-gate, and, away over yonder, at a first-floor window, one red and wavering spot, the light of a candle burning by the pillow of the dead child.

“By a decree dated the 12th March, 1865, issued upon the proposal of the Minister of the Interior, Monsieur the Doctor Jenkins, President and Founder of the Bethlehem Society is named a Chevalier of the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour. Great devotion to the cause of humanity.”

As he read these words on the front page of the _Official Journal_, on the morning of the 16th, the poor Nabob felt dazed.

Was it possible?

Jenkins decorated, and not he!

He read the paragraph twice over, distrusting his own eyes. His ears buzzed. The letters danced double before his eyes with those great red rings round them which they have in strong sunlight. He had been so confident of seeing his name in this place; Jenkins, only the evening before, had repeated to him with so much assurance, “It is already done!” that he still thought his eyes must have deceived him. But no, it was indeed Jenkins. The blow was heavy, deep, prophetic, as it were a first warning from destiny, and one that was felt all the more intensely because for years this man had been unaccustomed to failure. Everything good in him learned mistrust at the same time.

“Well,” said he to de Gery as he came as usual every morning into his room, and found him visibly affected, holding the newspaper in his hand, “have you seen? I am not in the _Official_.”

He tried to smile, his features puckered like those of a child restraining his tears. Then, suddenly, with that frankness which was such a pleasing quality in him: “It is a great disappointment to me. I was looking forward to it too confidently.”

The door opened upon these words, and Jenkins rushed in, out of breath, stammering, extraordinarily agitated.

“It is an infamy, a frightful infamy! The thing cannot be, it shall not be!”

The words stumbled over each other in disorder on his lips, all trying to get out at once; then he seemed to despair of finding expression for his thoughts and in disgust threw on the table a small box and a large envelope, both bearing the stamp of the chancellor’s office.

“There are my cross and my brevet. They are yours, friend. I could not keep them.”

At bottom the words did not signify much. Jansoulet adorning himself with Jenkins’s ribbon might very well have been guilty of illegality. But a piece of theatrical business is not necessarily logical; this one brought about between the two men an effusion of feeling, embraces, a generous battle, at the end of which Jenkins replaced the objects in his pocket, speaking of protests, letters to the newspapers. The Nabob was again obliged to check him.

“Be very careful you do no such thing. To begin with, it would be to injure my chances for another time--who knows, perhaps on the 15th of August, which will soon be here.”

“Oh, as to that,” said Jenkins, jumping at this idea, and stretching out his arm as in the _Oath_ of David, “I solemnly swear it.”

The matter was dropped at this point. At luncheon the Nabob was as gay as usual. This good humour was maintained all day, and de Gery, for whom the scene had been a revelation of the true Jenkins, the explanation of the ironies and the restrained wrath of Felicia Ruys whenever she spoke of the doctor, asked himself in vain how he could enlighten his dear patron about such hypocrisy. He should have been aware, however, that in southerners, with all their superficiality and effusion, there is no blindness, no enthusiasm, so complete as to remain insensible before the wisdom of reflection. In the evening the Nabob had opened a shabby little letter-case, worn at the corners, in which for ten years he had been accustomed to work out the calculations of his millions, writing down in hieroglyphics understood only by himself his receipts and expenditures. He buried himself in his accounts for a moment, then turning to de Gery:

“Do you know what I am doing, my dear Paul?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“I am just calculating”--and his mocking glance thoroughly characteristic of his race, rallied the good nature of his smile--“I am just calculating that I have spend four hundred and thirty thousand francs to get a decoration for Jenkins.”

Four hundred and thirty thousand francs! And that was not the end.

BONNE MAMAN

Paul de Gery went three times a week in the evening to take his lesson in bookkeeping in the Joyeuses’ dining-room, not far from that little parlour in which he had seen the family the first day, and while with his eyes fixed on his teacher he was being initiated into all the mysteries of “debtor and creditor,” he used to listen, in spite of himself, for the light sounds coming from the industrious group behind the door, with thoughts dwelling regretfully on the vision of all those pretty brows bent in the lamplight. M. Joyeuse never said a word of his daughters; jealous of their charms as a dragon watching over beautiful princesses in a tower, and excited by the fantastic imaginings of his excessive affection for them, he would answer with marked brevity the inquiries of his pupil regarding the health of “the young ladies,” so that at last the young man ceased to mention them.

He was surprised, however, at not once seeing that Bonne Maman whose name was constantly recurring in the conversation of M. Joyeuse, entering into the least details of his existence, hovering over the household like the emblem of its perfect ordering and of its peace.

