Mathieu Ropars: et cetera Part 5

Thanks to the Surgeon's skill, Ropars' wife at length regained her senses; but it was to fall into convulsive spasms, followed by the annihilation of all her faculties. The whole day pa.s.sed without her shaking off the torpor that belonged at once to sleep and to death. One might have said that so many shocks had snapped asunder her existence, and that the quiverings of life, still flitting across her state of languor, were but the movements of a machine on the point of stopping.

However, towards evening, the fever declared itself. The patient pa.s.sed insensibly from lethargy to delirious agitation; she did but recognize Mathieu at intervals; and falling back, with her senses, upon her sorrows, she soon fell again into wandering.

None of these symptoms seemed to belong to the malady that ravaged the lazaretto; and the Surgeon, disconcerted, let Mathieu divine his inability to make it out. Accustomed to the coa.r.s.e medicines required by the robust patients of our ships, he was perforce a stranger, as are all like him, to the ailments of more delicate natures. Thus did he stand baffled before this woman, dying of a disorder such as he vainly sought to trace in his experiences. He could not conceal his doubts, and his need of more enlightened advice. Science, to which these mysterious and redoubtable symptoms were familiarized, might find there an index, where he perceived only confusion, and point out a remedy, which he dared but essay at hap-hazard.

This avowal, wrung from his loyal truth, was for Mathieu a new source of torture. Shut up within prescribed limits which forbid strangers to approach Treberon, he could not invoke that experience to which Genevieve might perchance owe her safety. In vain did he see, at his feet, boats for transporting him across the sea, and on the horizon a town whence aid might be brought to him; an obstacle invincible and insurmountable linked him to his source of trouble.

Two whole days pa.s.sed away for him, as one long agony, in alternations of mute dejection and of furious despair. After sitting for several hours at the bedside of the dying woman, when he saw the fever that had been lulled for an instant now returning with increased force, he ran down to the edge of the reefs, gazed upon the waters in the midst of which he found himself imprisoned, upon the armed vessel that guarded the pa.s.sage, upon the ravines of the island dotted with graves recently dug, and pressing his closed fists against his forehead he cursed the day on which he had accepted this voluntary imprisonment. Angrily did he call G.o.d to account for the blows with which he was stricken; then, restored to his religious faith, he joined his hands, and with tears besought the Almighty to spare Genevieve.

Towards the morning of the third day, he had cause for believing that his prayers had been heard. The fever abated, and the patient recovered all her clearness of mind. But this change did not induce her to share the delight or the hopes of Mathieu.

--"Never believe that this is a cure, dear soul," said she in tones scarcely audible, and alternating every phrase with periods of silence; "the disease is going ... but it carries all with it.... That evening, when you went across the channel ... when I heard the child's cry from out of the sea itself ... I thought it was all over with you both ...

and then ... I can't say what took place ... but it seemed to me ...

that within me ... the main string of life was snapped.... So I feel now, that it's all over."

Ropars combatted these fears, repeating that the Surgeon was encouraged, and that all would go well. Genevieve, whose eyes were closed, raised the lids with difficulty and threw a glance upon him that was full of melancholy sweetness.

--"G.o.d is the master, Mathieu," said she; "he knows whether I am happy in living with you.... Only, ... believe me, poor husband, and don't rejoice too much ... it were wiser to expect the worst."

--"It were wiser," interrupted the quarter-master, "to take rest, and have confidence. I, too, trust in what I feel. This very night, I had a weight of lead upon my heart; it is light now; I can breathe in one single breath. In G.o.d's name, let your health be restored to you, and be anxious for a continuance of life, if it were but for my sake."

Genevieve made an effort to lay her cold and moistened hand upon that of Ropars.

--"You are good, Mathieu," said she, letting fall two little tears, the last that emotion could drain from eyes already exhausted with weeping.

"Ah me! my chief regret now is at not having always thought of this ...

at not having shown myself sufficiently grateful.... Heavens! how much worthier we should be of those we love, if we did but remember that some day we must leave them.... Since my mind has returned, this idea has haunted me; I now perceive all my faults; ... I feel remorse for them.... Oh! tell me in mercy, Mathieu, do you forgive me now ... for never having been what I ought to have been?"

--"Talk not so, Genevieve," said the seaman quickly, and with deep feeling; "you know well that I could not have asked from G.o.d a better wife. Since you have been mine, I have wanted for nothing; it is I who should be grateful to you."

--"No, no," replied the sick woman with increasing animation; "many a time have I lacked courage and patience.... Not with you alone ... but with Francine ... with Josephe! ... poor child of my heart, who had so few years to live!... And to think, Mathieu, that I have often made her cry! ... her, who is now beneath the ground!... Ah! it is the tears of the dead that weigh heavily here.... And other persons, whom I may have injured ... and G.o.d against whom I have sinned!... Cannot I then hope for mercy?"

