1.F.7.6. SISTER SIMPLICE PUT TO THE PROOF
BUT at that moment Fantine was joyous.
She had passed a very bad night; her cough was frightful;
her fever had doubled in intensity; she had had dreams: in
the morning, when the doctor paid his visit, she was delirious;
he assumed an alarmed look, and ordered that he should be
informed as soon as M. Madeleine arrived.
All the morning she was melancholy, said but little, and laid
plaits in her sheets, murmuring the while, in a low voice, calculations
which seemed to be calculations of distances. Her
eyes were hollow and staring. They seemed almost extinguished
at intervals, then lighted up again and shone like
stars. It seems as though, at the approach of a certain dark
hour, the light of heaven fills those who are quitting the light
of earth.
Each time that Sister Simplice asked her how she felt, she
replied invariably, "Well. I should like to see M. Madeleine."
Some months before this, at the moment when Fantine had
just lost her last modesty, her last shame, and her last joy, she
was the shadow of herself; now she was the spectre of herself.
Physical suffering had completed the work of moral suffering.
This creature of five and twenty had a wrinkled brow, flabby
cheeks, pinched nostrils, teeth from which the gums had receded,
a leaden complexion, a bony neck, prominent shoulder-blades,
frail limbs, a clayey skin, and her golden hair was
growing out sprinkled with gray. Alas! how illness improvises
old-age!
At mid-day the physician returned, gave some directions,
inquired whether the mayor had made his appearance at the
infirmary, and shook his head.
M. Madeleine usually came to see the invalid at three
o'clock. As exactness is kindness, he was exact.
About half-past two, Fantine began to be restless. In the
course of twenty minutes, she asked the nun more than ten
times, "What time is it, sister?"
Three o'clock struck. At the third stroke, Fantine sat up
in bed; she who could, in general, hardly turn over, joined her
yellow, fleshless hands in a sort of convulsive clasp, and the
nun heard her utter one of those profound sighs which seem
to throw off dejection. Then Fantine turned and looked at the
door.
No one entered; the door did not open.
She remained thus for a quarter of an hour, her eyes riveted
on the door, motionless and apparently holding her breath.
The sister dared not speak to her. The clock struck a quarter
past three. Fantine fell back on her pillow.
She said nothing, but began to plait the sheets once more.
Half an hour passed, then an hour, no one came; every time
the clock struck, Fantine started up and looked towards the
door, then fell back again.
Her thought was clearly perceptible, but she uttered no
name, she made no complaint, she blamed no one. But she
coughed in a melancholy way. One would have said that
something dark was descending upon her. She was livid and
her lips were blue. She smiled now and then.
Five o'clock struck. Then the sister heard her say, very low
and gently, "He is wrong not to come to-day, since I am going
away to-morrow."
Sister Simplice herself was surprised at M. Madeleine's
delay.
In the meantime, Fantine was staring at the tester of her
bed. She seemed to be endeavoring to recall something. All
at once she began to sing in a voice as feeble as a breath. The
nun listened. This is what Fantine was singing: —
"Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through.
Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, corn-flowers are blue.
"Yestere'en the Virgin Mary came near my stove, in a
broidered mantle clad, and said to me, 'Here, hide 'neath my
veil the child whom you one day begged from me. Haste to
the city, buy linen, buy a needle, buy thread.'
"Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through.
"Dear Holy Virgin, beside my stove I have set a cradle
with ribbons decked. God may give me his loveliest star; I
prefer the child thou hast granted me. 'Madame, what shall
I do with this linen fine?' — 'Make of it clothes for thy newborn
babe.'
"Roses are pink and corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, and corn-flowers are blue.
"'Wash this linen.' — 'Where?' — 'In the stream. Make
of it, soiling not, spoiling not, a petticoat fair with its bodice
fine, which I will embroider and fill with flowers.' — 'Madame,
the child is no longer here; what is to be done?' — 'Then make
of it a winding-sheet in which to bury me.'
"Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through,
Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, corn-flowers are blue."
