The peasant was standing opposite the doctor, by the bedside of the dying old woman, and she, calmly resigned and quite lucid, looked at them and listened to their talking. She was going to die, and she did not rebel at it, for her time was over, as she was ninety-two.

The July sun streamed in at the window and the open door and cast its hot flames onto the uneven brown clay floor, which had been stamped down by four generations of clod-hoppers. The smell of the fields came in also, driven by the sharp wind, and parched by the noontide heat. The grasshoppers chirped themselves hoarse, and filled the country with their shrill noise, which was like that of the wooden crickets which are sold to children at fair time.

The doctor raised his voice and said: "Honoré, you cannot leave your mother in this state; she may die at any moment." And the peasant, in great distress replied: "But I must get in my wheat, for it has been lying on the ground a long time, and the weather is just right for it; what do you say about it, mother?" And the dying old woman, still tormented by her Norman avariciousness, replied yes with her eyes and her forehead, and so urged her son to get in his wheat, and to leave her to die alone, but the doctor got angry, and stamping his foot, he said: "You are no better than a brute, do you hear, and I will not allow you to do it, do you understand? And if you must get in your[Pg 312] wheat to-day, go and fetch Rapet's wife and make her look after your mother. I will have it, do you understand me? And if you do not obey me, I will let you die like a dog, when you are ill in your turn; do you hear me?"

The peasant, a tall, thin fellow with slow movements, who was tormented by indecision, by his fear of the doctor and his fierce love of saving, hesitated, calculated and stammered out: "How much does la Rapet charge for attending sick people?" "How should I know?" the doctor cried. "That depends upon how long she is wanted for. Settle it with her, by Jove! But I want her to be here within an hour, do you hear?"

So the man made up his mind: "I will go for her," he replied; "don't get angry, doctor." And the latter left, calling out as he went: "Take care, you know, for I do not joke when I am angry!" And as soon as they were alone, the peasant turned to his mother and said in a resigned voice: "I will go and fetch la Rapet, as the man will have it. Don't go off while I am away."

And he went out in his turn.

La Rapet, who was an old washerwoman, watched the dead and the dying of the neighborhood, and then, as soon as she had sown her customers into that linen cloth from which they would emerge no more, she went and took up her iron to smooth the linen of the living. Wrinkled like a last year's apple, spiteful, envious, avaricious with a phenomenal avarice, bent double, as if she had been broken in half across the loins, by the constant movement of the iron over the linen, one might have said that she had a kind of monstrous and[Pg 313] cynical affection for a death struggle. She never spoke of anything but of the people she had seen die, of the various kinds of deaths at which she had been present, and she related with the greatest minuteness, details which were always the same, just like a sportsman recounts his shots.

When Honoré Bontemps entered her cottage, he found her preparing the starch for the collars of the village women, and he said: "Good evening; I hope you are pretty well, Mother Rapet?"

She turned her head round to look at him, and said: "Fairly well, fairly well, and you?" "Oh! as for me, I am as well as I could wish, but my mother is very poorly." "Your mother?" "Yes, my mother!" "What's the matter with her?" "She is going to turn up her toes, that's what's the matter with her!"

The old woman took her hands out of the water and asked with sudden sympathy: "Is she as bad as all that?" "The doctor says she will not last till morning." "Then she certainly is very bad!" Honoré hesitated, for he wanted to make a few preambulatory remarks before coming to his proposal, but as he could hit upon nothing, he made up his mind suddenly.

"How much are you going to ask to stop with her till the end? You know that I am not rich, and I cannot even afford to keep a servant-girl. It is just that which has brought my poor mother to this state, too much work and fatigue! She used to work for ten, in spite of her ninety-two years. You don't find any made of that stuff nowadays!..."

La Rapet answered gravely: "There are two prices: Forty sous by day and three francs by night for the rich, and twenty sous by day, and forty by night for the[Pg 314] others. You shall pay me the twenty and forty." But the peasant reflected, for he knew his mother well. He knew how tenacious of life, vigorous and unyielding she was, and she might last another week, in spite of the doctor's opinion, and so he said resolutely: "No, I would rather you would fix a price until the end. I will take my chance, one way or the other. The doctor says she will die very soon. If that happens so much the better for you, and so much the worse for me, but if she holds out till to-morrow or longer, so much the better for me and so much the worse for you!"