Then, as if this idea had awakened in her a sort of terror:

--"Ah! it is impossible!" added she, sitting up; "Mathieu, Mathieu, I must see a confessor!"

--"But how to get him here?" said the quarter-master sorrowfully; "have you forgotten that the island is in quarantine?"

--"What! not to be able to save even one's soul?" returned Genevieve, clasping her hands. "Alas! am I then doomed to die without reconciliation? My G.o.d! what is to be done? The most miserable sinner is allowed to confess his sins, and to ask absolution for them; my G.o.d!

must I alone remain without help?"

She stopped abruptly, putting up both hands to her forehead.

--"Ah! I remember now," she resumed; "have you not told me that on board your ships, when at the moment of death no priest was to be had, any Christian might take his place? ... that G.o.d looked to the intention?"

--"I have said so," replied Ropars, "and all the seamen hereabouts will tell you the same thing, upon the a.s.surance of their pastors."

--"Then," replied the dying woman, turning towards the seaman her eye l.u.s.trous with the fever, "I desire to confess myself to you!"

She raised herself upon her elbow, and crossed herself. Mathieu seemed overwhelmed, but could make no objection to her will. As we have remarked, he belonged to that race almost extinct, even in Brittany, in whom still existed the earnest and the simple faith of other days.

Often, on occasion of shipwreck, men such as he might have been seen, after exhausting all means of saving themselves, to kneel down in the expectation of death, and confess themselves one to another, as did the ancient cavaliers on the eve of combat. Therefore was he more troubled than surprised at the request of Genevieve; and when he heard her murmur the prayer that precedes confession, he took off his hat and made the sign of the cross, ready to fulfill the holy office that necessity had entrusted to him.

And something mournful and touching was it. The early dawn of day light doubtfully illumined the alcove; the dishevelled head of Genevieve was bent towards the grizzled head of Mathieu; and one might have heard the murmur of that supremest confidence carried on in lowered voice, often interrupted by the failure of the dying woman's strength, or by the seaman's entreaties that she would curtail it. But she persisted in resuming it, with the determination peculiar to those severe consciences which are never satisfied with their self-accusations. At length, when she had concluded, Ropars detached the ivory crucifix from the head of the bed; he approached it to the lips of Genevieve, and placing his hand upon her brow with mournful solemnity,

--"May G.o.d pardon thee as I do to the utmost of my power," said he; "and if it be not his will that thou shouldst live for my happiness, may he provide for thee a place in his Paradise!"

Her face a.s.sumed an expression of ineffable serenity.

--"Thanks," murmured she; "your absolution shall prevail before the Trinity, Mathieu; now I feel at peace."

A ray of sunlight creeping in through the window-curtain reached her bed; she turned round.

--"It is day," continued she; "I did not hope to see another.... G.o.d has given me a respite!... He is willing that I should taste of the latest joy that I looked for upon earth ... nor will you refuse it to me, Mathieu?"

--"Ask it, Genevieve," said the mariner; "what man can do, I will do."

She took his hand and looked at him.

--"You have told me, haven't you, that cousin could see and make out your signals?"

--"Yes, and it is true."

--"Then by all the affection you bear me, Mathieu, I beseech you to signalize him at once to bring Francine out upon his terrace; when she is there, you will take me in your arms, you will carry me to the high rock, and if G.o.d grant me grace, I shall reach it with still life enough left to see my child once more, and to embrace her in spirit."

--"It shall be done so as you desire, Genevieve," said the quarter-master, who, impressed by the presentiments of the dying one, had abandoned hope, and had not strength to refuse her anything.

--"Quickly, then, very quickly!... for I feel that G.o.d is calling me."

Ropars rushed out, as though he feared there would scarcely be time; but he came in again almost in a moment, exclaiming that Francine was already on the terrace of the magazine with Dorot. Stretching out her hands to him, the dying woman uttered a feeble cry of joy. He wrapped her up in his winter-cape, and carried her gently in his arms as far as the parapet of their platform.

--"Where is she?" inquired Genevieve, her eyes blinded by the light of day, and trying in vain to look steadily; "I can't make out anything, Mathieu! where is the child: show me the child!"

--"Look down there at our feet," replied the seaman; "can you see the high rock?"

--"Yes."

--"Can you follow the bubbling of the sea along the reef?"

--"Yes, yes."

--"And away, yonder, over the reefs, can you distinguish the stone-work of the terrace?"

--"Down there? ... no ... there's only a cloud! I can see nothing....

Oh! if it be too late!... if she be there under my very eyes, and I can no longer see her!... My G.o.d, my G.o.d, once more, only once, let me see my child!"

These words, or rather these mother's cries, had been so full of sadness, that Ropars could not restrain his tears. He seated his sinking wife upon the parapet, and himself kneeled down to support her.

--"Courage, Genevieve!" he stammered out; "look well to this side ...

between the line of the sea and the sky."