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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 new-born 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."
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