The nurse looked at the man in astonishment, for she had never treated a death as a speculative job, and she hesitated, tempted by the idea of the possible gain, but almost immediately she suspected that he wanted to juggle her, "I can say nothing until I have seen your mother," she replied. "Then come with me and see her."

She washed her hands, and went with him immediately.

They did not speak on the road; she walked with short, hasty steps, while he strode on with his long legs, as if he were crossing a brook at every step.

The cows lying down in the fields, overcome by the heat, raised their heads heavily and lowed feebly at the two passers-by, as if to ask them for some green grass.

When they got near the house, Honoré Bontemps murmured: "Suppose it is all over?" And the unconscious wish which he had that it might be so, showed itself in the sound of his voice.

But the old woman was not dead. She was lying[Pg 315] on her back, on her wretched bed, her hands covered with a pink cotton counterpane, horribly thin, knotty hands, like strange animals, like crabs, and closed by rheumatism, fatigue, and the work of nearly a century which she had accomplished.

La Rapet went up to the bed and looked at the dying woman, felt her pulse, tapped her on the chest, listened to her breathing, and asked her questions, so as to hear her speak: and then, having looked at her for some time longer, she went out of the room, followed by Honoré. Her decided opinion was that the old woman would not last out the night, and he asked: "Well?" And the sick-nurse replied: "Well, she may last two days, perhaps three. You will have to give me six francs, everything included."

"Six francs! six francs!" he shouted. "Are you out of your mind? I tell you that she cannot last more than five or six hours!" And they disputed angrily for some time, but as the nurse said she would go home, as the time was going by, and as his wheat would not come to the farmyard of its own accord, he agreed to her terms at last:

"Very well then, that is settled; six francs including everything, until the corpse is taken out." "That is settled, six francs."

And he went away, with long strides, to his wheat, which was lying on the ground under the hot sun, which ripens the grain, while the sick-nurse returned to the house.

She had brought some work with her, for she worked without stopping by the side of the dead and the dying, sometimes for herself, sometimes for the family which[Pg 316] employed her as seamstress also, paying her rather more in that capacity. Suddenly she asked: "Have you received the last sacraments, Mother Bontemps?"

The old peasant woman said "no" with her head, and la Rapet, who was very devout, got up quickly: "Good heavens, is it possible? I will go and fetch the Curé;" and she rushed off to the parsonage so quickly, that the urchins in the street thought some accident had happened, when they saw her trotting off like that.

The priest came immediately in his surplice, preceded by a choir-boy, who rang a bell, to announce the passage of the Host through the parched and quiet country. Some men, who were working at a distance, took off their large hats and remained motionless until the white vestment had disappeared behind some farm buildings; the women who were making up the sheaves, stood up to make the sign of the cross; the frightened black hens ran away along the ditch until they reached a well-known hole through which they suddenly disappeared, while a foal, which was tied up in a meadow, took fright at the sight of the surplice and began to turn round at the length of its rope, kicking violently. The choir-boy, in his red cassock, walked quickly, and the priest, with his head inclined towards one shoulder, and with his square biretta on his head, followed him, muttering some prayers, and last of all came la Rapet, bent almost double, as if she wished to prostrate herself as she walked with folded hands, as if she were in church.

Honoré saw them pass in the distance, and he asked: "Where is our priest going to?" And his man, who[Pg 317] was more acute, replied: "He is taking the sacrament to your mother, of course!"

The peasant was not surprised, and said: "That is quite possible," and went on with his work.

Mother Bontemps confessed, received absolution and communion, and the priest took his departure, leaving the two women alone in the suffocating cottage, while la Rapet began to look at the dying woman, and to ask herself whether it could last much longer.

