Germinie Lacerteux

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  CHEFS D'OEUVRE DU ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN

  REALISTS

  Chapter XXI

  _Jupillon was a true Parisian: he loved to fish with a pole and line._

  _And when summer came they stayed there all day, at the foot of thegarden, on the bank of the stream--Jupillon on a laundry board restingon two stakes, pole in hand, and Germinie sitting, with the child in herskirts, under the medlar tree that overhung the stream._]

  BIBLIOTHEQUE DES CHEFS-D'OEUVRE DU ROMAN CONTEMPORAIN

  _GERMINIE LACERTEUX_

  EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT

  PRINTED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY BY GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PHILADELPHIA

  GERMINIE LACERTEUX

  PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

  We must ask pardon of the public for offering it this book, and give itdue warning of what it will find therein.

  The public loves fictitious novels! this is a true novel.

  It loves books which make a pretence of introducing their readers tofashionable society: this book deals with the life of the street.

  It loves little indecent books, memoirs of courtesans, alcoveconfessions, erotic obscenity, the scandal tucked away in pictures in abookseller's shop window: that which is contained in the following pagesis rigidly clean and pure. Do not expect the photograph of Pleasure_decolletee_: the following study is the clinic of Love.

  Again, the public loves to read pleasant, soothing stories, adventuresthat end happily, imaginative works that disturb neither its digestionnor its peace of mind: this book furnishes entertainment of amelancholy, violent sort calculated to disarrange the habits and injurethe health of the public.

  Why then have we written it? For no other purpose than to annoy thepublic and offend its tastes?

  By no means.

  Living as we do in the nineteenth century, in an age of universalsuffrage, of democracy, of liberalism, we asked ourselves the questionwhether what are called "the lower classes" had no rights in the novel;if that world beneath a world, the common people, must needs remainsubject to the literary interdict, and helpless against the contempt ofauthors who have hitherto said no word to imply that the common peoplepossess a heart and soul. We asked ourselves whether, in these days ofequality in which we live, there are classes unworthy the notice of theauthor and the reader, misfortunes too lowly, dramas too foul-mouthed,catastrophes too commonplace in the terror they inspire. We were curiousto know if that conventional symbol of a forgotten literature, of avanished society, Tragedy, is definitely dead; if, in a country wherecastes no longer exist and aristocracy has no legal status, the miseriesof the lowly and the poor would appeal to public interest, emotion,compassion, as forcibly as the miseries of the great and the rich; if,in a word, the tears that are shed in low life have the same power tocause tears to flow as the tears shed in high life.

  These thoughts led us to venture upon the humble tale, _SoeurPhilomene_, in 1861; they lead us to put forth _Germinie Lacerteux_to-day.

  Now, let the book be spoken slightingly of; it matters little. At thisday, when the sphere of the Novel is broadening and expanding, when itis beginning to be the serious, impassioned, living form of literarystudy and social investigation, when it is becoming, by virtue ofanalysis and psychological research, the true History of contemporarymorals, when the novel has taken its place among the necessary elementsof knowledge, it may properly demand its liberty and freedom of speech.And to encourage it in the search for Art and Truth, to authorize it todisclose misery and suffering which it is not well for the fortunatepeople of Paris to forget, and to show to people of fashion what theSisters of Charity have the courage to see for themselves, what thequeens of old compelled their children to touch with their eyes in thehospitals: the visible, palpitating human suffering that teachescharity; to confirm the novel in the practice of that religion which thelast century called by the vast and far-reaching name, _Humanity_:--itneeds no other warrant than the consciousness that that is its right.

  _Paris, October, 1864._

  SECOND PREFACE

  PREPARED FOR A POSTHUMOUS EDITION OF GERMINIE LACERTEUX

  _July 22, 1862._--The disease is gradually doing its work of destructionin our poor Rose. It is as if the immaterial manifestations of life thatformerly emanated from her body were dying one by one. Her face isentirely changed. Her expression is not the same, her gestures are notthe same; and she seems to me as if she were putting off every day moreand more of that something, humanly speaking indefinable, which makesthe personality of a living being. Disease, before making an end of itsvictim, introduces into his body something strange, unfamiliar,something that is _not he_, makes of him a new being, so to speak, inwhom we must seek to find the former being--he, whose joyous,affectionate features have already ceased to exist.

