The baroness1 and Aubertin were just getting out of their carriage,when suddenly they heard shrieks2 of terror in the Pleasaunce. Theycame with quaking hearts as fast as their old limbs would carrythem. They found Rose and Josephine crouched3 over the body of aman, an officer.
Rose was just tearing open his collar and jacket. Dard and Jacinthahad run from the kitchen at the screams. Camille lay on his back,white and motionless.
The doctor was the first to come up. "Who! what is this? I seem toknow his face." Then shaking his head, "Whoever it is, it is a badcase. Stand away, ladies. Let me feel his pulse."Whilst the old man was going stiffly down on one knee, Jacinthauttered a cry of terror. "See, see! his shirt! that red streak4!
Ah, ah! it is getting bigger and bigger:" and she turned faint in amoment, and would have fallen but for Dard.
The doctor looked. "All the better," said he firmly. "I thought hewas dead. His blood flows; then I will save him. Don't clutch meso, Josephine; don't cling to me like that. Now is the time to showyour breed: not turn sick at the sight of a little blood, like thatfoolish creature, but help me save him.""Take him in-doors," cried the baroness.
"Into our house, mamma?" gasped5 Rose; "no, no.""What," said the baroness, "a wounded soldier who has fought forFrance! leave him to lie and die outside my door: what would my sonsay to that? He is a soldier himself."Rose cast a hasty look at Josephine. Josephine's eyes were bent6 onthe ground, and her hands clenched7 and trembling.
"Now, Jacintha, you be off," said the doctor. "I can't have cowardsabout him to make the others as bad. Go and stew8 down a piece ofgood beef for him. Stew it in red wine and water.""That I will: poor thing!""Why, I know him," said the baroness suddenly; "it is an oldacquaintance, young Dujardin: you remember, Josephine. I used tosuspect him of a fancy for you, poor fellow! Why, he must have comehere to see us, poor soul.""No matter who it is; it is a man. Now, girls, have you courage,have you humanity? Then come one on each side of him and take handsbeneath his back, while I lift his head and Dard his legs.""And handle him gently whatever you do," said Dard. "I know what itis to be wounded."These four carried the lifeless burden very slowly and gently acrossthe Pleasaunce to the house, then with more difficulty and cautionup the stairs.
All the while the sisters' hands griped one another tight beneaththe lifeless burden, and spoke9 to one another. And Josephine's armupheld tenderly but not weakly the hero she had struck down. Sheavoided Rose's eye, her mother's, and even the doctor's: one gaspingsob escaped her as she walked with head half averted10, and vacant,terror-stricken eyes, and her victim on her sustaining arm.
The doctor selected the tapestried11 chamber12 for him as being mostairy. Then he ordered the women out, and with Dard's help undressedthe still insensible patient.
Josephine sat down on the stairs in gloomy silence, her eyes on theground, like one waiting for her deathblow.
Rose, sick at heart, sat silent too at some distance. At last shesaid faintly, "Have we done well?""I don't know," said Josephine doggedly13. Her eyes never left theground.
"We could not let him die for want of care.""He will not thank us. Better for him to die than live. Better forme."At this instant Dard came running down. "Good news, mesdemoiselles,good news! the wound runs all along; it is not deep, like mine was.
He has opened his eyes and shut them again. The dear good doctorstopped the blood in a twinkle. The doctor says he'll be bound tosave him. I must run and tell Jacintha. She is taking on in thekitchen."Josephine, who had risen eagerly from her despairing posture,clasped her hands together, then lifted up her voice and wept. "Hewill live! he will live!"When she had wept a long while, she said to Rose, "Come, sister,help your poor Josephine.""Yes, love, what shall we do?""My duty," faltered14 Josephine. "An hour ago it seemed so sweet,"and she fell to weeping patiently again. They went to Josephine'sroom. She crept slowly to a wardrobe, and took out a gray silkdress.
"Oh, never mind for to-day," cried Rose.
"Help me, Rose. It is for myself as well; to remind me every momentI am Madame Raynal."They put the gray gown on her, both weeping patiently. It will beknown at the last day, all that honest women have suffered weepingsilently in this noisy world.
