Thereupon silence reigned once more; but between the two dead bodies and the half-dead assistant, whom the cold floor did not restore to consciousness for more than an hour, Germinie and the other women who were still alive in the room lay quiet, not daring even to ring the bell that hung beside each bed to call for help.
Thereafter La Maternité was the scene of one of those terrible puerperal epidemics which breathe death upon human fecundity, of one of those cases of atmospheric poisoning which empty, in a twinkling and by whole rows, the beds of women lately delivered, and which once caused the closing of La Clinique. They believed that it was a visitation of the plague, a plague that turns the face black in a few hours, carries all before it and snatches up the youngest and the strongest, a plague that issues from the cradle—the Black Plague of mothers! All about Germinie, at all hours, especially at night, women were dying such deaths as the milk-fever causes, deaths that seemed to violate all nature’s laws, agonizing deaths, accompanied by wild shrieks and troubled by hallucinations and delirium, death agonies that compelled the application of the strait-waistcoat, death agonies that caused the victims to leap suddenly from their beds, carrying the clothes with them, and causing the whole room to shudder at the thought that they were dead bodies from the amphitheatre! Life departed as if it were torn from the body. The very disease assumed a ghastly shape and monstrous aspect. The bedclothes were lifted in the centre by the swelling caused by peritonitis, producing a vague, horrifying effect in the lamplight.
For five days Germinie, lying swathed and bandaged in her bed, closing her eyes and ears as best she could, had the strength to combat all these horrors, and yielded to them only at long intervals. She was determined to live, and she clung to her strength by thinking of her child and of mademoiselle. But, on the sixth day, her energy was exhausted, her courage forsook her. A cold wave flowed into her heart. She said to herself that it was all over. The hand that death lays upon one’s shoulder, the presentiment of death, was already touching her. She felt the first breath of the epidemic, the belief that she was its destined victim, and the impression that she was already half-possessed by it. Although unresigned, she succumbed. Her life, vanquished beforehand, hardly made an effort to struggle. At that crisis a head bent over her pillow, like a ray of light.
It was the head of the youngest of the pupil-assistants, a fair head, with long golden locks and blue eyes so soft and sweet that the dying saw heaven opening its gates therein. When they saw her, delirious women said: “Look! the Blessed Virgin!”
“My child,” she said to Germinie, “you must ask for your discharge at once. You must go away from here. You must dress warmly. You must wrap up well. As soon as you’re at home and in bed, you must take a hot draught of something or other. You must try to take a sweat. Then, it won’t do you any harm. But go away from here. It wouldn’t be healthy for you here tonight,” she said, glancing around at the beds. “Don’t say that I told you to go: you would get me discharged if you should.”
XXI
Germinie recovered in a few days. The joy and pride of having given birth to a tiny creature in whom her flesh was mingled with the flesh of the man she loved, the bliss of being a mother, saved her from the natural results of a confinement in which she did not receive proper care. She was restored to health and had an apparent pleasure in living that her mistress had never before seen her manifest.
Every Sunday, no matter what the weather might be, she left the house about eleven o’clock; mademoiselle believed that she went to see a friend in the country, and was delighted that her maid derived so much benefit from these days passed in the open air. Germinie would capture Jupillon, who allowed himself to be taken in tow without too much resistance, and they would start for Pommeuse where the child was, and where a good breakfast ordered by the mother awaited them. Once in the carriage on the Mulhouse railway, Germinie would not speak or reply when spoken to. She would lean out of the window, and all her thoughts seemed to be upon what lay before her. She gazed, as if her longing were striving to outrun the steam. The train would hardly have stopped before she had leaped out, tossed her ticket to the ticket-taker, and started at a run on the Pommeuse road, leaving Jupillon behind. She drew nearer and nearer, she could see the house, she was there: yes, there was the child! She would pounce upon her, snatch her from the nurse’s arms with jealous hands—a mother’s hands!—hug her, strain her to her heart, kiss her, devour her with kisses and looks and smiles! She would gaze admiringly at her for an instant and then, distraught