  _July 31._--Doctor Simon is to tell me very soon whether our dear oldRose will live or die. I am waiting to hear his ring, which to me, isequivalent to that of a jury at the assizes, announcing their return tothe court room with their verdict. "It is all over, there is no hope, itis simply a question of time. The disease has progressed very rapidly.One lung is entirely gone and the other substantially." And we mustreturn to the invalid, restore her serenity with a smile, give herreason to hope for convalescence in every line of our faces. Then wefeel an unconquerable longing to rush from the room and from the poorcreature. We leave the house, we wander at random through the streets;at last, overdone with fatigue, we sit down at a table in a cafe. Wemechanically take up a copy of _L'Illustration_ and our eyes fall atonce upon the solution of its last riddle: _Against death, there is noappeal!_

  _Monday, August 11._--The disease of the lungs is complicated withperitonitis. She has terrible pains in the bowels, she cannot movewithout assistance, she cannot lie on her back or her left side. InGod's name, is not death enough? must she also endure suffering, aye,torture, as the final implacable breaking-up of the human organism? Andshe suffers thus, poor wretch! in one of the servant's rooms, where thesun, shining in through a window in the sloping roof, makes the air asstifling as in a hothouse, and where there is so little room that thedoctor has to put his hat on the bed. We struggled to the last to keepher, but finally we had to make up our minds to let her go away. She wasunwilling to go to Maison Dubois, where we proposed to take her; itseems that twenty-five years ago, when she first came to us, she wentthere to see the nurse in charge of Edmond, who died there, and so thatparticular hospital represents to her the place where people die. I amwaiting for Simon who is to bring her a permit to go to Lariboisiere.She passed almost a good night. She is all ready, in high spirits, infact. We have covered everything up from her as well as we could. Shelongs to be gone. She is in a great hurry. She feels that she is goingto get well there. At two o'clock Simon arrives: "Here it is, allright." She refuses to have a litter: "I should think I was dead!" shesays. She is dressed. As soon as she leaves her bed, all the signs oflife to be seen upon her face disappear. It is as if the earth had risenunder her skin. She comes down into our apartments. Sitting in thedining-room, with a trembling hand, the knuckles of which knock againstone another, she draws her stockings on over a pair of legs likebroomsticks, consumptive legs. Then, for a long moment, she looks aboutat the familiar objects with dying eyes that seem desirous to take awaywith them the memory of the places they are leaving--and the door of theapartment closes upon her with a noise as of farewell. She reaches thefoot of the stairs, where
she rests for an instant on a chair. Theconcierge, in a bantering tone, assures her that she will be well in sixweeks. She bows and says "yes," an inaudible "yes." The cab drives up tothe door. She rests her hand on the concierge's wife. I hold heragainst the pillow she has behind her back. With wide open, vacant eyesshe vaguely watches the houses pass, but she does not speak. At the doorof the hospital she tries to alight without assistance. "Can you walk sofar?" the concierge asks. She makes an affirmative gesture and walks on.Really I cannot imagine where she procured the strength to walk as shedoes. Here we are at last in the great hall, a high, cold, bare, cleanplace with a litter standing, all ready for use, in the centre. I seather in a straw armchair by a door with a glazed wicket. A young manopens the wicket, asks my name and age and writes busily for quarter ofan hour, covering ten or more sheets of paper with a religious figure atthe head. At last, everything is ready, and I embrace her. A boy takesone arm, the housekeeper the other.--After that, I saw nothing more.

