A Love Episode | Page 3

the pulse and the heart's action seemed to have
died away. The child's puny arms and legs were stretched out
convulsively, and the mother grew frantic at the sight.
"My child is dying! Help, help!" she stammered. "My child! my child!"
She wandered back to her room, brushing against the furniture, and
unconscious of her movements; then, distracted, she again returned to
the little bed, throwing herself on her knees, and ever appealing for
help. She took Jeanne in her arms, rained kisses on her hair, and
stroked her little body, begging her to answer, and seeking one word
--only one word--from her silent lips. Where was the pain? Would she
have some of the cooling drink she had liked the other day? Perhaps the
fresh air would revive her? So she rattled on, bent on making the child
speak.
"Speak to me, Jeanne! speak to me, I entreat you!"
Oh, God! and not to know what to do in this sudden terror born of the
night! There was no light even. Then her ideas grew confused, though

her supplications to the child continued--at one moment she was
beseeching, at another answering in her own person. Thus, the pain
gripped her in the stomach; no, no, it must be in the breast. It was
nothing at all; she need merely keep quiet. Then Helene tried to collect
her scattered senses; but as she felt her daughter stark and stiff in her
embrace, her heart sickened unto death. She tried to reason with herself,
and to resist the yearning to scream. But all at once, despite herself, her
cry rang out
"Rosalie, Rosalie! my child is dying. Quick, hurry for the doctor."
Screaming out these words, she ran through dining-room and kitchen to
a room in the rear, where the maid started up from sleep, giving vent to
her surprise. Helene speeded back again. Clad only in her night-dress
she moved about, seemingly not feeling the icy cold of the February
night. Pah! this maid would loiter, and her child would die! Back again
she hurried through the kitchen to the bedroom before a minute had
elapsed. Violently, and in the dark, she slipped on a petticoat, and
threw a shawl over her shoulders. The furniture in her way was
overturned; the room so still and silent was filled with the echoes of her
despair. Then leaving the doors open, she rushed down three flights of
stairs in her slippers, consumed with the thought that she alone could
bring back a doctor.
After the house-porter had opened the door Helene found herself upon
the pavement, with a ringing in her ears and her mind distracted.
However, she quickly ran down the Rue Vineuse and pulled the
door-bell of Doctor Bodin, who had already tended Jeanne; but a
servant--after an interval which seemed an eternity--informed her that
the doctor was attending a woman in childbed. Helene remained
stupefied on the footway; she knew no other doctor in Passy. For a few
moments she rushed about the streets, gazing at the houses. A slight but
keen wind was blowing, and she was walking in slippers through the
light snow that had fallen during the evening. Ever before her was her
daughter, with the agonizing thought that she was killing her by not
finding a doctor at once. Then, as she retraced her steps along the Rue
Vineuse, she rang the bell of another house. She would inquire, at all

events; some one would perhaps direct her. She gave a second tug at
the bell; but no one seemed to come. The wind meanwhile played with
her petticoat, making it cling to her legs, and tossed her dishevelled
hair.
At last a servant answered her summons. "Doctor Deberle was in bed
asleep." It was a doctor's house at which she had rung, so Heaven had
not abandoned her! Straightway, intent upon entering, she pushed the
servant aside, still repeating her prayer:
"My child, my child is dying! Oh, tell him he must come!"
The house was small and seemed full of hangings. She reached the first
floor, despite the servant's opposition, always answering his protest
with the words, "My child is dying!" In the apartment she entered she
would have been content to wait; but the moment she heard the doctor
stirring in the next room she drew near and appealed to him through the
doorway:
"Oh, sir, come at once, I beseech you. My child is dying!"
When the doctor at last appeared in a short coat and without a
neckcloth, she dragged him away without allowing him to finish
dressing. He at once recognized her as a resident in the next-door house,
and one of his own tenants; so when he induced her to cross a
garden--to shorten the way by using a side-door