Camille soon recovered his senses and a portion of his strength:
then the irritation15 of his wound brought on fever. This in turnretired before the doctor's remedies and a sound constitution, butit left behind it a great weakness and general prostration16. And inthis state the fate of the body depends greatly on the mind.
The baroness and the doctor went constantly to see him, and soothehim: he smiled and thanked them, but his eager eyes watched the doorfor one who came not.
When he got well enough to leave his bed the largest couch was sentup to him from the saloon; a kind hand lined the baron's silkdressing-gown for him warm and soft and nice; and he would sit orlie on his couch, or take two turns in the room leaning upon Rose'sshoulder, and glad of the support; and he looked piteously in hereyes when she came and when she went. Rose looked down; she coulddo nothing, she could say nothing.
With his strength, Camille lost a portion of his pride: he pined fora sight of her he no longer respected; pined for her, as the thirstypine for water in Sahara.
At last one day he spoke out. "How kind you are to me, Rose! howkind you all are--but one."He waited in hopes she would say something, but she held her tongue.
"At least tell me why it is. Is she ashamed? Is she afraid?""Neither.""She hates me: it is true, then, that we hate those whom we havewounded. Cruel, cruel Josephine! Oh, heart of marble against whichmy heart has wrecked17 itself forever!""No, no! She is anything but cruel: but she is Madame Raynal.""Ah! I forgot. But have I no claim on her? Nearly four years shehas been my betrothed18. What have I done? Was I ever false to her?
I could forgive her for what she has done to me, but she cannotforgive me. Does she mean never to see me again?""Ask yourself what good could come of it.""Very well," said Camille, with a malicious19 smile. "I am in herway. I see what she wants; she shall have it."Rose carried these words to Josephine. They went through her like asword.
Rose pitied her. Rose had a moment's weakness.
"Let us go to him," she said; "anything is better than this.""Rose, I dare not," was the wise reply.
But the next day early, Josephine took Rose to a door outside thehouse, a door that had long been disused. Nettles20 grew before it.
She produced a key and with great difficulty opened this door. Itled to the tapestried chamber, and years ago they used to steal upit and peep into the room.
Rose scarcely needed to be told that she was to watch Camille, andreport to her. In truth, it was a mysterious, vague protectionagainst a danger equally mysterious. Yet it made Josephine easier.
But so unflinching was her prudence21 that she never once could beprevailed on to mount those stairs, and peep at Camille herself. "Imust starve my heart, not feed it," said she. And she grew palerand more hollow-eyed day by day.
Yet this was the same woman who showed such feebleness andirresolution when Raynal pressed her to marry him. But then dwarfsfeebly drew her this way and that. Now giants fought for her.
Between a feeble inclination22 and a feeble disinclination her deadheart had drifted to and fro. Now honor, duty, gratitude,--whichlast with her was a passion,--dragged her one way: love, pity, andremorse another.
Not one of these giants would relax his grasp, and nothing yieldedexcept her vital powers. Yes; her temper, one of the loveliestHeaven ever gave a human creature, was soured at times.
Was it a wonder? There lay the man she loved pining for her;cursing her for her cruelty, and alternately praying Heaven toforgive him and to bless her: sighing, at intervals23, all the daylong, so loud, so deep, so piteously, as if his heart broke witheach sigh; and sometimes, for he little knew, poor soul, that anyhuman eye was upon him, casting aside his manhood in his despair,and flinging himself on the very floor, and muffling24 his head, andsobbing; he a hero.
And here was she pining in secret for him who pined for her? "I amnot a woman at all," said she, who was all woman. "I am crueller tohim than a tiger or any savage25 creature is to the victim she tears.
I must cure him of his love for me; and then die; for what shall Ihave to live for? He weeps, he sighs, he cries for Josephine."Her enforced cruelty was more contrary to this woman's nature thanblack is to white, or heat to cold, and the heart rebelled furiouslyat times. As when a rock tries to stem a current, the water fightsits way on more sides than one, so insulted nature dealt withJosephine. Not only did her body pine, but her nerves wereexasperated. Sudden twitches26 came over her, that almost made herscream. Her permanent state was utter despondency, but across itcame fitful flashes of irritation; and then she was scarce mistressof herself.
