To complete the phenomenon which we have attempted to describe, and the action which profound obscurity had suspended, when Jacques Ferrand entered the apartment so brilliantly lighted up, he was struck with an overwhelming vertigo, just as though he had been suddenly cast into the midst of a torrent of light as blazing as the disk of the sun. It was a fearful spectacle to see the agony of this man, who was twisting in convulsions, tearing the floor with his nails, as if he would have dug himself a hole to escape from the atrocious tortures occasioned by this powerful light. Rodolph, one of his servants, and the porter of the house, who had been compelled to guide the prince hither, were struck with horror.
In spite of his just hatred, Rodolph felt a pity for the unheard-of sufferings of Jacques Ferrand, and desired that he should be laid on the sofa. This was not effected without difficulty, for, from fear of being subjected to the direst influence of the lamp, the notary struggled violently; and when his face was covered with the full glare of the light, he uttered another shriek,--a shriek which chilled Rodolph with terror. After fresh and long torture, the phenomenon ceased by its very violence. Having reached the last bounds of suffering without death following, the visual torment ceased; but, according to the regular course of the malady, a delirious excitement followed the crisis.
Jacques Ferrand became suddenly as stiffened in frame as an epileptic; his eyelids, until then obstinately closed, suddenly opened, and, instead of avoiding the light, his eyes fixed themselves on it immovably, the pupils, in a state of extraordinary dilation and fixedness, seeming phosph.o.r.escent and internally lighted up. He appeared plunged in a kind of ecstatic contemplation; his body and limbs remained at first in a state of complete immobility, his features being agitated by nervous twitches and spasms. His hideous countenance, thus contracted and twisted, had no longer any human appearance; and it appeared as if the appet.i.tes of the animal, by stifling the intelligence of the man, impressed on the features of this wretch a character absolutely b.e.s.t.i.a.l.
Having attained the mortal point of his madness, he remembered in his delirium the words of Cecily, who had called him her tiger; gradually his reason forsook him, and he imagined he was a tiger. His half uttered, breathless words displayed the disorder of his brain, and the singular aberration that had seized on him. Gradually his limbs, until then stiff and motionless, extended; he fell from the sofa, and tried to rise and walk, but his strength failed him; and he was compelled now to crawl like a reptile, and now to drag himself along on his hands and knees,--going, coming, this way and that way, as his visions impelled or obtained possession of him. Crouched in one of the corners of the room, like a tiger in his den, his hoa.r.s.e and furious cries, his grinding of teeth, the convulsive twistings of the muscles of his face and brows, and his ardent gaze, gave him a wild and frightful resemblance to this ferocious brute.
"Tiger--tiger--tiger--that I am!" he said, in a harsh voice, and gathering himself into a heap. "Yes, tiger! What blood! In my cavern what rent carca.s.ses--La Goualeuse--the brother of this widow--a small child, Louise"s baby,--these are the carca.s.ses, and my tigress Cecily will have her share." Then looking at his torn fingers, the nails of which had grown immensely during his illness, he added, in broken language, "Oh, my sharp nails--sharp and keen! An old tiger I am, but agile, strong, and bold; no one dares dispute my tigress Cecily with me.
Ah, she calls--she calls!" he said, advancing his hideous visage and listening.
After a moment"s silence he huddled himself against the wall again and continued: "No! I thought I had heard her; but she is not there. Yet I see her; oh, yes, always--always! Ah, there she is! She calls me; she roars--roars down there! I"m here--I"m here!" and Ferrand dragged himself towards the centre of the room on his hands and knees. Although his strength was exhausted, he made a convulsive leap from time to time, then paused, and listened attentively. "Where is she? I approach--she goes away. Cecily, here is your old tiger!" he cried, as, with a last effort, he arose and balanced himself on his knees. Suddenly falling back with affright, his body bending on his heels, his hair on end, his look haggard, his mouth twisted with terror, his two hands extended, he seemed to struggle with desperation with some invisible object, uttering incoherent words, and exclaiming, in broken tones, "What a bite! Help!
My hands are powerless; I cannot drive away these sharp teeth! No, no!
Oh! Not such eyes! Help! A serpent--a black snake--with its flat head and fiery eyes. How it looks at me! It is the fiend! Ah, he knows me--Jacques Ferrand--at church--the pious man--always at church! Go, go--cross yourself!" And the notary, raising himself a little, and leaning with one hand on the floor, endeavoured to cross himself with the other. His livid brow was bathed in cold sweat, his eyes began to lose their transparency and become dim, all the symptoms of approaching death manifested themselves.
