The discomfort disappeared. It vanished altogether when the concierge came back with drugs, mustard plasters and leeches. Both busied themselves nursing the patient; they had no leisure until the evening.
At the approach of night, Uncle Cyprien awoke from his torpor. He opened his eyes and looked absently about the room. Gradually he appeared to remember.
“Ah, yes!” he murmured. “The Bourse! The smash!”
He tried to stretch himself. A resistance on his left side caused him to frown. He felt his left shoulder with his right hand, which remained free.
“Ah! I am paralyzed, somewhere there.... Tha nice!” he grunted.
Again he inspected the room with the same infant-like stare of his mobile, toneless eyes. The presence of Schleifmann and his brother, who were watching him at the foot of the bed, caused him a momentary perplexity. Who were those men? He hesitated, having the impression that he knew them without being able to call them by name. “Eusèbe ...” he uttered at last. “Sch ... Schleifmann!”
M. Raindal went forward, stretching out his hand. Uncle Cyprien smiled sadly and said in a hoarse voice, stammering a little:
“Heh! What a state they have put me in, these fellows!... I fell on the pavement.... Did Schleifmann explain to you?”
“Yes, my dear, fellow! Do get yourself tired!”
“And the money?” the ex-official went on. “Did Schleifmann tell you that, too? Do you know that I owe one hundred and ten thousand francs. A nice thing for a Raindal!... To die leaving one hundred and ten thousand francs’ debts! If poor Father had seen such a thing!”
“Hush, reassure yourself!” the master said. “First of all, you seem to me on the road to recovery....”
In reply Cyprien touched his dead shoulder.
“As to your debts!” the master added. “I will make them my affair. I have saved ninety thousand francs and I give them up to you without much regret.... My salary and what I get for my books and articles will amply suffice for all of us to live on and even to pay, a little each year, the unpaid balance.... Well, I hope that your mind is relieved.”
“Yes, thanks! I thank you!” Cyprien replied distractedly, the leeches and the mustard plasters pricking him terribly. Then he forced himself to add: “Just the same, poor Eusèbe.... I have very often teased you, worried you! How many jokes have I not played upon you? But if I had been told that I would ruin you one day, I, Uncle Cyprien, with my hundred francs a month, my board at the brasserie and my garret at five hundred francs a year, well!... No, No! It is incredible! To think that all this happened because, because....” His impotent thoughts wandered through the complications of his adventure; then he went on after a pause: “Yes, because ... because, to annoy you, I wished to go to that Mme. Rhâm-Bâhan and there met the ... the marquis ... the marquis de....”
He moved his eyelids, but a weight seemed to dominate them. He fell asleep again, with an uneven breathing, sometimes imperceptible, sometimes snoring and galloping like the wind on a log fire. His cheeks became purple. His throat rattled with a scraping noise. Congestion was beginning. On hisreturn, Dr. Chesnard assumed a face of ill-omen. He made a new prescription and ordered more violent revulsives.
As he was leaving, M. Raindal suggested for the next day a consultation with Dr. Gombauld, his colleague of the Academy of Medicine.
“Well, monsieur!” Dr. Chesnard said contemptuously, shaking his small, bald, gray head.... “I am only a district doctor and have no ambition. I shall speak to you quite frankly. Gombauld or no Gombauld—it will make little difference. An embolism is an embolism. There are not ten thousand treatments for such a case. There is only one, and it is that which I have indicated.... Of course, if a consultation appeals to you, I see no inconvenience in having it.”
The meeting was fixed for noon.
They arranged a bed with a mattress and blankets in the front room, on the green rep couch. Every other hour the Galician, after watching the patient, went to stretch out upon it.
M. Raindal could not sleep. When his regret for his little pupil did not torment him, it was remorse, scruples of his conscience, the need to absolve himself. The halting words of Cyprien rang in his ears, like the repercussion of an endless echo. “All this because I wanted to go to that Mme. Rhâm-Bâhan and met there the ... the marquis!” Surely that was false reasoning! A childish conception of the relation between cause and effect! But the particle oftruth which perfumes every error nevertheless spread its venomous aroma in M. Rainda soul. Evidently, he was not responsible for the mortal accident which had struck his brother. Had he been informed in time, he would have made the hardest sacrifices in order to tear the poor fellow away from the wheels of stock-gambling. Yet, who knew if, but for his intervention, for this fatal love which held him, who knew if Uncle Cyprien would have ever met “the ... the marquis?” Who could say but that this love, guilty already of so many faults against sane morality and the sentiments due to others, had not its share also—small but real—in the present calamity?