The day was on the wane, and a cooler air came in stronger puffs, and made a view of Epinal, which was fastened to the wall by two pins, flap up and down, the scanty window curtains, which had formerly been white, but were now yellow and covered with fly-specks, looked as if they were going to fly off and seemed to struggle to get away, like the old woman's soul.

She lying motionless, with her eyes open, seemed to await that death which was so near and which yet delayed its coming, with perfect indifference. Her short breath whistled in her tightening throat. It would stop altogether soon, and there would be one woman less in the world, whom nobody would regret.

At nightfall Honoré returned, and when he went up to the bed and saw that his mother was still alive, he asked: "How is she?" just as he had done formerly, when she had been unwell, and then he sent la Rapet away, saying to her: "To-morrow morning at five o'clock, without fail." And she replied: "To-morrow, at five o'clock."

She came at daybreak, and found Honoré eating his soup, which he had made himself, before going to work, and the sick-nurse asked him: "Well, is your mother[Pg 318] dead?" "She is rather better, on the contrary," he replied, with a malignant look out of the corner of his eyes. And he went out.

La Rapet was seized with anxiety, and went up to the dying woman, who remained in the same state, lethargic and impassive, with her eyes open and her hands clutching the counterpane. The nurse perceived that this might go on thus for two days, four days, eight days, and her avaricious mind was seized with fear, while she was excited to furious rage against the cunning fellow who had tricked her, and against the woman, who would not die.

Nevertheless, she began to work and waited with her looks fixed on the wrinkled face of Mother Bontemps, and when Honoré returned to breakfast he seemed quite satisfied and even in a bantering humor, for he was decidedly carrying in his wheat under very favorable circumstances.

La Rapet was getting exasperated; every minute passed now seemed to her so much time and money stolen from her. She felt a mad inclination to take this old ass, this headstrong old fool, this obstinate old wretch, and to stop that short, rapid breath, which was robbing her of her time and money, by squeezing her throat a little. But then, she reflected on the danger of doing so, and other thoughts came into her head, so she went up to the bed and said to her: "Have you ever seen the Devil?" Mother Bontemps whispered: "No."

Then the sick-nurse began to talk and to tell her tales which were likely to terrify her weak and dying mind. Some minutes before one died the Devil ap[Pg 319]peared, she said, to all who were in their death throes. He had a broom in his hand, a saucepan on his head, and he uttered loud cries. When anybody had seen him, all was over, and that person had only a few moments longer to live; and she enumerated all those to whom the Devil had appeared that year: Josephine Loisel, Eulalie Ratier, Sophie Padagnau, Séraphine Grospied.

Mother Bontemps, who was at last most disturbed in mind, moved about, wrung her hands, and tried to turn her head to look at the bottom of the room, and suddenly la Rapet disappeared at the foot of the bed. She took a sheet out of the cupboard and wrapped herself up in it; she put the iron pot onto her head, so that its three short bent feet rose up like horns, and she took a broom in her right hand and a tin pail in her left, which she threw up suddenly, so that it might fall to the ground noisily.

And certainly when it came down, it made a terrible noise; then, climbing onto a chair, the nurse lifted up the curtain which hung at the bottom of the bed, and showed herself, gesticulating and uttering shrill cries into the pot which covered her face, while she menaced the old peasant woman, who was nearly dead, with her broom.

Terrified, with a mad look on her face, the dying woman made a superhuman effort to get up and escape; she even got her shoulders and chest out of bed; then she fell back with a deep sigh. All was over, and la Rapet calmly put everything back into its place; the broom into the corner by the cupboard, the sheet inside it, the pot on the hearth, the pail on the floor and the chair against the wall. Then, with professional move[Pg 320]ments, she closed the dead woman's enormous eyes, put a plate on the bed and poured some holy water into it, dipped the twig of boxwood into it, and kneeling down, she fervently repeated the prayers for the dead, which she knew by heart, as a matter of business.

And when Honoré returned in the evening, he found her praying, and he calculated immediately that she had made twenty sous out of him, for she had only spent three days and one night there, which made five francs altogether, instead of the six which he owed her.

Comments