Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER VI—SISTER SIMPLICE PUT TO THE PROOF
2497 words | Chapter 135
But at that moment Fantine was joyous.
She had passed a very bad night; her cough was frightful; her fever had
doubled in intensity; she had had dreams: in the morning, when the
doctor paid his visit, she was delirious; he assumed an alarmed look,
and ordered that he should be informed as soon as M. Madeleine arrived.
All the morning she was melancholy, said but little, and laid plaits in
her sheets, murmuring the while, in a low voice, calculations which
seemed to be calculations of distances. Her eyes were hollow and
staring. They seemed almost extinguished at intervals, then lighted up
again and shone like stars. It seems as though, at the approach of a
certain dark hour, the light of heaven fills those who are quitting the
light of earth.
Each time that Sister Simplice asked her how she felt, she replied
invariably, “Well. I should like to see M. Madeleine.”
Some months before this, at the moment when Fantine had just lost her
last modesty, her last shame, and her last joy, she was the shadow of
herself; now she was the spectre of herself. Physical suffering had
completed the work of moral suffering. This creature of five and twenty
had a wrinkled brow, flabby cheeks, pinched nostrils, teeth from which
the gums had receded, a leaden complexion, a bony neck, prominent
shoulder-blades, frail limbs, a clayey skin, and her golden hair was
growing out sprinkled with gray. Alas! how illness improvises old-age!
At midday the physician returned, gave some directions, inquired
whether the mayor had made his appearance at the infirmary, and shook
his head.
M. Madeleine usually came to see the invalid at three o’clock. As
exactness is kindness, he was exact.
About half-past two, Fantine began to be restless. In the course of
twenty minutes, she asked the nun more than ten times, “What time is
it, sister?”
Three o’clock struck. At the third stroke, Fantine sat up in bed; she
who could, in general, hardly turn over, joined her yellow, fleshless
hands in a sort of convulsive clasp, and the nun heard her utter one of
those profound sighs which seem to throw off dejection. Then Fantine
turned and looked at the door.
No one entered; the door did not open.
She remained thus for a quarter of an hour, her eyes riveted on the
door, motionless and apparently holding her breath. The sister dared
not speak to her. The clock struck a quarter past three. Fantine fell
back on her pillow.
She said nothing, but began to plait the sheets once more.
Half an hour passed, then an hour, no one came; every time the clock
struck, Fantine started up and looked towards the door, then fell back
again.
Her thought was clearly perceptible, but she uttered no name, she made
no complaint, she blamed no one. But she coughed in a melancholy way.
One would have said that something dark was descending upon her. She
was livid and her lips were blue. She smiled now and then.
Five o’clock struck. Then the sister heard her say, very low and
gently, “He is wrong not to come to-day, since I am going away
to-morrow.”
Sister Simplice herself was surprised at M. Madeleine’s delay.
In the meantime, Fantine was staring at the tester of her bed. She
seemed to be endeavoring to recall something. All at once she began to
sing in a voice as feeble as a breath. The nun listened. This is what
Fantine was singing:—
“Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through.
Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, corn-flowers are blue.
“Yestere’en the Virgin Mary came near my stove, in a broidered mantle
clad, and said to me, ‘Here, hide ’neath my veil the child whom you one
day begged from me. Haste to the city, buy linen, buy a needle, buy
thread.’
“Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through.
“Dear Holy Virgin, beside my stove I have set a cradle with ribbons
decked. God may give me his loveliest star; I prefer the child thou
hast granted me. ‘Madame, what shall I do with this linen fine?’—‘Make
of it clothes for thy new-born babe.’
“Roses are pink and corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, and corn-flowers are blue.
“‘Wash this linen.’—‘Where?’—‘In the stream. Make of it, soiling not,
spoiling not, a petticoat fair with its bodice fine, which I will
embroider and fill with flowers.’—‘Madame, the child is no longer here;
what is to be done?’—‘Then make of it a winding-sheet in which to bury
me.’
“Lovely things we will buy
As we stroll the faubourgs through,
Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue,
I love my love, corn-flowers are blue.”
