A Love Episode | Page 5

as if bent in two. But she fell back again and began
tossing from one side of the bed to the other. Her fists were clenched,
her thumbs bent against the palms of her hands. At times she would
open the latter, and, with fingers wide apart, grasp at phantom bodies in
the air, as though to twist them. She touched her mother's shawl and
fiercely clung to it. But Helene's greatest grief was that she no longer
recognized her daughter. The suffering angel, whose face was usually
so sweet, was transformed in every feature, while her eyes swam,
showing balls of a nacreous blue.
"Oh, do something, I implore you!" she murmured. "My strength is
exhausted, sir."
She had just remembered how the child of a neighbor at Marseilles had
died of suffocation in a similar fit. Perhaps from feelings of pity the
doctor was deceiving her. Every moment she believed she felt Jeanne's
last breath against her face; for the child's halting respiration seemed
suddenly to cease. Heartbroken and overwhelmed with terror, Helene
then burst into tears, which fell on the body of her child, who had
thrown off the bedclothes.
The doctor meantime was gently kneading the base of the neck with his
long supple fingers. Gradually the fit subsided, and Jeanne, after a few
slight twitches, lay there motionless. She had fallen back in the middle
of the bed, with limbs outstretched, while her head, supported by the
pillow, inclined towards her bosom. One might have thought her an
infant Jesus. Helene stooped and pressed a long kiss on her brow.
"Is it over?" she asked in a whisper. "Do you think she'll have another
fit?"

The doctor made an evasive gesture, and then replied:
"In any case the others will be less violent."
He had asked Rosalie for a glass and water-bottle. Half-filling the glass
with water, he took up two fresh medicine phials, and counted out a
number of drops. Helene assisted in raising the child's head, and the
doctor succeeded in pouring a spoonful of the liquid between the
clenched teeth. The white flame of the lamp was leaping up high and
clear, revealing the disorder of the chamber's furnishings. Helene's
garments, thrown on the back of an arm-chair before she slipped into
bed, had now fallen, and were littering the carpet. The doctor had
trodden on her stays, and had picked them up lest he might again find
them in his way. An odor of vervain stole through the room. The doctor
himself went for the basin, and soaked a linen cloth in it, which he then
pressed to Jeanne's temples.
"Oh, madame, you'll take cold!" expostulated Rosalie as she stood there
shivering. "Perhaps the window might be shut? The air is too raw."
"No, no!" cried Helene; "leave the window open. Should it not be so?"
she appealed to the doctor.
The wind entered in slight puffs, rustling the curtains to and fro; but she
was quite unconscious of it. Yet the shawl had slipped off her shoulders,
and her hair had become unwound, some wanton tresses sweeping
down to her hips. She had left her arms free and uncovered, that she
might be the more ready; she had forgotten all, absorbed entirely in her
love for her child. And on his side, the doctor, busy with his work, no
longer thought of his unbuttoned coat, or of the shirt-collar that
Jeanne's clutch had torn away.
"Raise her up a little," said he to Helene. "No, no, not in that way! Give
me your hand."
He took her hand and placed it under the child's head. He wished to
give Jeanne another spoonful of the medicine. Then he called Helene
close to him, made use of her as his assistant; and she obeyed him

reverently on seeing that her daughter was already more calm.
"Now, come," he said. "You must let her head lean against your
shoulder, while I listen."
Helene did as he bade her, and he bent over her to place his ear against
Jeanne's bosom. He touched her bare shoulder with his cheek, and as
the pulsation of the child's heart struck his ear he could also have heard
the throbbing of the mother's breast. As he rose up his breath mingled
with Helene's.
"There is nothing wrong there," was the quiet remark that filled her
with delight. "Lay her down again. We must not worry her more."
However, another, though much less violent, paroxysm followed. From
Jeanne's lips burst some broken words. At short intervals two fresh
attacks seemed about to convulse her, and then a great prostration,
which again appeared to alarm the doctor, fell on the child. He had
placed her so that her head lay high, with the clothes carefully tucked
under her chin; and for