Rodolph and the other witnesses of the scene remained as motionless and mute as if they had been under the effect of a frightful dream.
"Oh!" continued Jacques Ferrand, still half stretched on the floor, and supporting himself by one hand, "the demon vanishes. I am going to church--I am a holy man--I pray! What, no one will know it? Do you think so? No, no, tempter--be quite sure! Well, let them come--these women--all! Yes, all--if no one finds it out! But the secret!" he continued, in a tone of exhaustion, "the secret! Ah, here they are!
Three! What says this one?--I am Louise Morel! Oh, yes--Louise Morel; I know it! I am only one of the people! You think me handsome? Here--take her! What does she bring me?--her head cut off by the executioner! It looks at me, that head of death! It speaks! The livid lips move and say, "Come--come--come!" I will not--I will not! Demon, leave me! Go--go--go!
And this other woman?--ah, beautiful, beautiful!--Jacques, I am the d.u.c.h.esse de Lucenay. See my angelic figure,--my smile,--my bold glance!
Come, come! Yes, I come. But wait! And who is this one who turns away her face? Oh, Cecily--Cecily! Yes, Jacques, "tis Cecily! You see the three Graces,--Louise, the d.u.c.h.ess, and myself. Choose! Beauty of the people, patrician beauty, the savage beauty of the tropics,--and h.e.l.l with us! Come--come! h.e.l.l with you? Yes!" shrieked Jacques Ferrand, again rising on his knees, and extending his arms to seize these phantoms.
This last effort was followed by a mortal throe, and he fell back again stiff and lifeless; his eyes starting from their orbits, whilst fierce convulsions were visible on his features, unnaturally distorted; a b.l.o.o.d.y foam on his lips; his voice hoa.r.s.e and strangling, like that of a person in hydrophobia, for, in its last paroxysm, this fearful malady shows the same symptoms as madness. The breath of this monster was extinguished in the midst of a final and horrible vision, for he stammered forth these words, "Black night!--black spectres!--skeletons of bra.s.s, red-hot with fire! Unfold me! Their burning fingers make my flesh smoke; my marrow is scorched! Fleshless, horrid spectre! No--no!
Cecily--fire--flame--agony--Cecily!"
These were Jacques Ferrand"s last words, and Rodolph left the place overcome with horror.
CHAPTER IV.
THE HOSPITAL.
It will be remembered that Fleur-de-Marie, saved by La Louve, had been conveyed not far from the Isle du Ravageur to the country-house of Doctor Griffon, one of the surgeons of the hospital, to whom we shall now introduce the reader. This learned doctor, who had obtained from high influence his position in the hospital, considered the wards as a kind of school of experiments, where he tried on the poor the remedies and applications which he afterwards used with his rich clients.
These terrible experiments were, indeed, a human sacrifice made on the altar of science; but Doctor Griffon did not think of that. In the eyes of this prince of science, as they say in our days, the hospital patients were only a matter of study and experiment; and as, after all, there resulted from his essays occasionally a useful fact or a discovery acquired by science, the doctor showed himself as ingenuously satisfied and triumphant as a general after a victory which has been costly in soldiers.
Nothing could be more melancholy than the sombre appearance of the vast ward of the hospital, into which we now introduce the reader. The length of its high, dark walls, pierced here and there with grated windows like those of a prison, was filled with two rows of beds parallel, and faintly lighted by the sepulchral glare of a lamp hanging from the ceiling. The atmosphere is so nauseous, so heavy, that the fresh patients frequently did not become accustomed to it without danger, and this increase of suffering is a sort of tax which every newcomer invariably pays for his miserable sojourn in the hospital. In one of the beds was the corpse of a patient who had just died.
Amongst the females who did not sleep, and who had been present whilst the priest performed the last rites with the dying woman, were three persons whose names have been already mentioned in this history,--Mlle.
de Fermont, the daughter of the unfortunate widow ruined by the cupidity of Jacques Ferrand; La Lorraine, the poor laundress, to whom Fleur-de-Marie had formerly given the small sum of money she had left; and Jeanne Duport, the sister of Pique-Vinaigre.
La Lorraine was a woman about twenty, with mild and regular features, but extremely pale and thin; she was consumptive to the last degree, and there was no hope of saving her. She was aware of her condition, and was slowly dying.
"There is another gone!" said La Lorraine, in a faint voice, and speaking to herself. "She will suffer no more; she is very happy!"
"She is very happy if she has no children!" added Jeanne.
"Aren"t you asleep, neighbour?" asked La Lorraine. "How are you after your first night here? Last night, when you came in, they made you go to bed directly, and I dared not speak to you, because I heard you sob so."