This song was an old cradle romance with which she had, in former days,
lulled her little Cosette to sleep, and which had never recurred to her
mind in all the five years during which she had been parted from her
child. She sang it in so sad a voice, and to so sweet an air, that it
was enough to make any one, even a nun, weep. The sister, accustomed as
she was to austerities, felt a tear spring to her eyes.
The clock struck six. Fantine did not seem to hear it. She no longer
seemed to pay attention to anything about her.
Sister Simplice sent a serving-maid to inquire of the portress of the
factory, whether the mayor had returned, and if he would not come to
the infirmary soon. The girl returned in a few minutes.
Fantine was still motionless and seemed absorbed in her own thoughts.
The servant informed Sister Simplice in a very low tone, that the mayor
had set out that morning before six o’clock, in a little tilbury
harnessed to a white horse, cold as the weather was; that he had gone
alone, without even a driver; that no one knew what road he had taken;
that people said he had been seen to turn into the road to Arras; that
others asserted that they had met him on the road to Paris. That when
he went away he had been very gentle, as usual, and that he had merely
told the portress not to expect him that night.
While the two women were whispering together, with their backs turned
to Fantine’s bed, the sister interrogating, the servant conjecturing,
Fantine, with the feverish vivacity of certain organic maladies, which
unite the free movements of health with the frightful emaciation of
death, had raised herself to her knees in bed, with her shrivelled
hands resting on the bolster, and her head thrust through the opening
of the curtains, and was listening. All at once she cried:—
“You are speaking of M. Madeleine! Why are you talking so low? What is
he doing? Why does he not come?”
Her voice was so abrupt and hoarse that the two women thought they
heard the voice of a man; they wheeled round in affright.
“Answer me!” cried Fantine.
The servant stammered:—
“The portress told me that he could not come to-day.”
“Be calm, my child,” said the sister; “lie down again.”
Fantine, without changing her attitude, continued in a loud voice, and
with an accent that was both imperious and heart-rending:—
“He cannot come? Why not? You know the reason. You are whispering it to
each other there. I want to know it.”
The servant-maid hastened to say in the nun’s ear, “Say that he is busy
with the city council.”
Sister Simplice blushed faintly, for it was a lie that the maid had
proposed to her.
On the other hand, it seemed to her that the mere communication of the
truth to the invalid would, without doubt, deal her a terrible blow,
and that this was a serious matter in Fantine’s present state. Her
flush did not last long; the sister raised her calm, sad eyes to
Fantine, and said, “Monsieur le Maire has gone away.”
Fantine raised herself and crouched on her heels in the bed: her eyes
sparkled; indescribable joy beamed from that melancholy face.
“Gone!” she cried; “he has gone to get Cosette.”
Then she raised her arms to heaven, and her white face became
ineffable; her lips moved; she was praying in a low voice.
When her prayer was finished, “Sister,” she said, “I am willing to lie
down again; I will do anything you wish; I was naughty just now; I beg
your pardon for having spoken so loud; it is very wrong to talk loudly;
I know that well, my good sister, but, you see, I am very happy: the
good God is good; M. Madeleine is good; just think! he has gone to
Montfermeil to get my little Cosette.”
She lay down again, with the nun’s assistance, helped the nun to
arrange her pillow, and kissed the little silver cross which she wore
on her neck, and which Sister Simplice had given her.
“My child,” said the sister, “try to rest now, and do not talk any
more.”
Fantine took the sister’s hand in her moist hands, and the latter was
pained to feel that perspiration.
“He set out this morning for Paris; in fact, he need not even go
through Paris; Montfermeil is a little to the left as you come thence.
