“Henriette,” said I, “go and take some rest, I entreat you.”
“Henriette no more!” she said, interrupting me with imperious haste.
“Go to bed, or you will be ill. Your children, he himself would desire you to spare yourself. There are times when selfishness is a sublime virtue.”
“Yes,” said she.
And she went, urging me to watch her husband, by gestures that might have seemed to indicate approaching delirium if the grace of childhood had not mingled with the passionate entreaty of repentance.
This scene, frightful as compared with the usual state of this placid soul, alarmed me; I feared the extravagance of her conscience. When the doctor next came, I explained to him the scruples, as of a sacred ermine, that were tormenting my spotless Henriette. This confidence, though very guarded, dispelled Monsieur Origet’s suspicions, and he soothed the terrors of that sweet soul by assuring her that, from whatever cause, the Count must have had this violent attack, and that the chill he had taken under the walnut-tree had been beneficial rather than injurious by bringing it on.
For fifty-two days the Count hovered between life and death. Henriette and I sat up with him in turn, each for twenty-six nights. Monsieur de Mortsauf undoubtedly owed his recovery to our care, and the scrupulous exactitude with which we carried out Monsieur Origet’s instructions. Like all philosophical doctors, whose shrewd observation justifies them in doubting a noble action, even when it is merely the secret fulfilment of a duty, this man, while noticing the rivalry of heroism between me and the Countess, could not help watching us with inquisitive eyes, so fearful was he of being cheated of his admiration.
“In such a case as this,” said he on the occasion of his third visit, “death finds a ready auxiliary in the mind when it is so seriously affected as that of the Count. The doctor, the nurse, those who are about the patient hold his life in their hands; for a single word, a mere gesture of apprehension, may be as fatal as poison.”
As he spoke thus Origet studied my face and my expression; but he read in my eyes the sincerity of an honest soul. For indeed, throughout this cruel illness, my mind was never once invaded by the very slightest of those involuntary evil ideas which sometimes sear the most innocent conscience.
For those who contemplate nature as a whole, everything tends to union by assimilation. The spiritual world must be governed by an analogous principle. In a pure realm all is pure. In Henriette’s presence there was a fragrance as of heaven itself; it seems as though any not irreproachable thought must alienate me from her forever. Hence she was not only my happiness, she was also my virtue. Finding us always unfailingly attentive and careful, the doctor put an indescribable tone of pious pathos into his words and manner, as if he were thinking—“These are the real sufferers; they hide their wounds and forget them.”
By an effect of contrast which, as this worthy man assured us, is common enough in such wrecks of manhood, Monsieur de Mortsauf was patient and tractable, never complained, and showed the most wonderful docility—he who in health could not do the least thing without a thousand comments. The secret of this submission to medical treatment, formerly so scouted, was a covert dread of death, another contrast in man of unblemished courage. And this fear may perhaps account for various singular features in the altered temper he owed to his misfortunes.
Shall I confess to you, Natalie, and will you believe me? Those fifty days, and the month that came after, were the golden days of my life. In the infinite expanse of the soul is not love what, in a broad valley, the river is to which flow all the rains, the brooks and torrents, into which are borne the trees and flowers, the gravel of its banks, and the fragments of the higher rocks? It is fed alike by storms and by the slow tribute of rippling springs. Yes, when we love, everything feeds love.
The first great danger past, the Countess and I became accustomed to sickness. In spite of the confusion caused by the constant care needed by the Count, his room, which we had found in such disorder, was made neat and pretty. Ere long we lived there like two beings dropped on a desert island; for not only do troubles isolate us, but they silence the petty conventionality of the world. And then for the sick man’s benefit we were forced into contact such as no other event could have brought about. How often did our hands meet, heretofore so shy, in doing her husband some service. Was it not my part to support and help Henriette? Carried away by a duty that may be compared with that of a soldier at an outpost, she would often forget to eat; then I would bring her food, sometimes on her knee—a hasty meal necessitating a hundred little services. It was a childish scene on the brink of a yawning grave. She would hastily order me to prepare what might save the Count some discomfort, and employ me on a variety of trivial tasks.
In the early days, when the imminence of danger stifled the subtle distinctions of ordinary life, as in the field of battle, she inevitably neglected the reserve which every woman, even the most simple-minded, maintains in her speech, looks, and behavior when she is surrounded by the world or by her family, but which is incompatible with the undress of intimacy. Would she not come to call me at the chirp of awakening birds in a morning wrapper that sometimes allowed me a glimpse of the dazzling charms, which, in my wild hopes, I regarded as my own? Though always dignified and lofty, could she not also be