"Yes, I cried a good deal; but I went to sleep at last, and only awoke when the noise of the doors roused me; and when the priest and the sisters came in and knelt down; I saw it was some woman who was dying, and I said a _Pater_ and _Ave_ for her."
"And so did I; and, as I am ill with the same complaint as she had, I could not help crying out, "There is one who suffers no more; she is very happy!""
"Yes, as I said, if she has no children."
"Then you have children?"
"Three!" said Pique-Vinaigre"s sister with a sigh. "And you?"
"I had a little girl, but I did not keep her long. The poor babe was injured before she was born,--and I was so wretched during my pregnancy!
I am a washerwoman in the boats, and worked as long as I could. But everything has an end, and when my strength failed me, bread failed me also. They turned me out of my lodging; and I do not know what would have become of me if a poor woman had not taken me into a cellar, where she was hiding from her husband, who had sworn he would kill her. There I was brought to bed on the straw; but, thanks to goodness, the good woman knew a young girl as good and charitable as an angel from heaven.
This young girl had a little money, and took me from the cellar, and put me in a furnished room, where she paid a month in advance, and gave me, besides, a wicker cradle for my baby, and forty francs, with a little linen besides. Thanks to her, I was enabled to resume my work."
"Kind girl! Well, and I, also, met by chance with such another, a young, hard-working sempstress. I was going to see my poor brother, who is a prisoner," said Jeanne, after a moment"s hesitation, "and met this work-girl in the prison; and when she heard me tell my brother that I was not happy, she came to me and offered me all in her power, poor girl! I accepted her offer, and she gave me her address; and two days afterwards dear little Mlle. Rigolette--she is called Rigolette--sent me an order."
"Rigolette!" exclaimed Lorraine; "how strange! The young girl who was so generous to me often mentioned the name of Mlle. Rigolette in my hearing; they were great friends."
"Well, then," said Jeanne, smiling sadly, "since we are neighbours in bed, we should be friends like our two benefactresses."
"With all my heart! My name is Annette Gerbier, called La Lorraine, a washerwoman."
"And I am Jeanne Duport, a fringe-maker. Oh, it is so fortunate to find in this melancholy place some one not quite a stranger to you, especially when you come for the first time, and are very full of trouble. But don"t let us talk of that! Tell me, Lorraine, what was the name of the young girl who was so kind to you?"
"She was called Goualeuse, and was exceedingly handsome, with light brown hair and blue eyes, so soft--oh, so soft! Unfortunately, in spite of her a.s.sistance, my poor babe died at two months old. It was so puny, it could hardly breathe!" and La Lorraine wiped a tear from her eye.
"And your husband?"
"I am not married. I washed by the day at a rich tradesman"s in my country, and had always been prudent; but the master"s son whispered his tales in my ear, and then--When I found in what a state I was, I dared not remain any longer in the country, and M. Jules gave me fifty francs to take me to Paris, a.s.suring me that he would send me twenty francs every month for my lying-in; but since I left I have not had one sou, not even a message. I wrote to him once, but he sent me no answer; and I was afraid to write again, as I saw he did not wish to hear any more of me."
"At least he ought not to have forgotten you, if it was only for the sake of the child!"
"That was the reason; he was angry with me for being in the family way, because it embarra.s.sed him. I regret my child for myself, but not on its own account, poor little darling! It must have been miserable, and have been an orphan very early, for I have not long to live."
"Oh, you ought not to have such ideas at your age. Have you been long ill?"
"Nearly three months. Why, when I had to work for myself and my child, I began too soon. The winter was very cold; I was attacked with a cold on my chest. I lost my child at this time, too; and nursing her, I neglected myself, and then my sorrow; so that I fell into a consumption--decided--like the actress who has just died."
"There"s always hope at your age!"
"The actress was only two years older than I am."
"What, was she an actress who is just dead?"
"Yes. And see what fate is! She had been as beautiful as daylight, and had money, carriages, diamonds; but, unfortunately, the smallpox disfigured her, and then came want and misery, and, at last, death in a hospital. No one ever came to see her; and yet, four or five days ago, she told me, she had written to a gentleman whom she had formerly known in her gay days, and who had been much in love with her. She wrote to him to beg him to claim her dead body, because she was wretched at the idea of thinking she would be dissected--cut in pieces."
"And did the gentleman come?"
"No. Every moment she was asking for him and perpetually saying, "Oh, he"ll come! Oh, he"ll be sure to come!" And yet she died without any one coming, and what she so much dreaded will befall her poor frame. After having been rich and happy, to die so is very terrible! We, at least, only change our miseries!"