M. Raindal continued to sigh about it. He was wet with perspiration. At last, fatigue got the better of insomnia. He only awoke at eight, to open the door to Thérèse and Mme. Raindal. Behind them, the bearded head of young Boerzell saluted him.
Summoned by telegram, the women had traveled all night. Their hair in disorder, their faces sprinkled with coal dust, where drying tears had traced white lines, expressed better than their voices the anguish of their night journey. M. Raindal kissed them both with an unusual effusion of tenderness, then led them, himself in tears, to the room of Uncle Cyprien.
The latter was still sleeping, his sleep alternately tumultuous and lethargic; his skin was more purple and blacker in places than the day before, at the beginning of the crisis. Mme. Raindal knelt down beside the bed, her hands crossed. They waited forthe doctors, commenting on the drama. The doctors came precisely at noon. The consultation was short. Dr. Gombauld approved his colleagu prescriptions. For the rest, he refused to foretell: nature would decide.
“What did I tell you?” Dr. Chesnard said contemptuously, on reaching the door.
And he promised to return in the course of the evening.
When he did return, the only result of his visit was that their alarm was increased. The physician left, refusing to give an opinion as to the issue of the night.
An hour later, delirium took possession of Uncle Cyprien. At first, there were nothing but vague exclamations, inarticulate complaints. But they soon became more precise. He named people, insulted certain enemies, all the immemorial enemies of Uncle Cyprien, the whole troop of grafters,youpins,calotinsandrastas! It was as if they were dancing with triumphant laughter a Satanic round about his cot, breaking his chest with heavy boots, at times, for he took on attitudes of defense or of fear as if he were under the iron shoes of a horse. To exercise this evil rout, he tired his lungs with words of abuse, with insults taken from the vocabulary of his favorite author. His forefinger threatened; his fist hammered the empty space. Suddenly, it seemed that the saraband was scattered. By a chance turn of his memory, one preponderating image effaced the malice of theothers: the image of an illustrious statesman, of a minister renowned for his fight against Boulangism. That legendary figure appeared before the bed and, without bending, it reached Uncle Cyprien with the hands that completed its enormous arms.
“Oh! Oh!...” M. Raindal, the younger, roared out in terror. “Here is the old Pirate now!... Oh! those arms!... What arms he has!... Will you go away, old Pirate! Will you let go of me!”
The imaginary grasp was stronger than his cries. In vain he put his hands to his throat. He was choking. He fell back in a coma.
He stayed in it all the evening, all night. The family waited in the next room and took turns watching the patient with Schleifmann, Boerzell and a medical student sent by Dr. Gombauld. At eleven, when the women and Schleifmann had fallen asleep on couches and chairs, M. Raindal signaled with his eyes for the young savant to come to him.
“My dear M. Boerzell,” the master whispered softly, “Thérèse has told me everything this afternoon.... It seems that, while at Langrune, you came to an agreement. For my part, I am very glad of it.... But you know what disaster has befallen us.... Without speaking of poor Cyprien, it is complete ruin for us, and Thérèse will have neither dowry nor expectations of any kind. I wanted formally to warn you, knowing by experience what are the expenses of aménage, ... children to be brought up, expenses....”
“I am very much obliged to you for your sincerity, dear master!” Boerzell interrupted him, in the same tone. “However, these sad events have not modified my intentions towards Mlle. Thérèse....”
He paused, ever careful of measure, of truth and exactness, then added: “I shall not go so far as to tell you that I am indifferent to these money considerations.... On the contrary, it is certain that a dowry and some expectations would have been a precious help to my wif comfort and the education of our children.... But our marriage can easily take place without this help. I feel that I am full of energy, and the prospect of a little more mediocre work is not enough to move the young and vigorous man I feel myself to be.... Therefore, I maintain my request, dear master!”
Schleifmann left the room to join the medical student. M. Raindal and the young savant shook hands affectionately; then, each on a chair, their chins in their hands, they fell gradually asleep.
Towards dawn, the interne woke them all up. The agony had begun. It proved a long one. Uncle Cyprie insurgent soul rebelled against death as it had rebelled against life. Choked by blood, he wished to breathe, to live still; his well arm repulsed the asphyxia with an imperative gesture which seemed to express his indignation.
