Sometimes Dr. Fénélon cleared his throat, or said “Pardon.” Then he began to percuss, and the little blows sounded as if against something solid.
Garnier turned; the examination was over, and the doctor, the stethoscope swinging still from his neck, was buttoning the top button of the nightdress. This accomplished, he stood just for a second with hands folded, overlooking the patientfrom head to feet; one might almost have imagined him measuring her with his eye.
Célestin, whose eyes had been half closed, suddenly opened them, and muttered something in an alarmed manner.
“What is it?”
“Fantoum,” she muttered, shrinking slightly as if from some vision in the air.
The doctor led Garnier into the atelier, and by the way he closed the bedroom door Garnier knew that it was all up.
“Your wife?” asked the doctor, removing the instrument from his neck and placing it folded in his breast-pocket.
“Oh, no, the wife of a friend—simply that. Ah, my God! I fear she is worse than we thought.”
“So then I can speak: she is moribund. I can absolutely do nothing. You understand? What can I do? One lung is gone. Well, then, the other is greatly touched at the apex—absolutely solid with pneumonia at the base. She is living by a piece of lung not so large as my hand. We cannot change all that.”
“Can nothing be done?”
“My dear friend, she is to all intents and purposes dead. She has been dying some time—probably since yesterday.”
“Ah, I hear you say all that; you say she is dead. I have never heard a thing like that before so frightful. I have heard of doctors keeping people alive. Well, then, look: it is not the question of payment; it is not a question of one, two, three napoleons, but thousands! You are not speaking to a fool; I am a great painter. I have only to close my hands on the money, and half of what I earn is yours. I am Gustave Garnier; I never told a lie. Ask Melmenotte what I can do.”
“My dear friend,” sighed Dr. Fénélon, “I would save her for nothing, but I am not God.”
“Nothing can be done?”
“Nothing.”
“Brandy?”
“I would not trouble her with brandy—it might even put the flame out; she is just trembling;” and he held out his hand, imitating the motion of a butterfly poised.
“How long?”
“Perhaps not for hours, possibly a day; perhaps in half an hour—a few minutes. Were she to sit up in bed, she would expire as if shot.”
“Ah, well, we must face it. You will come in again? Oh, my God!”
“I will come in this evening. My dear child,” continued the doctor, taking the great arm of Garnier in his thin hand, “I would stay if I could be of use; I can only leave her to you. No, I would not trouble her with a priest; she is, I am afraid, delirious.”
Garnier returned to the bedroom, a look of terrible perplexity on his face. He could not grasp the facts. Full of life and strength, he had never troubled to think of death, it was all so remote; and here it was grasping Célestin.
She was semi-conscious again, and the one word kept repeating itself on her lips, “Désiré, Désiré!” It was like a person crying for water.
“Oh, why does he not come?” murmured Garnier, remembering again of a sudden the existence of Toto and his long absence.
“He is coming,” he murmured, holding her hand; “he will be here in a little while. Oh, my dear little Célestin, what can I give you—what can I do for you?”
He saw the bunch of grapes, and plucked one off and held it to her lips. She sucked it feebly, and then cast her eyes up to heaven in the old familiar way, an action that tore Garnier’s heart as if a knife had ripped it up. Then she seemed to forget Toto, for she lay still, and the man beside her prayed God to send him quickly, for nothing could be more frightful than her reiterated request for this man who had gone away.
He did not feel jealous; it was all one now. She wanted Toto. It was as if she had wanted water to drink; he would not have felt jealous of the water, so why should he feel jealous of Toto? He would have given his whole prospects in life for the return of the Prince.
As if in answer to his prayer came the sounds of footsteps in the atelier, and Dodor moved restlessly in his cage as the door was cautiously opened. It was a priest whom the deaf concierge had sent forafter inquiring of Dr. Fénélon the state of his patient.
He was an elderly man with a large stomach and a kind, sweet face. Garnier glanced at him, and threw up his eyes, as if to say “No use,” but he felt glad of the presence of the holy man.
The priest took a chair on the opposite side of the bed, as if to rest his stomach for a moment, and breathed hard and pursed out his lips; then he knelt by the chair to pray. Garnier, kneeling by his side of the bed, was as still as the effigy of the Lord Jesus which hung above. And so the time went on, Célestin rousing herself occasionally to call for Toto, and relapsing into stupor. Once she cast her eyes at the bird moping in its cage, and moved her lips at it, as if trying to tell it of her trouble.
It was now late in the afternoon. To Garnier it seemed a very long time since, stopping near the Panthéon, he had bought the grapes for his little Célestin, and brought them so joyously to the atelier. His hearing, strained to the utmost for thefootsteps of Toto, was rewarded by all sorts of futile sounds, far away and near.
At five Dr. Fénélon looked in again, and found his patient unconscious. He shook his head and vanished, for Garnier did not attempt to detain him; he had lost all faith in doctors.
“But who is this Désiré she has been calling for?” whispered the good priest, leaning towards Garnier. “Could we not send for him?”
Garnier shook his head. He had gone out with Gaillard—where he could not tell.
Towards six, Célestin, still unconscious, gave a little shiver, as if at the coldness of her lover, and Dodor in the cage fluttered his wings as if in fear.
The priest, who had been standing patiently, fell upon his knees, and prayed with fervor for the passing soul.
Struve told me most of this story as we sat one day before a café on the boulevards.
“That is the man,” he said, indicating a good-looking young fellow on a coal-black horse, whowas riding by, accompanied by a girl with auburn hair, mounted on a magnificent gray; “that is Toto.”
“But the girl?”
“His wife, the Princesse; she was Helen Powers.”
“But surely—is she married to him?”
“Very much so. He confessed all his sins, and she gave him absolution. No woman, you see, can withstand a confession of folly; you see, it is a far more genuine thing than a confession of love—with ordinary men.”
“You do not think Toto an ordinary man?”
“I have never thought of him as a man. Come, it is five o’clock; I am tired of sitting still.”
“A moment. Where has old De Nani gone to?”
“He is living at Monte Carlo. He lost a hundred thousand francs there, and they have pensioned him; they give him sixty francs a week, I believe.”
“Pelisson did not prosecute him?”
“Oh, no! all that didPantina lot of good.”
“If I had been Toto, I would have made him fight.”
“Thank goodness we were saved from that! A duel between Toto and De Nani was the only thing wanted to cap the business and kill everyone outright.”
“Kill them?”
“With laughter.”
“And about Garnier?”
“Ah, Garnier—he only wanted one thing before he met Célestin.”
“What was that?”
“Célestin—she has made him. Célestin is not dead; she will never die so long as men have eyes and Garnier’s pictures exist. She might have lived with Toto and produced little Totos; she lives instead with Garnier, and through him will live forever.”
“A moment. What of Gaillard?”
“He has grown very fat. You know, Toto shook him off when he married, Pelisson forsook him, De Brie gave him the cold shoulder; and what did he do? He sat down and wrote ‘Poum-Poum,’ and turned all the minor poets into ridicule, and sold a hundred thousand copies in a month, and ‘slew art,’ to use his own expression, because it tried to slay him. He is making eighty thousand francs a year, if he is making a sou. I am glad of it; he is not a bad sort—Gaillard.”
Transcriber’s Notes:The original spelling, hyphenation, accentuation and punctuation has been retained, with the exception of apparent typographical errors which have been corrected.
Transcriber’s Notes:
The original spelling, hyphenation, accentuation and punctuation has been retained, with the exception of apparent typographical errors which have been corrected.