  _Thursday, August 14._--We have been to Lariboisiere. We found Rosequiet, hopeful, talking of her approaching discharge--in three weeks atmost,--and so free from all thought of death that she told us of afurious love scene that took place yesterday between a woman in the bednext hers and a brother of the Christian schools, who was there againto-day. Poor Rose is death, but death engrossed with life. Near her bedwas a young woman, whose husband, a mechanic, had come to see her. "Yousee, as soon as I can walk, I shall walk about the garden so much thatthey'll have to send me home!" she said. And the mother in her added:"Does the child ask for me sometimes?"

  "Sometimes, oh! yes," the man replied.

  _Saturday, August 16._--This morning, at ten o'clock, someone rings thebell. I hear a colloquy at the door between the housekeeper and theconcierge. The door opens, the concierge enters with a letter. I takethe letter; it bears the stamp of Lariboisiere. Rose died this morningat seven o'clock.

  Poor girl! So it is all over! I knew that she was doomed; but she was soanimated, so cheerful, almost happy, when we saw her Thursday! And herewe are both walking up and down the salon, filled with the thought thata fellow-creature's death inspires: We shall never see her again!--aninstinctive thought that recurs incessantly within you. What a void!what a gap in our household! A habit, an attachment of twenty-five yearsgrowth, a girl who knew our whole lives and opened our letters in ourabsence, and to whom we told all our business. When I was a bit of a boyI trundled my hoop with her, and she bought me apple-tarts with her ownmoney, when we went to walk. She would sit up for Edmond till morning,to open the door for him, when he went to the Bal de l'Opera without ourmother's knowledge. She was the woman, the excellent nurse, whose handsmother placed in ours when she was dying. She had the keys toeverything, she managed everything, she did everything for our comfort.For twenty-five years she tucked us up in bed every night, and everynight there were the same never-ending jokes about her ugliness and herdisgraceful physique. Sorrows and joys alike she shared with us. She wasone of those devoted creatures upon whose solicitude you rely to closeyour eyes. Our bodies, when we were ill or indisposed, were accustomedto her attentions. She was familiar with all our hobbies. She had knownall our mistresses. She was a piece of our life, part of the furnitureof our apartment, a stray memory of our youth, at once loving andscolding and care-taking, like a watchdog whom we were accustomed tohaving always beside us and about us, and who ought to last as long asourselves. And we shall never see her again! It is not she moving aboutthe rooms; she will never again come to our rooms to bid usgood-morning! It is a great wrench, a great change in our lives, whichseems to us, I cannot say why, like one of those solemn breaks in one'sexistence, when, as Byron says, destiny changes horses.

  _Sunday, August 17._--This morning we are to perform all the last sadduties. We must return to the hospital, enter once more the receptionhall, where I seem to see again, in the armchair against the wicket, theghost of the emaciated creature I seated there less than a week ago."Will you identify the body?" the attendant hurls the question at me ina harsh voice. We go to the further end of the hospital, to a highyellow door, upon which is written in great black letters:_Amphitheatre_. The attendant knocks. After some moments the door ispartly opened, and a head like a butcher's boy's appears, with a shortpipe in its mouth: a head which suggests the gladiator and thegrave-digger. I fancied that I was at the circus, and that he was theslave who received the gladiators' bodies; and he does receive the slainin that great circus, society. They made us wait a long while beforeopening another door, and during those moments of suspense, all ourcourage oozed away, as the blood of a wounded man who is forced toremain standing oozes away, drop by drop. The mystery of what we wereabout to see, the horror of a sight that rends your heart, the searchfor the one body amid other bodies, the scrutiny and recognition of thatpoor face, disfigured doubtless--the thought of all this made us astimid as children. We were at the end of our strength, at the end of ourwill-power, at the end of our nervous tension, and, when the dooropened, we said: "We will send some one," and fled. From there we wentto the mayor's office, riding in a cab that jolted us and shook ourheads about like empty things. And an indefinable horror seized upon usof death in a hospital, which seems to be only an administrativeformality. One would say that in that abode of agony, everything is sowell administered, regulated, reduced to system, that death opens it asif it were an administrative bureau.