Finally he lost his breath. He distended his purple face, his twisted lips in a supreme effort and fell back, defeated, immobile, delivered.
Mme. Raindal threw herself on her knees and prayed with abundant tears. Schleifmann, one elbow resting on the marble mantel-piece, his hands over his eyes, quietly chanted some Hebraic words. Thérèse sobbed on her fathe shoulders.
The interne opened the window and pushed back the shutters through which there already came some golden rays.
With the fresh splendor of the morning brightness an outburst of chirping penetrated the room.
It was the sparrows of the Luxembourg which sang merrily on the branches, unwittingly chirping a last good-by to their old friend, Cyprien Raindal.
ONthe morning of the burial, Thérèse was in her room, busy sorting papers they had found in her uncl room, when Brigitte knocked at the door.
“A lady, mademoiselle!” the maid said. “Mme. Chambannes, I think.”
A frown appeared on Mlle. Rainda velvety eyebrows.
“Did you tell her that monsieur and madame had gone out?”
“Yes, mademoiselle! But she said that she would like to see mademoiselle. She is in the drawing-room.”
“Very well, l go!” Thérèse replied.
She threw a rapid glance in the mirror, to examine her dress and her hair, as a woman does on marching to a decisive encounter. Her stiff crêpe collar like the neckpiece of a suit of armor kept her head more erect and made her physiognomy more aggressive and severe. The corners of her thin lips arched in an aggressive smile. Ah! Mme. Chambannes wishes to see her! Well, all right! She would see her and hear her too! She was going to have her wishes, that lady, and perhaps more than that.
Thérèse opened the door of the drawing-room.Mme. Chambannes, in a black dress, black gloves and a black hat, rose slowly. Each made a ceremonious salute, from the back of the neck, with an accompaniment of watching looks and glances which already felt each other in the semi-anticipation of a contest.
Thérèse opened the door of the drawing-room, to take a seat. Mme. Chambannes murmured hesitatingly!
“I wished to tell M. Raindal how sorry we were about his loss.”
“Thank you, madame!” Thérèse said, dryly. “My father is at the chapel.... I shall transmit your condolences to him, as soon as he comes home.”
She fell back into silence. Mme. Chambannes went on, more timidly:
“We learned all about it through one of our common friends, the Marquis de Meuze.... Your uncle was not very old, was he?”
“Forty-two, madame.”
“Still young!” Zozé remarked, urged to exaggeration by the fierce looks of Thérèse.
She walked towards the door, but stopped halfway: “Will you be kind enough to tell M. Raindal that I shall come to visit him to-morrow?”
Icily Thérèse replied.
“Do not take this trouble, Madame.... My father will not receive.”
“Not even his intimate friends?”
“No, madame!... His intentions are formal.... There will be no exception for anyone.”
“Not even for me?” Zozé insisted, with a mock sweetness that was really a challenge.
Her languorous eyes seemed to smile, to elaborate on the question: “I, you know, I, Mme. Chambannes; I who took him away from you.... your father; I who hold him, who make him do what I want.”
The provocation caused Thérèse to become very pale. “Not even for you, madame!” she said with self-restraint.... “Father has decided to keep very strict mourning and I trust that no one will attempt to make him change his mind.”
“So then, you will prevent him from seeing his friends?”
Thérès trembling fingers were opening and shutting on the back of an armchair. “We shall not prevent him from doing anything at all, Madame.... I am surprised to hearyouusing such expressions.... You must have learned in the last six months that our wishes are of little importance against those of my father....”
“What do you mean, mademoiselle?” Zozé said, with that impertinent phlegm which is often the only resource of worldly women when engaged in a discussion.
“I mean,” Thérèse replied haltingly. “I mean to say, or rather you are compelling me to say that, for the last six months, you have taken my father away from us, you have led him away, engaged him in a grotesqueaffaire, the details and aim of which I knownothing of, but the worry of which has never ceased horribly to torment my mother and myself....” “But, mademois....”