So great a reserve on the part of a venerable lady who must assuredly have passed the age at which the interest of young men is to be feared, seemed to him exaggerated. The lessons, however, were good ones, given with great clearness, the teacher having an excellent system of demonstration, and only one fault, that of becoming absorbed in silences, broken by sudden starts and exclamations let off like rockets. Apart from this, he was the best of masters, intelligent, patient, and conscientious, and Paul learned to know his way through the complex labyrinth of commercial books and resigned himself to ask nothing beyond.

One evening, towards nine o’clock, as the young man had risen to go, M. Joyeuse asked him if he would do him the honour of taking a cup of tea with his family, a custom dating from the time when Mme. Joyeuse, _nee_ de Saint-Amand, was alive, she having been used to receive her friends on Thursdays. Since her death and the change in the financial position, the friends had become dispersed; but his little weekly function had been kept up.

Paul having accepted, the good old fellow opened the door and called:

“Bonne Maman!”

An alert footstep in the passage, and immediately the face of a girl of twenty, in a halo of abundant brown hair, made its appearance.

De Gery, stupefied, looked at M. Joyeuse.

“Bonne Maman?”

“Yes, it is a name that we gave her when she was a little girl. With her frilled cap, her authority as the eldest child, she had a quaint little air. We thought her like her grandmother. The name has clung to her.”

From the honest fellow’s tone as he spoke thus, one felt that to him this grandparent’s title applied to such an embodiment of attractive youth seemed the most natural thing in the world. Every one else thought as he did on the point; both her sisters, who had hastened to their father’s side, grouping themselves round him somewhat as in the portrait exhibited in the window on the ground floor, and the old servant who placed on the table in the little drawing-room a magnificent tea-service, a relic of the former splendours of the household. Every one called the girl “Bonne Maman” without her ever once having grown tired of it, the influence of that sacred title touching the affection of each one with a deference which flattered her and gave to her ideal authority a singular gentleness of protection.

Whether or not it were by reason of this appellation of grandmother which as a child he had learned to reverence, de Gery felt an inexpressible attraction towards this young girl. It was not like the sudden shock which he had received from that other, that emotional agitation in which were mingled the desire to flee, to escape from a possession and the persistent melancholy of the morrow of a festivity, extinguished candles, the lost refrains of songs, perfumes vanished into the night. In the presence of this young girl as she stood superintending the family table, seeing if anything were wanting, enveloping her children, her grandchildren, with the active tenderness of her eyes, there came to him a longing to know her, to be counted among her old friends, to confide to her things which he confessed only to himself; and when she offered him his cup of tea without any of the mincings of society or drawing-room affectations, he would have liked to say with the rest a “Thank you, Bonne Maman,” in which he would have put all his heart.

Suddenly, a cheerful knock at the door made everybody start.

“Ah, here comes M. Andre. Elise, a cup quickly. Jaia, the little cakes.” At the same time, Mlle. Henriette, the third of M. Joyeuse’s daughters, who had inherited from her mother, _nee_ de Saint-Amand, a certain instinct for society, observing the number of visitors who seemed likely to crowd their rooms that evening, rushed to light the two candles on the piano.

“My fifth act is finished,” cried the newcomer as he entered, then he stopped short. “Ah, pardon,” and his face assumed a rather discomfited expression in the presence of the stranger. M. Joyeuse introduced them to each other: “M. Paul de Gery--M. Andre Maranne,” not without a certain solemnity. He remembered the receptions held formerly by his wife, and the vases on the chimneypiece, the two large lamps, the what-not; the easy chairs grouped in a circle had an air of joining in this illusion, and seemed more brilliant by reason of this unaccustomed throng.

“So your play is finished?”

“Finished, M. Joyeuse, and I hope to read it to you one of these evenings.”

“Oh, yes, M. Andre. Oh, yes,” said all the girls in chorus.

Their neighbour was in the habit of writing for the stage, and no one here doubted of his success. Photography, in any case, promised fewer profits. Clients were very rare, passers-by little disposed to business. To keep his hand in and to save his new apparatus from rusting, M. Andre was accustomed to practise anew on the family of his friends on each succeeding Sunday. They lent themselves to his experiments with unequalled long-suffering; the prosperity of this suburban photographer’s business was for them all an affair of _amour propre_, and awakened, even in the girls, that touching confraternity of feeling which draws together the destinies of people as insignificant in importance as sparrows on a roof. Andre Maranne, with the inexhaustible resources of his great brow full of illusion, used to explain without bitterness the indifference of the public. Sometimes the season was unfavourable, or, again, people were complaining of the bad state of business generally, and he would always end with the same consoling reflection, “When _Revolt_ is produced!” That was the title of his play.

“It is surprising all the same,” said the fourth of M. Joyeuse’s daughters, twelve years old, with her hair in a pigtail, “it is surprising that with such a good balcony so little business should result.”