The carriage brings me to the hospital of St. Louis. On the way, in the Rue de Rennes, I get out in order to buy two white shirts. The winding-sheet for the last hour! I really expect a speedy death, without being able to say why.
In the hospital I am forbidden to go out without leave; besides, my hands are so wrapped up that all occupation is impossible to me; I feel therefore like a prisoner. My room is bare, contains only the most necessary things, and has nothing attractive about it. It lies near the public sitting-room, where from morning to evening they smoke and play cards. The bell rings for breakfast. As I sit down at the table I find myself in a frightful company of death’s-heads. Here a nose is wanting, there an eye; there the lips hang down, here the cheek is ulcered. Two of them do not look sick, but show in their faces gloom and despair. These are “kleptomaniacs” of high social rank, who, because of their powerful connections, have escaped prison by being declared irresponsible.
An unpleasant smell of iodoform takes away my appetite. Since my hands are muffled I must ask the help of my neighbour for cutting bread and pouring out wine. Round this banquet of criminals and those condemned to death goes the good Mother, the Superintendent, in her severe black and white dress, and gives each of us his poisonous medicine. With a glass holding arsenic I drink to a death’s-head who pledges me in digitalis. That is gruesome, and yet one must be thankful! That makes me wild. To have to be thankful for something so petty and unpleasant!
They dress me, and undress me, and look after me like a child. The kind sister takes a fancy to me, treats me like a baby, calls me “my child,” while I call her “mother.”
But it does me good to be able to say this word “mother,” which has not passed my lips for thirty years. The old lady, an Augustine nun, who wears the garb of the dead, because she has never lived, is mild as resignation itself, and teaches us to smile at our sufferings as though they were joys, for she knows the beneficial effects of pain. She does not utter a word of reproof nor admonition nor sermonising.
She knows the regulations of the ordinary hospitals so well that she can allow small liberties to the patients, though not to herself. She permits me to smoke in my room, and offers to make my cigarettes herself; this, however, I decline. She procures for me permission to go out beyond the regulated limits of time. When she discovers that I am actively interested in chemistry, she takes me to the learned apothecary of the hospital. He lends me books, and invites me, when I acquaint him with my theory of the composite character of so-called simple bodies, to work in his laboratory. This nun has had a great influence on my life. I begin to reconcile myself again to my lot, and value the happy mischance which has brought me under this kindly roof.
The first book which I take out of the apothecary’s library opens of itself, and my glance fastens like a falcon’s on a line in the chapter headed “Phosphorus.” The author states briefly that the scientific chemist, Lockyer, has demonstrated by spectral analysis that phosphorus is not a simple body, and that his report of his experiments has been submitted to the Parisian Academy of Science, which has not been able to refute his proofs.
Encouraged by this unexpected support, I take my saucepans with the not completely consumed remains of sulphur, and submit them to a bureau for chemical analysis, which promises to give me their report the next morning.
It is my birthday. When I return to the hospital I find a letter from my wife. She laments my misfortune, and she wants to join me, to look after me and love me.
The happiness of feeling myself loved in spite of everything awakes in me the need of thankfulness. But to whom? To the Unknown, who has remained hidden for so many years?
My heart smites me, I confess the unworthy falsehood of my supposed infidelity, I ask for forgiveness, and before I am aware of it, I write again a love-letter to my wife. But I postpone our meeting to a more favourable time.
The next morning I hasten to my chemist on the Boulevard Magenta, and bring his analysis of my powder in a closed cover back to the hospital. When I come to the statue of St. Louis in the courtyard of the institution, I think of the Quinze-Vingt,3 the Sorbonne, and the Sainte Chapelle, these three buildings founded by the Saint, which I interpret to mean—“From suffering, through knowledge, to repentance.”
Arrived at my room, I shut the doors carefully, and at last open the paper which is to decide my destiny. The contents are as follows; “The powder submitted to our analysis has three properties—Colour: grey-blacky leaves marks on paper. Density: very great, greater than the average density of graphite; it seems to be a harder kind of graphite. The powder burns easily, releasing oxide of carbon and carbonic acid. It therefore contains carbon.”
Pure sulphur contains carbon!
I am saved. From henceforth I can prove to my friends and relations that I am no fool. I can establish the theories which I propounded a year ago in my Antibarbarus, a work which the reviews treated as that of a charlatan or madman, making my family consequently thrust me out as a good-for-nothing, or Cagliostro. My opponents are pulverised! My heart beats in righteous pride; I will leave the hospital, shout in the streets, bellow before the Institute, pull down the Sorbonne! …