“Oh! If you please, madame!” Thérèse interrupted firmly. “You have sought an explanation. Allow me to finish.... Yes, you found it quite natural to disunite us, to monopolize this poor man, to drag him in your train, out of vainglory, out of I know not what vain fantasy and without any excuse.... To-day, this catastrophe brings him back to us.... You should find it natural that we should protect him and that, seeing him rescued, we do not wish to lose him again. Was it due to my uncl death or to other emotions with which I am unacquainted that my father seemed, on our return, very weary and much aged. He who is usually so courageous in the hours of sorrow, weeps at every opportunity, he has sudden fits of heavy sobs, like a child.... He needs quiet and a well-regulated, peaceful life. Gradually he will return to his family and to his work, and you to your pleasures, which his absence will not appreciably diminish, I should think.”
Zozé blushed imperceptibly under the bantering tone of Thérès last words. Mlle. Raindal took advantage of her confusion and added:
“Leave him to us now, madame! I assure you, it will be better thus.... It will be both straightforward and charitable!”
They studied each other in silence for a while and the scorn in their glances seemed a mutual reflection.“Not at her best in mourning dress, this Mlle. Raindal!” Mme. Chambannes thought to herself. Thérèse saw nothing on the charming face but signs of baseness and stupidity.
The sound of a key slipped in the keyhole caused them both to lower their eyelids.
“Will you excuse me, madame?” Thérèse said, with a curt nod.
Without pausing for an answer she walked to the hall, closed the door of the room and whispered in a short enervated voice, while M. Raindal put down his gloves and walking-stick: “Father, Mme. Chambannes is here!”
“Where? Where did you say?” M. Raindal stammered, his forehead purple.
“In the drawing-room!” Thérèse replied, eyeing him sharply. “Do you wish to see her?”
“Ah! It would be only decent, it seems to me.... What do you think?”
He sought anxiously in his daughte eyes a permission, an approval.
“If you like, father!” Thérèse said less sharply.
“Very well, then!” the master concluded, but he did not budge. An involuntary look in his eyes begged the girl to go away, not to remain treacherously on watch behind the door. She understood his distrust. Why oppose him, why upset him in the course of this test whose issue, favorable or not, would at all events be significant. She gave him a friendly look and said:
“Au revoir! I am going back to my room!”
He entered the drawing-room, closing the door behind him after having made sure that the hall was really empty.
“My dear master!” Zozé murmured tenderly, as she advanced towards him.
At the same time, either as a last maneuver to avoid defeat, or from an impulse of filial compassion, she threw herself in his arms.
He did not resist. He pressed her against his chest, kissed her haphazard, on her cheeks, on the hair of the neck, sobbing, stammering, not knowing any more what it was he was crying over, his lost brother or his destroyed happiness.
“Ma chère amie! ma chère amie!” he faltered, without tiring of tasting the hitherto unknown joy of holding her in his arms.
She released herself from his embrace which she considered too long and, after the first words of sympathy, asked him quietly:
“Is it true, my dear master, what Mlle. Thérèse has just told me?”
“What was that?” M. Raindal said, mopping his eyes.
“That you do not want to see me again, that you want to break away from us?”
The master did not reply. Once more he burst into tears.
“Why do you want to?” Zozé insisted, as she sat near him on a low stool.
“Because....” M. Raindal sobbed out, unable to finish.
“Because of what?” Zozé asked, helping him as if he were a schoolboy balking at a confession. “Speak frankly to me.... Am I not your friend?”
He contemplated her greedily, with shining eyes where his tears had caused the many little red veins to show more vividly. His words were exhaled rather than spoken:
“Because my affection for you has taken a turn ... an unfortunate turn, alas an excessive turn, I might even say a guilty turn....”
She tried to evince surprise despite the calm of her face.
“How, so, dear master?”
“Yes, yes!” he pursued more distinctly, as if relieved by the admission.... “You know it well enough, my dear friend.... You have known it since the day of my departure from Les Frettes, you remember?” He collected his thoughts and shook his head. “Is it not sad and ridiculous at my age, eh?... At my age!... Old and decrepit as I am!... Bah! it is not your fault.... I bear you no grudge.... But, I beg of you, do come here again.... Leave me alone.... Let me cure myself, if I can!... It will be more charitable!”
Almost the same words that Thérèse had used, an instant before and, indeed, almost the same tone! Mme. Chambannes, who was, at bottom, not heartless, felt herself thoroughly upset.
“Good-by, then, dear master!” she sighed, and offered her hand to M. Raindal.
“Good-by, my dear friend!” said the master, whose face was twisted with pain.