Wherefore you, who find some holy woman cross and bitter, stop amoment before you sum her up vixen and her religion naught27: inquirethe history of her heart: perhaps beneath the smooth cold surface ofduties well discharged, her life has been, or even is, a battleagainst some self-indulgence the insignificant28 saint's very bloodcries out for: and so the poor thing is cross, not because she isbad, but because she is better than the rest of us; yet only human.
Now though Josephine was more on her guard with the baroness thanwith Rose, or the doctor, or Jacintha, her state could notaltogether escape the vigilance of a mother's eye.
But the baroness had not the clew we have; and what a differencethat makes! How small an understanding, put by accident orinstruction on the right track, shall run the game down! How greata sagacity shall wander if it gets on a false scent29!
"Doctor," said the baroness one day, "you are so taken up with yourpatient you neglect the rest of us. Do look at Josephine! She isill, or going to be ill. She is so pale, and so fretful, sopeevish, which is not in her nature. Would you believe it, doctor,she snaps?""Our Josephine snap? This is new.""And snarls30.""Then look for the end of the world.""The other day I heard her snap Rose: and this morning she halfsnarled at me, just because I pressed her to go and console ourpatient. Hush31! here she is. My child, I am accusing you to thedoctor. I tell him you neglect his patient: never go near him.""I will visit him one of these days," said Josephine, coldly.
"One of these days," said the baroness, shocked. "You used not tobe so hard-hearted. A soldier, an old comrade of your husband's,wounded and sick, and you alone never go to him, to console him witha word of sympathy or encouragement."Josephine looked at her mother with a sort of incredulous stare.
Then, after a struggle, she replied with a tone and manner sospiteful and icy that it would have deceived even us who know herhad we heard it. "He has plenty of nurses without me." She added,almost violently, "My husband, if he were wounded, would not have somany, perhaps not have one."With this she rose and went out, leaving them aghast. She sat downin the passage on a window-seat, and laughed hysterically32. Roseheard her and ran to her. Josephine told her what her mother hadsaid to her. Rose soothed33 her. "Never mind, you have your sisterwho understands you: don't you go back till they have got some othertopic."Rose out of curiosity went in, and found a discussion going on. Thedoctor was fathoming34 Josephine, for the benefit of his companion.
"It is a female jealousy35, and of a mighty36 innocent kind. We are sotaken up with this poor fellow, she thinks her soldier is forgotten.""Surely, doctor, our Josephine would not be so unreasonable37, sounjust," suggested her mother.
"She belongs to a sex, be it said without offending you, madame,among whose numberless virtues38 justice does not fill a prominentplace."The baroness shook her head. "That is not it. It is a piece ofprudery. This young gentleman was a sort of admirer of hers, thoughshe did not admire him much, as far as I remember. But it was fouryears ago; and she is married to a man she loves, or is going tolove.""Well, but, mamma, a trifling39 excess of delicacy40 is surelyexcusable." This from Rose.
"No, no; it is not delicacy; it is prudery. And when people aresick and suffering, an honest woman should take up her charity andlay down her prudery, or her coquetry: two things that I suspect arethe same thing in different shapes."Here Jacintha came in. "Mademoiselle, here is the colonel's broth;Madame Raynal has flavored it for him, and you are to take it up tohim, and keep him company while he eats it.""Come," cried the baroness, "my lecture has not been lost."Rose followed Jacintha up-stairs.
Rose was heart and head on Raynal's side.
She had deceived him about Josephine's attachment41, and felt all themore desirous to guard him against any ill consequences of it. Thenhe had been so generous to her: he had left her her sister, whowould have gone to Egypt, and escaped this misery42, but for her.
But on the other hand,--Gentle pityTugged at her heartstrings with complaining cries.
This watching of Camille saddened even her. When she was with himhis pride bore him up: but when he was alone as he thought, hisanguish and despair were terrible, and broke out in so many waysthat often Rose shrank in terror from her peep hole.