This song was an old cradle romance with which she had, in
former days, lulled her little Cosette to sleep, and which had
never recurred to her mind in all the five years during which
she had been parted from her child. She sang it in so sad a
voice, and to so sweet an air, that it was enough to make any
one, even a nun, weep. The sister, accustomed as she was to
austerities, felt a tear spring to her eyes.
The clock struck six. Fantine did not seem to hear it. She
no longer seemed to pay attention to anything about her.
Sister Simplice sent a serving-maid to inquire of the portress
of the factory, whether the mayor had returned, and if he
would not come to the infirmary soon. The girl returned in a
few minutes.
Fantine was still motionless and seemed absorbed in her own
thoughts.
The servant informed Sister Simplice in a very low tone,
that the mayor had set out that morning before six o'clock, in
a little tilbury harnessed to a white horse, cold as the weather
was; that he had gone alone, without even a driver; that no
one knew what road he had taken; that people said he had been
seen to turn into the road to Arras; that others asserted that
they had met him on the road to Paris. That when he went
away he had been very gentle, as usual, and that he had merely
told the portress not to expect him that night.
While the two women were whispering together, with their
backs turned to Fantine's bed, the sister interrogating, the servant
conjecturing, Fantine, with the feverish vivacity of certain
organic maladies, which unite the free movements of
health with the frightful emaciation of death, had raised herself
to her knees in bed, with her shrivelled hands resting on
the bolster, and her head thrust through the opening of the
curtains, and was listening. All at once she cried: —
"You are speaking of M. Madeleine! Why are you talking
so low? What is he doing? Why does he not come?"
Her voice was so abrupt and hoarse that the two women
thought they heard the voice of a man; they wheeled round in
affright.
"Answer me!" cried Fantine.
The servant stammered: —
"The portress told me that he could not come to-day."
"Be calm, my child," said the sister; "lie down again."
Fantine, without changing her attitude, continued in a loud
voice, and with an accent that was both imperious and heart-rending: —
"He cannot come? Why not? You know the reason. You
are whispering it to each other there. I want to know it."
The servant-maid hastened to say in the nun's ear, "Say
that he is busy with the city council."
Sister Simplice blushed faintly, for it was a lie that the
maid had proposed to her.
On the other hand, it seemed to her that the mere communication
of the truth to the invalid would, without doubt, deal
her a terrible blow, and that this was a serious matter in Fantine's
present state. Her flush did not last long; the sister
raised her calm, sad eyes to Fantine, and said, "Monsieur le
Maire has gone away."
Fantine raised herself and crouched on her heels in the bed:
her eyes sparkled; indescribable joy beamed from that melancholy
face.
"Gone!" she cried; "he has gone to get Cosette."
Then she raised her arms to heaven, and her white face became
ineffable; her lips moved; she was praying in a low voice.
When her prayer was finished, "Sister," she said, "I am
willing to lie down again; I will do anything you wish; I was
naughty just now; I beg your pardon for having spoken so
loud; it is very wrong to talk loudly; I know that well, my
good sister, but, you see, I am very happy: the good God is
good; M. Madeleine is good; just think! he has gone to Montfermeil
to get my little Cosette."
She lay down again, with the nun's assistance, helped the
nun to arrange her pillow, and kissed the little silver cross
which she wore on her neck, and which Sister Simplice had
given her.
"My child," said the sister, "try to rest now, and do not talk
any more."
Fantine took the sister's hand in her moist hands, and the
latter was pained to feel that perspiration.
