The Thibaults (45 page)

“I’ll carry her. She’s light as a feather. Hold up her leg, you.”

As he slipped his arms under the child’s back and carried her to the table, she moaned faintly. He took the lamp from the red-haired woman and, removing the shade, stood it on the pile of plates. As he surveyed the scene, a thought came suddenly and went: “I’m a wonderful fellow!” The lamp gleamed like a brazier, reddening the ambient shadow, where only the young woman’s glowing cheeks and the doctor’s pince-nez showed up as high-lights; its rays fell harshly on the little body, which twitched spasmodically. The swarming flies seemed worked up to frenzy by the oncoming storm. Heat and anxiety brought beads of sweat to Antoine’s brow. Would she live through it? he wondered, but some dark force he did not analyse buoyed up his faith; never had he felt so sure of himself.

He seized his bag and, taking out a bottle of chloroform and some gauze, handed the former to the doctor.

“Open it somewhere. On the sideboard. Take off the sewing-machine. Get everything out.”

As he turned, holding the bottle, he noticed two dim figures in the dark doorway, the two old women like statues posted there. One, M. Chasle’s mother, had great, staring eyes, an owl’s eyes; the other was pressing her breast with her clasped hands.

“Go away!” he commanded. They retreated some steps into the shadows of the bedroom, but he pointed to the other end of the flat. “No. Out of the room. That way.” They obeyed, crossed the room, vanished without a word.

“Not you!” he cried angrily to the red-haired woman, who was about to follow them.

She turned on her heel and, for a moment, he took stock of her. She had a handsome, rather fleshy face, touched with a certain dignity, it seemed, by grief; an air of calm maturity that pleased him. Poor woman! he could not help thinking… . But I need her!

“You’re the child’s mother?” he asked.

“No.” She shook her head.

“All the better.”

As he spoke he had been soaking the gauze and now he swiftly stretched it over the child’s nose. “Stand there, and keep this.” He handed her the bottle. “When I give the signal, you’ll pour some more of it on.”

The air grew heavy with the reek of chloroform. The little girl groaned, drew a deep breath or two, grew still.

A last look round. The field was clear; the rest lay with the surgeon’s skill. Now that the crucial moment had come, Antoine’s anxieties vanished as if by magic. He went to the sideboard where the doctor, holding the bag, was laying on a napkin the last of its contents. “Let’s see,” he murmured, as though to gain a few seconds’ respite. “There’s the instrument-box; good. The scalpel, the artery-forceps. A packet of gauze, cotton-wool, that’ll do. Alcohol. Caffeine. Tincture of iodine. And so forth… . All’s ready. Let’s begin.” And yet again there came to him that sense of buoyancy, of boundless confidence, of vital energies tautened to breaking-point, and, crowning all, a proud awareness of being lifted high above his workaday self.

Raising his head, he looked his junior for a moment in the eyes. “Have you the nerve?” his eyes seemed to inquire. “It’s going to be a tough job. Now for it!”

The young man did not flinch. And now he hung on Antoine’s gestures with servile assiduity. Well he knew that in this operation lay their only hope, but never would he have dared to take the risk, alone. With Antoine, however, nothing seemed impossible.

He’s not so bad, this young chap, thought Antoine. Lucky for me! Let’s see. A basin? No matter—this will do as well. Grasping the bottle of iodine he sluiced his arms up to the elbow with the liquid.

“Your turn!” He passed the bottle to the doctor, who was feverishly polishing the lenses of his pince-nez.

A vivid lightning flash, closely followed by a deafening clap of thunder, lit up the window.

“A bit previous, the applause,” Antoine said to himself. “I hadn’t even taken up my lancet. The young woman didn’t turn a hair. It’ll cool things down; good for our nerves. Must be pretty nearly a hundred degrees in this room.”

He had laid out a series of compresses round the injured limb, delimiting the operative field. Now he turned towards the young woman.

“A whiff of chloroform. That’ll do. Right!”

She obeys orders, he mused, like a soldier under fire. Women! Then, fixing his eyes on the swollen little thigh, he swallowed his saliva and raised the scalpel.

“Here goes!”

With one neat stroke he cut the skin.

“Swab!” he commanded the doctor bending beside him. “What a thin child!” he said to himself. “Well, we’ll be there all the sooner. Hallo, there’s little Dédette starting snoring! Good! Better be quick about it. Now for the retractors.”

