The Atheists Mass | Page 8

greater than his.
He looked after me, he called me his boy, he lent me money to buy
books, he would come in softly sometimes to watch me at work, and
took a mother's care in seeing that I had wholesome and abundant food,
instead of the bad and insufficient nourishment I had been condemned
to. Bourgeat, a man of about forty, had a homely, mediaeval type of
face, a prominent forehead, a head that a painter might have chosen as a
model for that of Lycurgus. The poor man's heart was big with
affections seeking an object; he had never been loved but by a poodle
that had died some time since, of which he would talk to me, asking
whether I thought the Church would allow masses to be said for the
repose of its soul. His dog, said he, had been a good Christian, who for
twelve years had accompanied him to church, never barking, listening
to the organ without opening his mouth, and crouching beside him in a
way that made it seem as though he were praying too.
"This man centered all his affections in me; he looked upon me as a
forlorn and suffering creature, and he became, to me, the most
thoughtful mother, the most considerate benefactor, the ideal of the
virtue which rejoices in its own work. When I met him in the street, he
would throw me a glance of intelligence full of unutterable dignity; he
would affect to walk as though he carried no weight, and seemed happy
in seeing me in good health and well dressed. It was, in fact, the
devoted affection of the lower classes, the love of a girl of the people
transferred to a loftier level. Bourgeat did all my errands, woke me at
night at any fixed hour, trimmed my lamp, cleaned our landing; as good
as a servant as he was as a father, and as clean as an English girl. He
did all the housework. Like Philopoemen, he sawed our wood, and
gave to all he did the grace of simplicity while preserving his dignity,
for he seemed to understand that the end ennobles every act.

"When I left this good fellow, to be house surgeon at the Hotel-Dieu, I
felt an indescribable, dull pain, knowing that he could no longer live
with me; but he comforted himself with the prospect of saving up
money enough for me to take my degree, and he made me promise to
go to see him whenever I had a day out: Bourgeat was proud of me. He
loved me for my own sake, and for his own. If you look up my thesis,
you will see that I dedicated it to him.
"During the last year of my residence as house surgeon I earned enough
to repay all I owed to this worthy Auvergnat by buying him a barrel
and a horse. He was furious with rage at learning that I had been
depriving myself of spending my money, and yet he was delighted to
see his wishes fulfilled; he laughed and scolded, he looked at his barrel,
at his horse, and wiped away a tear, as he said, 'It is too bad. What a
splendid barrel! You really ought not. Why, that horse is as strong as an
Auvergnat!'
"I never saw a more touching scene. Bourgeat insisted on buying for
me the case of instruments mounted in silver which you have seen in
my room, and which is to me the most precious thing there. Though
enchanted with my first success, never did the least sign, the least word,
escape him which might imply, 'This man owes all to me!' And yet, but
for him, I should have died of want; he had eaten bread rubbed with
garlic that I might have coffee to enable me to sit up at night.
"He fell ill. As you may suppose, I passed my nights by his bedside,
and the first time I pulled him through; but two years after he had a
relapse; in spite of the utmost care, in spite of the greatest exertions of
science, he succumbed. No king was ever nursed as he was. Yes,
Bianchon, to snatch that man from death I tried unheard-of things. I
wanted him to live long enough to show him his work accomplished, to
realize all his hopes, to give expression to the only need for gratitude
that ever filled my heart, to quench a fire that burns in me to this day.
"Bourgeat, my second father, died in my arms," Desplein went on, after
a pause, visibly moved. "He left me everything he possessed by a will
he had had made by a public scrivener, dating from the year when we
had gone to live in