"He set out this morning for Paris; in fact, he need not
even go through Paris; Montfermeil is a little to the left as
you come thence. Do you remember how he said to me yesterday,
when I spoke to him of Cosette,
Soon, soon? He wants to
give me a surprise, you know! he made me sign a letter so that
she could be taken from the Thenardiers; they cannot say anything,
can they? they will give back Cosette, for they have
been paid; the authorities will not allow them to keep the child
since they have received their pay. Do not make signs to me
that I must not talk, sister! I am extremely happy; I am doing
well; I am not ill at all any more; I am going to see Cosette
again; I am even quite hungry; it is nearly five years since I
saw her last; you cannot imagine how much attached one gets
to children, and then, she will be so pretty; you will see! If
you only knew what pretty little rosy fingers she had! In
the first place, she will have very beautiful hands; she had
ridiculous hands when she was only a year old; like this! she
must be a big girl now; she is seven years old; she is quite a
young lady; I call her Cosette, but her name is really Euphrasie.
Stop! this morning I was looking at the dust on the
chimney-piece, and I had a sort of idea come across me, like
that, that I should see Cosette again soon. Mon Dieu! how
wrong it is not to see one's children for years! One ought to
reflect that life is not eternal. Oh, how good M. le Maire is to
go! it is very cold! it is true; he had on his cloak, at least? he
will be here to-morrow, will he not? to-morrow will be a festival
day; to-morrow morning, sister, you must remind me to
put on my little cap that has lace on it. What a place that
Montfermeil is! I took that journey on foot once; it was very
long for me, but the diligences go very quickly! he will be here
to-morrow with Cosette: how far is it from here to Montfermeil?"
The
sister, who had no idea of distances, replied, "Oh, I
think that be will be here to-morrow."
"To-morrow! to-morrow!" said Fantine, "I shall see Cosette
to-morrow! you see, good sister of the good God, that I am no
longer ill; I am mad; I could dance if any one wished it."
A person who had seen her a quarter of an hour previously
would not have understood the change; she was all rosy now;
she spoke in a lively and natural voice; her whole face was one
smile; now and then she talked, she laughed softly; the joy of
a mother is almost infantile.
"Well," resumed the nun, "now that you are happy, mind
me, and do not talk any more."
Fantine laid her head on her pillow and said in a low
voice: "Yes, lie down again; be good, for you are going
to have your child; Sister Simplice is right; every one here
is right."
And then, without stirring, without even moving her head,
she began to stare all about her with wide-open eyes and a
joyous air, and she said nothing more.
The sister drew the curtains together again, hoping that she
would fall into a doze. Between seven and eight o'clock the
doctor came; not hearing any sound, he thought Fantine was
asleep, entered softly, and approached the bed on tiptoe; he
opened the curtains a little, and, by the light of the taper, he
saw Fantine's big eyes gazing at him.
She said to him, "She will be allowed to sleep beside me in
a little bed, will she not, sir?"
The doctor thought that she was delirious. She added: —
"See! there is just room."
The doctor took Sister Simplice aside, and she explained
matters to him; that M. Madeleine was absent for a day or
two, and that in their doubt they had not thought it well to
undeceive the invalid, who believed that the mayor had gone
to Montfermeil; that it was possible, after all, that her guess
was correct: the doctor approved.
He returned to Fantine's bed, and she went on: —
"You see, when she wakes up in the morning, I shall be able
to say good morning to her, poor kitten, and when I cannot
sleep at night, I can hear her asleep; her little gentle breathing
will do me good."
"Give me your hand," said the doctor.
She stretched out her arm, and exclaimed with a laugh: —
"Ah, hold! in truth, you did not know it; I am cured;
Cosette will arrive to-morrow."
The doctor was surprised; she was better; the pressure on
her chest had decreased; her pulse had regained its strength;
a sort of life had suddenly supervened and reanimated this
poor, worn-out creature.
"Doctor," she went on, "did the sister tell you that M. le
Maire has gone to get that mite of a child?"
The doctor recommended silence, and that all painful emotions
should be avoided; he prescribed an infusion of pure
chinchona, and, in case the fever should increase again during
the night, a calming potion. As he took his departure, he said
to the sister: —
"She is doing better; if good luck willed that the mayor
should actually arrive to-morrow with the child, who knows?
there are crises so astounding; great joy has been known to
arrest maladies; I know well that this is an organic disease,
and in an advanced state, but all those things are such mysteries:
we may be able to save her."