“Now, you,” he said aloud, and the other let fall the blood-stained swabs of cotton-wool and, grasping the retractors, held the wound open.

Antoine paused a moment. “Good!” he murmured. “My probe? Here it is. In Hunter’s canal. The classical ligation; all’s well. Zip! Another flash! Must have landed pretty near. On the Louvre. Perhaps on the ‘gentlemen at Saint-Roch.’ ” He felt quite calm—no more anxiety for the child, none for death’s imminence—and cheerfully repeated under his breath: “The ligature of the femoral artery in Hunter’s canal.”

Zip! There goes another! Hardly any rain, either. It’s stifling. Artery injured at the site of the fracture; the end of the bone tore it open. Simple as anything. Still she hadn’t much blood to spare. He glanced at the little girl’s face. Hallo! Better hurry up. Simple as anything— but could be fatal, too. A forceps; right! Another; that will do. Zip! These flashes are getting a bore; cheap effect! I’ve only plaited silk; must make the best of it. Breaking a tube, he pulled out the skein and made a ligature beside each forceps. Splendid! Almost finished now. The collateral circulation will be quite enough, especially at that age. I’m really wonderful! Can I have missed my vocation? I’ve all the makings of a surgeon, sure enough; a great surgeon. In the silent interval between two thunder-claps dying into the distance, the sharp metallic click of scissors snipping the loose ends of the silk was audible. Yes; quickness of eye, coolness, energy, dexterity. Suddenly he picked up his ears and his cheeks paled.

“The devil!” he muttered under his breath.

The child had ceased to breathe.

Brushing aside the woman, he tore away the gauze from the unconscious child’s face and pressed his ear above her heart. Doctor and young woman waited in suspense, their eyes fixed on Antoine.

“No!” he murmured. “She’s breathing still.”

He took the child’s wrist, but her pulse was so rapid that he did not attempt to count it. “Ouf!” He drew a deep breath, the lines of anxiety deepened on his forehead. The two others felt his gaze pass across their faces, but he did not see them.

He rapped out a brief command.

“You, doctor, remove the forceps, put on a dressing, and then undo the tourniquet. Quickly. You, Madame, get me some note-paper—no, you needn’t; I’ve my note-book.” He wiped his hands feverishly with a wad of cotton-wool. “What’s the time? Not nine yet. The pharmacist’s open. You’ll have to hurry.”

She stood before him, waiting; her tentative gesture—to wrap the dressing-gown more closely round her body—told him of her reluctance at going thus, half dressed, into the streets, and for the fraction of a second a picture of the opulent form under the garment held his imagination. He scribbled a prescription, signed it. “A two-pint ampoule. As quickly as you can.”

“And if—?” she stammered.

“If the pharmacist’s shut, ring, and keep on hammering on the door till they open. Be quick!”

She was gone. He followed her with his eyes to make sure she was running, then addressed the doctor.

“We’ll try the saline. Not subcutaneously; that’s hopeless now. Intravenously. Our last hope.” He took two small phials from the sideboard. “You’ve removed the tourniquet? Right. Give her an injection of camphor to begin with, then the caffeine—only half of it for her, poor kid! Only, for God’s sake, be quick about it!”

He went back to the child and took her thin wrist between his fingers; now he could feel nothing more than a vague, restless fluttering. “It’s got past counting,” he said to himself. And suddenly a feeling of impotence, of sheer despair, swept over him.

“God damn it!” he broke out. “To think it went off perfectly—and it was all no use!”

The child’s face became more livid with every second. She was dying. Antoine observed, beside the parted lips, two slender strands of curling hair, lighter than gossamer, that rose and fell; anyhow, she was breathing still.

He watched the doctor giving the injections. Neat with his fingers, he thought, considering his short sight. But we can’t save her. Vexation rather than grief possessed him. He had the callousness common to doctors, for whom the sufferings of others count only as so much new experience, or profit, or professional advantage; men to whose fortunes death and pain are frequent ministers.

But then he thought he heard a banging door and ran towards the sound. It was the young woman coming back with quick, lithe steps, trying to conceal her breathlessness. He snatched the parcel from her hands.

“Bring some hot water.” He did not even pause to thank her.

“Boiled?”

“No. To warm the solution. Be quick!”

He had hardly opened the parcel when she returned, bringing a steaming saucepan.