She dared not tell Josephine the half of what she saw: what she didtell her agitated43 her so terribly: and often Rose had it on the tipof her tongue to say, "Do pray go and see if you can say nothingthat will do him good;" but she fought the impulse down. Thisbattle of feeling, though less severe than her sister's, wasconstant; it destroyed her gayety. She, whose merry laugh used toring like chimes through the house, never laughed now, seldomsmiled, and often sighed.
Dr. Aubertin was the last to succumb44 to the deep depression, but histime came: and he had been for a day or two as grave and as sad asthe rest, when one day that Rose was absent, spying on Camille, hetook the baroness and Josephine into his confidence; andcondescended finally to ask their advice.
"It is humiliating," said he, "after all my experience, to beobliged to consult unprofessional persons. Forty years ago I shouldhave been TOO WISE to do so. But since then I have often seenscience baffled and untrained intelligences throw light upon hardquestions: and your sex in particular has luminous45 instincts andreads things by flashes that we men miss with a microscope. Ourdear Madame Raynal suspected that plausible46 notary47, and to this dayI believe she could not tell us why."Josephine admitted as much very frankly48.
"There you see," said the doctor. "Well, then, you must help me inthis case. And this time I promise to treat your art with morerespect.""And pray who is it she is to read now?" asked the baroness.
"Who should it be but my poor patient? He puzzles me. I never knewa patient so faint-hearted.""A soldier faint-hearted!" exclaimed the baroness. "To be surethese men that storm cities, and fire cannon49, and cut and hack50 oneanother with so much spirit, are poor creatures compared with uswhen they have to lie quiet and suffer."The doctor walked the room in great excitement. "It is not hiswound that is killing51 him, there's something on his mind. You,Josephine, with your instincts do help me: do pray, for pity's sake,throw off that sublime52 indifference53 you have manifested all along tothis man's fate.""She has not," cried the baroness, firing up. "Did I not see herlining his dressing-gown for him? and she inspects everything thathe eats: do you not?""Yes, mother." She then suggested in a faltering54 voice that timewould cure the patient, and time alone.
"Time! you speak as if time was a quality: time is only a measure ofevents, favorable or unfavorable; it kills as many as it cures.""Why, you surely would not imply his life is in any danger?" Thiswas the baroness.
"Madame, if the case was not grave, should I take this unusual step?
I tell you if some change does not take place soon, he will be adead man in another fortnight. That is all TIME will do for him."The baroness uttered an exclamation55 of pity and distress56. Josephineput her hand to her bosom57, and a creeping horror came over her, andthen a faintness. She sat working mechanically, and turning likeice within. After a few minutes of this, she rose with everyappearance of external composure and left the room. In the passageshe met Rose coming hastily towards the salon58 laughing: the firsttime she had laughed this many a day. Oh, what a contrast betweenthe two faces that met there--the one pale and horror stricken, theother rosy59 and laughing!
"Well, dear, at last I am paid for all my trouble, and yours, by adiscovery; he never drinks a drop of his medicine; he pours it intothe ashes under the grate; I caught him in the fact.""Then this is too much: I can resist no longer. Come with me," saidJosephine doggedly.
"Where?""To him."
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baroness
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| n.男爵夫人，女男爵 | |
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shrieks
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| n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 ) | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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gasped
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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stew
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| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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tapestried
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| adj.饰挂绣帷的，织在绣帷上的v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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doggedly
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faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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irritation
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prostration
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wrecked
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betrothed
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malicious
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nettles
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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intervals
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muffling
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| v.压抑，捂住( muffle的现在分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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twitches
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naught
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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scent
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snarls
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| n.（动物的）龇牙低吼( snarl的名词复数 )；愤怒叫嚷（声）；咆哮（声）；疼痛叫声v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的第三人称单数 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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hush
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hysterically
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soothed
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fathoming
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jealousy
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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luminous
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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notary
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| n.公证人，公证员 | |
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frankly
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cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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hack
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| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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56
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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57
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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58
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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59
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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