Forestier raised his head and said to his wife: "Give me more air."
She replied: "You must be careful; it is late, the sun is setting; you will catch more cold and that would be a serious thing in your condition."
He made a feeble gesture of anger with his right hand, and said: "I tell you I am suffocating! What difference does it make if I die a day sooner or later, since I must die?"
She opened the window wide. The air was soft and balmy. Forestier inhaled it in feverish gasps. He grasped the arms of his chair and said in a low voice: "Shut the window. I would rather die in a cellar."
His wife slowly closed the window, then leaned her brow against the pane and looked out. Duroy, ill at ease, wished to converse with the invalid to rea.s.sure him, but he could think of no words of comfort. He stammered: "Have you not been better since you are here?"
His friend shrugged his shoulders impatiently: "You will see very soon." And he bowed his head again.
Duroy continued: "At home it is still wintry. It snows, hails, rains, and is so dark that they have to light the lamps at three o"clock in the afternoon."
Forestier asked: "Is there anything new at the office?"
"Nothing. They have taken little Lacrin of the "Voltaire" to fill your place, but he is incapable. It is time you came back."
The invalid muttered: "I? I will soon be writing under six feet of sod." A long silence ensued.
Mme. Forestier did not stir; she stood with her back to the room, her face toward the window. At length Forestier broke the silence in a gasping voice, heartrending to listen to: "How many more sunsets shall I see--eight--ten--fifteen--twenty--or perhaps thirty--no more. You have more time, you two--as for me--all is at an end. And everything will go on when I am gone as if I were here." He paused a few moments, then continued: "Everything that I see reminds me that I shall not see them long. It is horrible. I shall no longer see the smallest objects--the gla.s.ses--the dishes--the beds on which we rest--the carriages. It is fine to drive in the evening. How I loved all that."
Again Norbert de Varenne"s words occurred to Duroy. The room grew dark.
Forestier asked irritably:
"Are we to have no lamp to-night? That is what is called caring for an invalid!"
The form outlined against the window disappeared and an electric bell was heard to ring. A servant soon entered and placed a lamp upon the mantel-piece. Mme. Forestier asked her husband: "Do you wish to retire, or will you go downstairs to dinner?"
"I will go down to dinner."
The meal seemed to Duroy interminable, for there was no conversation, only the ticking of a clock broke the silence. When they had finished, Duroy, pleading fatigue, retired to his room and tried in vain to invent some pretext for returning home as quickly as possible. He consoled himself by saying: "Perhaps it will not be for long."
The next morning Georges rose early and strolled down to the beach.
When he returned the servant said to him: "Monsieur has asked for you two or three times. Will you go upstairs?"
He ascended the stairs. Forestier appeared to be in a chair; his wife, reclining upon a couch, was reading. The invalid raised his head. Duroy asked:
"Well, how are you? You look better this morning."
Forestier murmured: "Yes, I am better and stronger. Lunch as hastily as you can with Madeleine, because we are going to take a drive."
When Mme. Forestier was alone with Duroy, she said to him: "You see, to-day he thinks he is better! He is making plans for to-morrow. We are now going to Gulf Juan to buy pottery for our rooms in Paris. He is determined to go, but he cannot stand the jolting on the road."
The carriage arrived, Forestier descended the stairs, step by step, supported by his servant. When he saw the closed landau, he wanted it uncovered. His wife opposed him: "It is sheer madness! You will take cold."
He persisted: "No, I am going to be better, I know it."
They first drove along a shady road and then took the road by the sea.
Forestier explained the different points of interest. Finally they arrived at a pavilion over which were these words: "Gulf Juan Art Pottery," and the carriage drew up at the door. Forestier wanted to buy a vase to put on his bookcase. As he could not leave the carriage, they brought the pieces to him one by one. It took him a long time to choose, consulting his wife and Duroy: "You know it is for my study.
From my easy-chair I can see it constantly. I prefer the ancient form--the Greek."
At length he made his choice. "I shall return to Paris in a few days,"
said he.
On their way home along the gulf a cool breeze suddenly sprang up, and the invalid began to cough. At first it was nothing, only a slight attack, but it grew worse and turned to a sort of hiccough--a rattle; Forestier choked, and every time he tried to breathe he coughed violently. Nothing quieted him. He had to be carried from the landau to his room. The heat of the bed did not stop the attack, which lasted until midnight. The first words the sick man uttered were to ask for a barber, for he insisted on being shaved every morning. He rose to be shaved, but was obliged to go to bed at once, and began to breathe so painfully that Mme. Forestier in affright woke Duroy and asked him to fetch the doctor. He returned almost immediately with Dr. Gavant who prescribed for the sick man. When the journalist asked him his opinion, he said: "It is the final stage. He will be dead to-morrow morning.
Prepare that poor, young wife and send for a priest. I can do nothing more. However, I am entirely at your disposal" Duroy went to Mme.
Forestier. "He is going to die. The doctor advises me to send for a priest. What will you do?"
She hesitated a moment and then said slowly:
"I will go and tell him that the cure wishes to see him. Will you be kind enough to procure one who will require nothing but the confession, and who will not make much fuss?"
The young man brought with him a kind, old priest who accommodated himself to circ.u.mstances. When he had entered the death chamber, Mme.
Forestier went out and seated herself with Duroy in an adjoining room.
"That has upset him," said she. "When I mentioned the priest to him, his face a.s.sumed a scared expression. He knew that the end was near. I shall never forget his face."
At that moment they heard the priest saying to him: "Why no, you are not so low as that. You are ill, but not in danger. The proof of that is that I came as a friend, a neighbor." They could not hear his reply.
The priest continued: "No, I shall not administer the sacrament. We will speak of that when you are better. If you will only confess, I ask no more. I am a pastor; I take advantage of every occasion to gather in my sheep."
A long silence followed. Then suddenly the priest said, in the tone of one officiating at the altar:
"The mercy of G.o.d is infinite; repeat the "Confiteor," my son. Perhaps you have forgotten it; I will help you. Repeat with me: "Confiteor Deo omnipotenti; Beata Mariae semper virgini."" He paused from time to time to permit the dying man to catch up to him.
Then he said: "Now, confess." The sick man murmured something. The priest repeated: "You have committed sins: of what kind, my son?"
The young woman rose and said simply: "Let us go into the garden. We must not listen to his secrets."
They seated themselves upon a bench before the door, beneath a blossoming rosebush. After several moments of silence Duroy asked: "Will it be some time before you return to Paris?"
"No," she replied; "when all is over, I will go back."
"In about ten days?"
"Yes, at most."
He continued; "Charles has no relatives then?"
"None, save cousins. His father and mother died when he was very young."
In the course of a few minutes, the servant came to tell them that the priest had finished, and together they ascended the stairs. Forestier seemed to have grown thinner since the preceding day. The priest was holding his hand.
"Au revoir, my son. I will come again to-morrow morning"; and he left.
When he was gone, the dying man, who was panting, tried to raise his two hands toward his wife and gasped:
"Save me--save me, my darling. I do not want to die--oh, save me--go for the doctor. I will take anything. I do not want to die." He wept; the tears coursed down his pallid cheeks. Then his hands commenced to wander hither and thither continually, slowly, and regularly, as if gathering something on the coverlet. His wife, who was also weeping, sobbed:
"No, it is nothing. It is only an attack; you will be better to-morrow; you tired yourself with that drive."