  While we were having the death registered,--_Mon Dieu!_ the paper, allcovered with writing and flourishes for a poor woman's death!--a manrushed out of an adjoining room, in joyous exultation, and looked at thealmanac hanging on the wall to find the name of the saint of the day andgive it to his child. As he passed, the skirt of the happy father's coatswept the sheet on which the death was registered from the desk to thefloor.

  When we returned home, we must look through her papers, get her clothestogether, sort out the clutter of phials, bandages and innumerablethings that sickness collects--jostle death about, in short. It was aghastly thing to enter that attic, where the crumbs of bread from herlast meal were still lying in the folds of the bedclothes. I threw thecoverlid up over the bolster, like a sheet over the ghost of a dead man.

  _Monday, August 18._--The chapel is beside the amphitheatre. In thehospital God and the dead body are neighbors. At the mass said for thepoor woman beside her coffin, two or three others were placed near by toreap the benefit of the service. There was an unpleasant promiscuousnessof salvation in that performance: it resembled the common grave in theprayer. Behind me, in the chapel, Rose's niece was weeping--the littlegirl she had at our house for a short time, who is now a young woman ofnineteen, a pupil at the convent of the Sisters of Saint-Laurent: apoor, weazened, pale, stunted creature, rickety from starvation, with ahead too heavy for her body, back bent double, and the air of aMayeux--the last sad remnant of that consumption-ridden family, awaitedby Death and with his hand even now heavy upon her,--in her soft eyesthere is already a gleam of the life beyond.

  Then from the chapel to the extreme end of the Montmartrecemetery,--vast as a necropolis and occupying a whole quarter of thecity,--walking at slow steps through mud that never ends. Lastly theintoning of the priests, and the coffin laboriously lowered by thegravediggers' arms to the ends of the ropes, as a cask of wine islowered into a cellar.

  _Wednesday, August 20._--Once more I must return to the hospital. Forsince the visit I paid Rose on Thursday and her sudden death the nextday, there has existed for me a mystery which I force from my thoughts,but which constantly returns; the mystery of that agony of which I knownothing, of that sudden end. I long to know and I dread to learn. Itdoes not seem to me as if she were dead; I think of her simply as of aperson who has disappeared. My imagination returns to her last hours,gropes for them in the darkness and reconstructs them, and they tortureme with their veiled horrors! I need to have my doubts resolved. Atlast, this morning, I took my courage in both hands. Again I see thehospital, again I see the red-faced, obese concierge, reeking with li
feas one reeks with wine, and the corridors where the morning light fallsupon the pale faces of smiling convalescents.

  In a distant corner, I rang at a door with little white curtains. It wasopened and I found myself in a parlor where a Virgin stood upon a sortof altar between two windows. On the northern wall of the room, thecold, bare room, there are--why, I cannot explain--two framed views ofVesuvius, wretched water-colors which seem to shiver and to be entirelyexpatriated there. Through an open door behind me, from a small room inwhich the sun shines brightly, I hear the chattering of sisters andchildren, childish joys, pretty little bursts of laughter, all sorts offresh, clear vocal notes: a sound as from a dovecote bathed in the sun.Sisters in white with black caps pass and repass; one stops in front ofmy chair. She is short, badly developed, with an ugly, sweet face, apoor face by the grace of God. She is the mother of the SalleSaint-Joseph. She tells me how Rose died, in hardly any pain, feelingthat she was improving, almost well, overflowing with encouragement andhope. In the morning, after her bed was made, without any suspicion thatdeath was near, suddenly she was taken with a hemorrhage, which lastedsome few seconds. I came away, much comforted, delivered from thethought that she had had the anticipatory taste of death, the horror ofits approach.

  _Thursday, October 21._

  * * * * *

  In the midst of our dinner, which was rendered melancholy enough by theconstant hovering of the conversation around the subject of death,Maria, who came to dinner to-night, cried out, after two or threenervous blows with her fingers upon her fluffy blonde locks:--"Myfriends, while the poor girl was alive, I kept the professional secretof my trade. But, now that she is under ground, you must know thetruth."