Do you remember how he said to me yesterday, when I spoke to him of
Cosette, _Soon, soon?_ He wants to give me a surprise, you know! he
made me sign a letter so that she could be taken from the Thénardiers;
they cannot say anything, can they? they will give back Cosette, for
they have been paid; the authorities will not allow them to keep the
child since they have received their pay. Do not make signs to me that
I must not talk, sister! I am extremely happy; I am doing well; I am
not ill at all any more; I am going to see Cosette again; I am even
quite hungry; it is nearly five years since I saw her last; you cannot
imagine how much attached one gets to children, and then, she will be
so pretty; you will see! If you only knew what pretty little rosy
fingers she had! In the first place, she will have very beautiful
hands; she had ridiculous hands when she was only a year old; like
this! she must be a big girl now; she is seven years old; she is quite
a young lady; I call her Cosette, but her name is really Euphrasie.
Stop! this morning I was looking at the dust on the chimney-piece, and
I had a sort of idea come across me, like that, that I should see
Cosette again soon. Mon Dieu! how wrong it is not to see one’s children
for years! One ought to reflect that life is not eternal. Oh, how good
M. le Maire is to go! it is very cold! it is true; he had on his cloak,
at least? he will be here to-morrow, will he not? to-morrow will be a
festival day; to-morrow morning, sister, you must remind me to put on
my little cap that has lace on it. What a place that Montfermeil is! I
took that journey on foot once; it was very long for me, but the
diligences go very quickly! he will be here to-morrow with Cosette: how
far is it from here to Montfermeil?”
The sister, who had no idea of distances, replied, “Oh, I think that he
will be here to-morrow.”
“To-morrow! to-morrow!” said Fantine, “I shall see Cosette to-morrow!
you see, good sister of the good God, that I am no longer ill; I am
mad; I could dance if any one wished it.”
A person who had seen her a quarter of an hour previously would not
have understood the change; she was all rosy now; she spoke in a lively
and natural voice; her whole face was one smile; now and then she
talked, she laughed softly; the joy of a mother is almost infantile.
“Well,” resumed the nun, “now that you are happy, mind me, and do not
talk any more.”
Fantine laid her head on her pillow and said in a low voice: “Yes, lie
down again; be good, for you are going to have your child; Sister
Simplice is right; every one here is right.”
And then, without stirring, without even moving her head, she began to
stare all about her with wide-open eyes and a joyous air, and she said
nothing more.
The sister drew the curtains together again, hoping that she would fall
into a doze. Between seven and eight o’clock the doctor came; not
hearing any sound, he thought Fantine was asleep, entered softly, and
approached the bed on tiptoe; he opened the curtains a little, and, by
the light of the taper, he saw Fantine’s big eyes gazing at him.
She said to him, “She will be allowed to sleep beside me in a little
bed, will she not, sir?”
The doctor thought that she was delirious. She added:—
“See! there is just room.”
The doctor took Sister Simplice aside, and she explained matters to
him; that M. Madeleine was absent for a day or two, and that in their
doubt they had not thought it well to undeceive the invalid, who
believed that the mayor had gone to Montfermeil; that it was possible,
after all, that her guess was correct: the doctor approved.
He returned to Fantine’s bed, and she went on:—
“You see, when she wakes up in the morning, I shall be able to say good
morning to her, poor kitten, and when I cannot sleep at night, I can
hear her asleep; her little gentle breathing will do me good.”
“Give me your hand,” said the doctor.
She stretched out her arm, and exclaimed with a laugh:—
“Ah, hold! in truth, you did not know it; I am cured; Cosette will
arrive to-morrow.”
The doctor was surprised; she was better; the pressure on her chest had
decreased; her pulse had regained its strength; a sort of life had
suddenly supervened and reanimated this poor, worn-out creature.
“Doctor,” she went on, “did the sister tell you that M. le Maire has
gone to get that mite of a child?”
The doctor recommended silence, and that all painful emotions should be
avoided; he prescribed an infusion of pure chinchona, and, in case the
fever should increase again during the night, a calming potion. As he
took his departure, he said to the sister:—
“She is doing better; if good luck willed that the mayor should
actually arrive to-morrow with the child, who knows? there are crises
so astounding; great joy has been known to arrest maladies; I know well
that this is an organic disease, and in an advanced state, but all
those things are such mysteries: we may be able to save her.”
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