Passionately he pressed to his lips her little black-gloved hand, truly a hand of funerals and eternal parting.
“Good-by, good-by, since you wish it!” Mme. Chambannes repeated.
“No, I do notwishit!” M. Raindal specified. “Imustwish it!”
She passed out, disappeared on the stairs, with her cadenced gait that the master so much admired.
“It was necessary!” he said aloud, when the door was closed.
Returning to his room, he evoked famous parting scenes, historic adieux: Titus and Berenice, theDimisit Invitus... and also Louis XIV and Marie Mancini.
Then suddenly his strength betrayed him. Despair, held back by his literary memories, rose to his throat in tears. He collapsed on a chair, his handkerchief over his eyes.
“I shall not see her again,” he whispered dramatically. “I shall never see her again, ... never ... never!”
He did, nevertheless, see her again, a few hours later, at the Cimetière Montparnasse, while a delegateof the Atheists’ Association pronounced the eulogy of Uncle Cyprien, in front of the gaping tomb.
There were not many people, owing to the season, few women especially. All those who had come wore black, but the black garments of Zozé among theirs seemed like a quee dress. Her grace, her smartness were still triumphant in mourning. Her fine small face, paler than usual near the dark material, had a pleasant seriousness which would have made the master smile, had he not wept so much.
His dull glances went successively from Zozé to the grave and from the grave to Zozé, while his tears ran confusedly for both.
The delegate, on concluding his speech, laid on the marble a vast crown of red goldilocks.
The family lined up with Schleifmann in a little side alley and the audience passed on file, murmuring their condolences. M. Raindal, without seeing anyone, pressed the hands of all, those of the indifferent like those of Zozé, Chambannes, the Marquis, even Gerald and the abbé Touronde, who was somewhat ill at ease among so many free-thinkers. Then the procession ceased. All walked to the entrance gate.
Schleifmann lingered behind, prowling about the grave of his friend Cyprien. Once free from onlookers, he gave two twenty-sou pieces to one of the grave-diggers. Then, after the rite of Israel, scratching the ground of a nearby tomb-garden, he three times threw a handful of earth and gravel across the sepulture. The pebbles resounded on the wood of thecoffin. In reply, the Galician murmured a Hebrew verse.
His eyes looked up to the heavens. Their fervent glance seemed to desire to pierce the mystery of the clouds, into the inaccessible region of destinies. He no longer cursed. He was merely seeking a reply.
Why did the Lord tolerate such iniquitous ruins? By what formidable designs did He associate His people with the accomplishment of such misdeeds? When would He at last raise up in His Temple, among His priests, someone, with a free and daring voice—to remind the Jews, the proudest and the meekest, of the solemn trust of purity and justice which they once received at the foot of Sinai?
No sign answered these silent queries. The clouds pursued their peaceful promenade on the blue background of the sky.
Schleifmann dragged his weary feet to the gate. In the curly locks of his gray beard his lips unconsciously mumbled: “Cyprien!... Cyprien!...” He remembered the good times spent at Klapprot, the progressive building up of the old theory of the Two Banks of the River.... A most uncertain, a most contestable theory, if one liked—but a theory which, nevertheless, contained a small portion of the truth! Then, how valiantly he would utter it, poor Cyprien! With what gayety, what fire, what conviction, and what presentiment perhaps! Now, alas, there would be no more Cyprien! Henceforth, Schleifmann, my dear fellow, you will remain a poorlonely soul, vowed to your books, your deserted garret and your friendless brasseries! The eyes of the Galician were full of big tears.
As he reached the gate of the cemetery, he stopped short and stood gravely on the threshold.
Outside, in front of the door, two carriages faced each other, against the pavement. In the first, a private coupé with sober harness, were settled Zozé, Chambannes and Gerald, all three. Into the other—a black undertake carriage—young Boerzell was climbing beside the Raindal family.
The drivers started simultaneously. The two carriages turned in opposite directions, one going back to the elegance of the Right Bank, the other driving again into the studious district of the Left Bank.
Schleifmann followed them both alternately with his glance. Ah! if his good old Cyprien had been there to see that!
Gradually, the carriages grew dim at the two ends of the boulevard. He could hardly distinguish their vanishing silhouettes, one massive and without reflection, like a block of black crêpe, the other smart and light under the sparkle of a new coat of varnish.
Schleifmann smiled with melancholy pride.
THE END.