[Illustration: Jeanne's Illness]
At last the convulsion ceased, and the little one then appeared to sink into deep prostration. Doctor Deberle was evidently ill at ease, though he had assured the mother that there was no danger. He kept his gaze fixed on the sufferer, and put some brief questions to Helene as she stood by the bedside.
"How old is the child?"
"Eleven years and six months, sir," was the reply.
Silence again fell between them. He shook his head, and stooped to raise one of Jeanne's lowered eyelids and examine the mucus. Then he resumed his questions, but without raising his eyes to Helene.
"Did she have convulsions when she was a baby?"
"Yes, sir; but they left her after she reached her sixth birthday. Ah! she is very delicate. For some days past she had seemed ill at ease. She was at times taken with cramp, and plunged in a stupor."
"Do you know of any members of your family that have suffered from nervous affections?"
"I don't know. My mother was carried off by consumption."
Here shame made her pause. She could not confess that she had a grandmother who was an inmate of a lunatic asylum.[*] There was something tragic connected with all her ancestry.
[*] This is Adelaide Fouque, otherwise Aunt Dide, the ancestress of
the Rougon-Macquart family, whose early career is related in the
"Fortune of the Rougons," whilst her death is graphically
described in the pages of "Dr. Pascal."
"Take care! the convulsions are coming on again!" now hastily exclaimed the doctor.
Jeanne had just opened her eyes, and for a moment she gazed around her with a vacant look, never speaking a word. Her glance then grew fixed, her body was violently thrown backwards, and her limbs became distended and rigid. Her skin, fiery-red, all at once turned livid. Her pallor was the pallor of death; the convulsions began once more.
"Do not loose your hold of her," said the doctor. "Take her other hand!"
He ran to the table, where, on entering, he had placed a small medicine-case. He came back with a bottle, the contents of which he made Jeanne inhale; but the effect was like that of a terrible lash; the child gave such a violent jerk that she slipped from her mother's hands.
"No, no, don't give her ether," exclaimed Helene, warned by the odor. "It drives her mad."
The two had now scarcely strength enough to keep the child under control. Her frame was racked and distorted, raised by the heels and the nape of the neck, as if bent in two. But she fell back again and began tossing from one side of the bed to the other. Her fists were clenched, her thumbs bent against the palms of her hands. At times she would open the latter, and, with fingers wide apart, grasp at phantom bodies in the air, as though to twist them. She touched her mother's shawl and fiercely clung to it. But Helene's greatest grief was that she no longer recognized her daughter. The suffering angel, whose face was usually so sweet, was transformed in every feature, while her eyes swam, showing balls of a nacreous blue.
"Oh, do something, I implore you!" she murmured. "My strength is exhausted, sir."
She had just remembered how the child of a neighbor at Marseilles had died of suffocation in a similar fit. Perhaps from feelings of pity the doctor was deceiving her. Every moment she believed she felt Jeanne's last breath against her face; for the child's halting respiration seemed suddenly to cease. Heartbroken and overwhelmed with terror, Helene then burst into tears, which fell on the body of her child, who had thrown off the bedclothes.
The doctor meantime was gently kneading the base of the neck with his long supple fingers. Gradually the fit subsided, and Jeanne, after a few slight twitches, lay there motionless. She had fallen back in the middle of the bed, with limbs outstretched, while her head, supported by the pillow, inclined towards her bosom. One might have thought her an infant Jesus. Helene stooped and pressed a long kiss on her brow.
"Is it over?" she asked in a whisper. "Do you think she'll have another fit?"
The doctor made an evasive gesture, and then replied:
"In any case the others will be less violent."
He had asked Rosalie for a glass and water-bottle. Half-filling the glass with water, he took up two fresh medicine phials, and counted out a number of drops. Helene assisted in raising the child's head, and the doctor succeeded in pouring a spoonful of the liquid between the clenched teeth. The white flame of the lamp was leaping up high and clear, revealing the disorder of the chamber's furnishings. Helene's garments, thrown on the back of an arm-chair before she slipped into bed, had now fallen, and were littering the carpet. The doctor had trodden on her stays, and had picked them up lest he might again find them in his way. An odor of vervain stole through the room. The doctor himself went for the basin, and soaked a linen cloth in it, which he then pressed to Jeanne's temples.
"Oh, madame, you'll take cold!" expostulated Rosalie as she stood there shivering. "Perhaps the window might be shut? The air is too raw."
"No, no!" cried Helene; "leave the window open. Should it not be so?" she appealed to the doctor.
The wind entered in slight puffs, rustling the curtains to and fro; but she was quite unconscious of it. Yet the shawl had slipped off her shoulders, and her hair had become unwound, some wanton tresses sweeping down to her hips. She had left her arms free and uncovered, that she might be the more ready; she had forgotten all, absorbed entirely in her love for her child. And on his side, the doctor, busy with his work, no longer thought of his unbuttoned coat, or of the shirt-collar that Jeanne's clutch had torn away.
"Raise her up a little," said he to Helene. "No, no, not in that way! Give me your hand."
He took her hand and placed it under the child's head. He wished to give Jeanne another spoonful of the medicine. Then he called Helene close to him, made use of her as his assistant; and she obeyed him reverently on seeing that her daughter was already more calm.
"Now, come," he said. "You must let her head lean against your shoulder, while I listen."
Helene did as he bade her, and he bent over her to place his ear against Jeanne's bosom. He touched her bare shoulder with his cheek, and as the pulsation of the child's heart struck his ear he could also have heard the throbbing of the mother's breast. As he rose up his breath mingled with Helene's.
"There is nothing wrong there," was the quiet remark that filled her with delight. "Lay her down again. We must not worry her more."
However, another, though much less violent, paroxysm followed. From Jeanne's lips burst some broken words. At short intervals two fresh attacks seemed about to convulse her, and then a great prostration, which again appeared to alarm the doctor, fell on the child. He had placed her so that her head lay high, with the clothes carefully tucked under her chin; and for nearly an hour he remained there watching her, as though awaiting the return of a healthy respiration. On the other side of the bed Helene also waited, never moving a limb.
Little by little a great calm settled on Jeanne's face. The lamp cast a sunny light upon it, and it regained its exquisite though somewhat lengthy oval. Jeanne's fine eyes, now closed, had large, bluish, transparent lids, which veiled-one could divine it-a sombre, flashing glance. A light breathing came from her slender nose, while round her somewhat large mouth played a vague smile. She slept thus, amidst her outspread tresses, which were inky black.
"It has all passed away now," said the doctor in a whisper; and he turned to arrange his medicine bottles prior to leaving.
"Oh, sir!" exclaimed Helene, approaching him, "don't leave me yet; wait a few minutes. Another fit might come on, and you, you alone, have saved her!"
He signed to her that there was nothing to fear; yet he tarried, with the idea of tranquillizing her. She had already sent Rosalie to bed; and now the dawn soon broke, still and grey, over the snow which whitened the housetops. The doctor proceeded to close the window, and in the deep quiet the two exchanged a few whispers.