“Good! Excellent!” he murmured, but did not look towards her.

No time to lose. In a few seconds he had nipped off the tips of the ampoule and slipped on the rubber tubing. A Swiss barometer in carved wood hung on the wall”- With one hand he unhooked it, while with the other he hung the ampoule on the nail. Then he took the saucepan of hot water, hesitated for the fraction of a second, and looped the rubber tubing round the bottom of it. That’ll heat the saline as it flows through, he said to himself. Smart idea, that! He glanced towards the other doctor to see if he had noticed what he had done. At last he came back to the child, lifted her inert arm, and sponged it with iodine. Then, with a stroke of his scalpel, he laid bare the vein, slipped his probe beneath it and inserted the needle.

“It’s flowing in all right,” he cried. “Take her pulse. I’ll stay where I am.”

The ten minutes that followed seemed an eternity. No one moved or spoke.

Streaming with sweat, breathing rapidly, with knitted brows, Antoine waited, his gaze riveted on the needle. After a while he glanced up at the ampoule.

“How much gone?”

“Nearly a pint.”

“The pulse?”

The doctor silently shook his head.

Five more minutes passed, five minutes more of sickening suspense. Antoine looked up again.

“How much left?”

“Just over half a pint.”

“And the pulse?”

The doctor hesitated.

“I’m not sure. I almost think … it’s beginning to come back a little.”

“Can you count it?”

A pause.

“No.”

If only the pulse came back! sighed Antoine. He would have given ten years of his own life to restore life to this little corpse. Wonder what age she is. Seven? And, if I save her,- she’ll fall a victim to consumption within the next ten years, living in this hovel. But shall I save her? It’s touch and go; her life hangs on a thread. Still—damn it!—I’ve done all I could. The saline’s flowing well. But it’s too late. There’s nothing more to be done, nothing else to try. We can only wait… . That red-haired girl did her bit. A good-looker. She’s not the child’s mother; who can she be then? Chasle never breathed a word about all these people. Not his daughter, I imagine. Can’t make head or tail of it! And that old woman, putting on airs… . Anyhow, they made themselves scarce, good riddance! Curious how one suddenly gets them in hand. They all knew the sort of man they had to deal with. The strong hand of a masterful man. But it was up to me to bring it off. Shall I now? No, she lost too much blood on the way here. No signs of improvement so far, worse luck! Oh, damn it all!

His gaze fell on the child’s pale lips and the two strands of golden hair, rising and falling still. The breathing struck him as a little better. Was he mistaken? Half a minute passed. Her chest seemed to flutter with a faint sigh which slowly died into the air, as though a fragment of her life were passing with it. For a moment Antoine stared at her in perplexity. No, she was breathing still. Nothing to be done but to wait, and keep on waiting.

A minute later she sighed again, more plainly now.

“How much left?”

“The ampoule’s almost empty.”

“And the pulse? Coming back?”

“Yes.”

Antoine drew a deep breath.

“Can you count it?”

The doctor took out his watch, settled his pince-nez, and, after a minute’s silence, announced:

“A hundred and forty. A hundred and fifty, perhaps.”

“Better than nothing!” The exclamation was involuntary, for Antoine was straining every nerve to withstand the flood of huge relief that surged across his mind. Yet it was not imagination; the improvement was not to be gainsaid. Her breathing was steadier. It was all he could do to stay where he .was; he had a childish longing to sing or whistle.
Better than nothing tra-la-la
—he tried to fit the words to the tune that had been haunting him all day.
In my heart tra-la-la. In my heart sleeps
… Sleeps—sleeps
what
? Got it.
The pale moonlight.

In my heart sleeps the pale moonlight

Of a lovely summer night …

The cloud of doubt lifted, gave place to radiant joy.

“The child’s saved,” he murmured. “She’s got to be saved!”

… a lovely summer night!

“The ampoule’s empty,” the doctor announced.

“Capital!”

Just then the child, whom his eyes had never left, gave a slight shudder. Antoine turned almost gaily to the young woman, who, leaning against the sideboard, had been watching the scene with steady eyes for the past quarter of an hour.

“Well, Madame!” he cried with affected gruffness. “Gone to sleep, have we? And how about the hot-water bottle?” He almost smiled at her amazement. “But, my dear lady, nothing could be more obvious. A bottle, piping hot, to warm her little toes!”