Before they enter the kitchen, we will relate what pa.s.sed since Fleur-de-Marie had been confided to the care of the children.
CHAPTER x.x.xV.
DR. GRIFFON.
Francois and Amandine had just carried Fleur-de-Marie into the kitchen near the fire, when Saint Remy and Dr. Griffon, who had crossed over in Nicholas"s boat, entered the house. While the children stirred up the fire and threw on some dry f.a.gots, which, soon kindling, gave out a cheerful blaze, Dr. Griffon exercised all his skill to restore the girl.
"The poor child is hardly seventeen," cried the count, profoundly affected; then, turning toward the doctor, he said, "Well, what do you think, my friend?"
"I can hardly feel the pulse; but, what is very singular, the skin of the face is not colored blue in this subject, as is ordinarily the case in asphyxia from submersion," answered the doctor with imperturbable coolness, looking at Fleur-de-Marie with an air profoundly meditative.
Dr. Griffon was a tall, thin man, very pale, and completely bald, except two very scanty tufts of black hair, most carefully gathered from behind, and laid flat on his forehead; his face, wrinkled and furrowed by hard study, expressed intelligence reflection, and coldness.
Of immense knowledge, of consummate experience, a skillful and renowned pract.i.tioner, princ.i.p.al physician of a large hospital, Dr.
Griffon had but one defect--that of making, if we may express it, a complete oversight of the patient, and only attending to the disease: young or old, male or female, rich or poor, no matter; he thought only of the medical fact, more or less curious or interesting in a scientific point of view, which the _subject_ offered.
For him there only existed _subjects_.
"What a charming face! How handsome she is, notwithstanding this frightful pallor!" said Saint Remy, contemplating Fleur-de-Marie with sadness. "Have you ever seen, my dear doctor, features more regular or more lovely? And so young--so young!"
"The age is nothing," said the physician, roughly; "no more than the presence of water in the lungs, which formerly was thought to be mortal. They were most grossly deceived: the admirable experiments of Goodwin, of the famous Goodwin, have proved it."
"But, doctor--"
"But it is a fact," answered M. Griffon, absorbed by the love of his art. "To ascertain the presence of a foreign liquid in the lungs, Goodwin plunged some cats and dogs into a tub of ink for some seconds, drew them out living, and dissected my gentlemen some time afterward.
Well, he convinced himself that the ink had penetrated into the lungs, and that the presence of liquid in the organs of respiration does not cause death."
The count knew the physician to be an excellent man at heart, but that his frenzied pa.s.sion for the sciences often made him appear hard-hearted and almost cruel.
"Have you, at least, any hope?" asked he, with impatience.
"The extremities of the subject are very cold," said the doctor; "there is but little hope."
"Oh, to die at her age, poor child--it is frightful!"
"The pupil fixed, dilated," answered the immovable doctor, raising with his finger the moveless eyelid of Fleur-de-Marie.
"Strange man," cried the count, almost with indignation; "one would think you without feeling; and yet I have seen you watch by my bedside night after night. If I had been your brother, you could not have been more devoted."
The doctor, quite occupied in administering to Fleur-de-Marie, answered the count, without looking at him, and with settled calmness, "Do you believe that one meets every day with such a malignant fever, so marvelously complicated, so curious to study, as the one you had?
It was admirable, my good friend, admirable! Stupor, delirium, twitchings of the sinews, syncopes--your deadly fever united the most varied symptoms. Your const.i.tution was also a rare thing, very rare, and eminently interesting; you were also affected, in a partial and momentary manner, with paralysis. If it were only for this fact, your disease had a right to all my attention; you presented to me a magnificent study; for, frankly, my dear friend, all I desire in this world is to come across just such another fine case--but one has no such luck twice."
[Ill.u.s.tration: FEELING FOR THE BEATING OF THE PULSE]
The count shrugged his shoulders impatiently. It was at this moment that Martial descended, leaning on the arm of La Louve, who had, as the reader knows, thrown over her wet clothes a plaid cloak belonging to Calabash.
Struck with the pale looks of the lover of La Louve, and remarking his hands covered with coagulated blood, the count cried, "Who is this man?"
"_My husband!_" answered La Louve, looking at Martial with an expression of happiness and n.o.ble pride impossible to describe.
"You have a good intrepid wife, sir," said the count to him. "I saw her save this unfortunate child with rare courage."
"Oh, yes, sir; good and intrepid is _my wife!_" answered Martial, dwelling on the last words, and looking at La Louve in his turn with an air at once tender and affectionate. "Yes, intrepid; for she also saved my life!"
"Yours!" said the astonished count.
"See his hands, his poor hands!" said La Louve, wiping the tears which softened the indignant sparkling of her eyes.
"Oh, this is horrible!" cried the count. "This poor fellow has had his hands literally chopped up. Look, doctor!"
Turning his head slightly, and looking over his shoulder at the numerous wounds which Calabash had made, the doctor said, "Open and shut your hand."
Martial executed this movement with much pain.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders, continued to occupy himself with Fleur-de-Marie, and said disdainfully, and as if with regret, "Those wounds are absolutely nothing serious. None of the tendons are injured; in a week the subject can use his hands."
"Then, sir, my husband will not be a cripple?" cried La Louve with grat.i.tude.
The doctor shook his head.
"And La Goualeuse will live, will she not?" asked La Louve. "Oh, she must live, my husband and I owe her so much!" Then turning toward Martial, "Poor little thing! There is she of whom I spoke--she who perhaps will be the cause of our happiness--she who gave me the idea of telling you all I have said. See what chance has done, that I should save her--and here too!"
"She is our Providence!" said Martial, struck with the beauty of La Goualeuse. "What an angelic face! Oh, she will live! will she not, doctor?"
"I don"t know," answered the physician; "but, in the first place, she ought to remain here. Can she have the necessary attentions?"
"Here!" cried La Louve. "Why, they murder here!"
"Hush, hush!" said Martial.
The count and doctor looked at La Louve with surprise.
"This house has a bad reputation; it surprises me the less," whispered the physician to Saint Remy.
"You have, then, been the victim of violence?" asked the count. "Who wounded you in this manner?" "It is nothing, sir. I had a dispute here, a fight ensued, and I have been wounded. But this girl cannot remain in the house," added he, in a gloomy manner. "I shall not remain myself, neither my wife nor my brother, nor my sister. We leave the island never to return."
"Oh, what joy!" cried both the children.
"Then what must we do?" said the doctor, regarding Fleur-de-Marie. "It is impossible to think of transporting this subject in this state of prostration. Yet, happily, my house is close at hand, and my gardener"s wife and daughter will make excellent nurses. Since this asphyxia from submersion interests you, you can overlook her attendants, my dear Saint Remy, and I will come and see her every day."
"And you play the part of a hard-hearted, unmerciful man," cried the count, "when you have a most generous heart, as this proposition proves."
"If the subject sinks, as is possible, there will be a most interesting autopsy, which will allow me to confirm once more the a.s.sertions of Goodwin."