The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de Maupassant
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of her, commencing at the end of her fingers, then invading her entire body — her arms, her breast, her stomach, her legs. She did not, however, quite understand; but a horrible fear of not learning the truth suddenly restored her powers of observation, and she faltered: “Ha! Père Oriol has told it to everybody?”
“Yes, yes. He was speaking to myself about it less than ten minutes ago. It appears that M. Bretigny is very rich, and that he has been in love with little Charlotte for some time past. Moreover, it is Madame Honorat who made these two matches. She lent her hands and her house for the meetings of the young people.”
Christiane had closed her eyes. She had lost consciousness. In answer to the doctor’s call, a chambermaid rushed in; then appeared the Marquis, Andermatt, and Gontran, who went to search for vinegar, ether, ice, twenty different things all equally useless. Suddenly, the young woman moved, opened her eyes, lifted up her arms, and uttered a heartrending cry, writhing in the bed. She tried to speak, and in a broken voice said:
“Oh! what pain I feel — my God! — what pain I feel — in my back — something is tearing me — Oh! my God!” And she broke out into fresh shrieks.
The symptoms of confinement were speedily recognized. Then Andermatt rushed off to find Doctor Latonne, and came upon him finishing his meal.
“Come on quickly — my wife has met with a mishap — hurry on!” Then he made use of a little deception, telling how Doctor Black had been found in the hotel at the moment of the first pains. Doctor Black himself confirmed this falsehood by saying to his brother-physician:
“I had just come to visit the Princess when I was informed that Madame Andermatt was taken ill. I hurried to her. It was time!”
But William, in a state of great excitement, his heart beating, his soul filled with alarm was all at once seized with doubts as to the competency of the two professional men, and he started off afresh, bareheaded, in order to run in the direction of Professor Mas-Roussel’s house, and to entreat him to come. The professor consented to do so at once, buttoned on his frock-coat with the mechanical movement of a physician going out to pay a visit, and set forth with great, rapid strides, the eager strides of an eminent man whose presence may save a life.
When he arrived on the scene, the two other doctors, full of deference, consulted him with an air of humility, repeating together or nearly at the same time:
“Here is what has occurred, dear master. Don’t you think, dear master? Isn’t there reason to believe, dear master?”
Andermatt, in his turn, driven crazy with anguish at the moanings of his wife, harassed M. Mas-Roussel with questions, and also addressed him as “dear master” with wide-open mouth.
Christiane, almost naked in the presence of these men, no longer saw, noticed, or understood anything. She was suffering so dreadfully that everything else had vanished from her consciousness. It seemed to her that they were drawing from the tops of her hips along her side and her back a long saw, with blunt teeth, which was mangling her bones and muscles slowly and in an irregular fashion, with shakings, stoppages, and renewals of the operation, which became every moment more and more frightful.
When this torture abated for a few seconds, when the rendings of her body allowed her reason to come back, one thought then fixed itself in her soul, more cruel, more keen, more terrible, than her physical pain: “He was in love with another woman, and was going to marry her!”
And, in order to get rid of this pang, which was eating into her brain, she struggled to bring on once more the atrocious torment of her flesh; she shook her sides; she strained her back; and when the crisis returned again, she had, at least, lost all capacity for thought.
For fifteen hours she endured this martyrdom, so much bruised by suffering and despair that she longed to die, and strove to die in those spasms in which she writhed.
But, after a convulsion longer and more violent than the rest, it seemed to her that everything inside her body suddenly escaped from her. It was over; her pangs were assuaged, like the waves of the sea, when they are calmed; and the relief which she experienced was so intense that, for a time, even her grief became numbed. They spoke to her. She answered in a voice very weak, very low.
Suddenly, Andermatt stooped down, his face toward hers, and he said: “She will live — she is almost at the end of it. It is a girl!”
Christiane was only able to articulate: “Ah! my God!”
So then she had a child, a living child, who would grow big — a child of Paul! She felt a desire to cry out, all this fresh misfortune crushed her heart. She had a daughter. She did not want it! She would not look at it! She would never touch it!
They had laid her down again on the bed, taken care of her, tenderly embraced her. Who had done this? No doubt, her father and her husband. She could not tell. But he — where was he? What was he doing? How happy she would have felt at that moment, if only he still loved her!
The hours dragged along, following each other without any distinction between day and night so far as she was concerned, for she felt only this one thought burning into her soul: he loved another woman.
Then she said to herself all of a sudden: “What if it were false? Why should I not have known about his marriage sooner than this doctor?” After that, came the reflection that it had been kept hidden from her. Paul had taken care that she should not hear about it.
She glanced around her room to see who was there. A woman whom she did not know was keeping watch by her side, a woman of the people. She did not venture to question her. From whom, then, could she make inquiries about this matter?
The door was suddenly pushed open. Her husband entered on the tips of his toes. Seeing that her eyes were open, he came over to her.
“Are you better?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“You frightened us very much since yesterday. But there is an end of the danger! By the bye, I am quite embarrassed about your case. I telegraphed to our friend, Madame lcardon, who was to have come to stay with you during your confinement, informing her about your premature illness, and imploring her to hasten down here. She is with her nephew, who has an attack of scarlet fever. You cannot, however, remain without anyone near you, without some woman who is a little — a little suitable for the purpose. Accordingly, a lady from the neighborhood has offered to nurse you, and to keep you company every day, and, faith, I have accepted the offer. It is Madame Honorat.”
Christiane suddenly remembered Doctor Black’s words. A start of fear shook her; and she groaned: “Oh! no — no — not she!”
William did not understand, and went on: “Listen, I know well that she is very common; but your brother has a great esteem for her; she has been of great service to him; and then it has been thrown out that she was originally a midwife, whom Honorat made the acquaintance of while attending a patient. If you take a strong dislike to her, I will send her away the next day. Let us try her at any rate. Let her come once or twice.”
She remained silent, thinking. A craving to know, to know everything, entered into her, so violent that the hope of milking this woman chatter freely, of tearing from her one by one the words that would rend her own heart, now filled her with a yearning to reply: “Go, go, and look for her immediately — immediately. Go, pray!”
And to this irresistible desire to know was also superadded a strange longing to suffer more intensely, to roll herself about in her misery, as she might have rolled herself on thorns, the mysterious longing, morbid and feverish, of a martyr calling for fresh pain.
So she faltered: “Yes, I have no objection. Bring me Madame Honorat.”
Then, suddenly, she felt that she could not wait any longer without making sure, quite sure, of this treason; and she asked William in a voice weak as a breath:
“Is it true that M. Bretigny is getting married?”
He replied calmly: “Yes, it is true.