TH^^ ^ "I m i John Galen Howard 1864-1931 I / J-. . . M^~ .\ A-^ X~y^r-ix. EDMOND AND JULES DE CONCOURT Sister Philomène With Seventy Illustrations by Bl ELER Geokc.k Routledge and Sons, Limited New York -. 9 Lafayette Place London ('lasgow and Manchester SISTER PHILOMENE t E. AND I. DE CONCOURT SISTER PHILOMENE Translatkd HY DAUkA ENSOR SKVKN'I'V II,UTSTKATI<)NS HV HIKLKR GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, I-imitkh New Yokk: q Lafayette Plack London, Glasgow and Manchester Press of J J. Little &Ca Astor Place, New York GIFT mo I ivi830643 W:ÈWi SISTER PHILOMENE. 1. The ward is vast and lofty, stretching out and disappearing in the distance into endless gloom. It is night. A couple of stoves throw a red glare from their open grates. At inter- vals the faint and fading glimmer of night- lights casts a streak of fire across the shining floor. Beneath the flickering and uncertain light the curtains to the right and left faintly Sister Philomcnr. gleam and whiten against the walls ; the beds stand out vaguely — rows of beds with half- shadowy outlines dimly revealed through the darkness. At the further end of the ward something lightens the depths of blackness, something that bears the semblance of a plaster Virgin. The atmosphere is warm, a damp warmth, heavy with a faint odor, a sickly smell of heated ointment and boiled linseed. All is hushed. Not a sound nor a move- ment is heard. Night and silence reign over all. From time to time the stillness is al- most imperceptibly broken by a rustle of sheets, a smothered yawn, a half-suppressed groan, a gasp — then the ward again relapses into a dull, mysterious peace. At a little distance a stout young woman, her hair ruffled with sleep, rouses herself from the big, white-covered arm-chair in which she has been dozing, wliile her feet rested on the rung of a small chair in front of her, which is faintly lit up by a hand-lamp placed on it, together with a small prayer-book. Slie passes like a shadow across the lamp-liglit, goes up to a stove, takes a ])oker from the hot ashes, stirs and pokes thecoals two or tlirec times, then returns Sister Philoinene. to Ikt anvi-chair, replaces her feet on the bar of the chair, and again stretches herself out. The stirred-up fire gleams more vividly. The night-lights, each in its glass cup, hang- ing; from curved iron brackets, flicker and brighten u}). The glimmer from the wicks rises and falls like a regular breath on the luminous and transparent oil, and the shades swaying to the motion of the flame cast on the beams of the ceiling great shadows of ever-moving and agitated circles. Beneath, to the right and left, the light falls softly from the suspended glasses onto the foot of the beds, on tlic bands of i)laited linen at their head, and over the curtains, throwing slanting shadows across bodies huddled up under counterpanes. Shapes and outlines quiver dimly in the uncertain light that sur- rounds them, while between the beds the high windows, thinly curtained, admit the bluish twilight of a clear, cold winter sky. The night-liglitsmark the receding perspec- tive, and the outlines grow dim and blurred as they are gradually lost in darkness. In the intervening spaces, where the light of one ceases and that of the next barely glimmers, great black shadows rise up and meet at the ceiling, throwing a veil of darkness over both 4 Sister Philomene. sides of the ward. Further on the eye catches sight of a confused whiteness, and then again all is dark — a dense, opacjue dark- ness in which all is swallowed up. Out of the thickest of the gloom, at the very end of the ward, a glimmer is seen, a speck of tire appears. A light coming from afar moves forward and increases, like the distant light in a dark landscape toward which the traveller gropes at night. The light draws near ; now it is behind the great glass door that closes the ward and separates it from the next one ; it lights up the archway, shines through the glass panels, then the door opens, and a candle and two women in white make their appearance. " Ah ! the Mother going her rounds," mur- murs a patient, half awake, closing her eyes and turning away from the hght. The two white-clad women move alonij slowly and gently. They walk so softly that their footsteps are scarcely heard on the polished tiles. They advance with the candle before them like phantoms in a ray of light. The one on the side nearest the beds walks with her hands crossed. She is young. Her countenance is sweet and calm and she has a peaceful smile such as dreams silently impress Sister Philomhie. 5 on a sleeping face. She wears the white veil of a novice. Her woollen dress, which seems yellow when contrasted with the cold white- ness of the sheets and bed covers, is the white robe of the Sisters of Saint Augustine. By the side of the Sister steps the serving- maid of the community, in a white bodice, white petticoat, and night-cap. She it is who carries the candle, and the light falling on her face lends to her complexion the dull ivory color of some ancient abbess standing out of the dark background of an old portrait. As the women pass along, the light pene- trates through the half-drawn curtains, lights up the beds, and displays for a moment the open mouth, the pinched nostrils, the head thrown back on a pillow, of some slumbering woman, or passes over the thin face of a pa- tient who has dragged her kerchief over her eyes and holds her sheet up to her mouth with her fist tightly closed against her cheek ; or, again, it glances over the raised hoop that supports the counterpane at the foot of a bed, or vaguely indicates by the moulding of the sheets the graceful outline of a slumbering young woman as she lies with her left arm thrown up and encircling her hair, pale as a ghost in the surrounding gloom. Sister Philomhic. The Sister casts a glance on the sleeping forms ; to those awake she nods, smiles a good- night, goes up to their side and gently tucks up the bed-clothes and raises their pillows. As she passes, an inarticulate sound, a grumbling moan, an angry groan issues from one of the beds. The Sister goes up to it. She raises the old woman in her arms, soothes her by a few soft words uttered in a musical voice, the coaxing voice that mothers and nurses assume to make naughty children obey. Then she turns the patient, bending tenderly over lier back, and misshapen form. She moves the poor old thing's emaciated and bony legs aside, and arranges and smooths the sheets. In answer to her caressing voice, to her light, delicate touch, the patient only gives vent to an impatient grumble, an ani- mal-like growl. " You shall have a i)oullice," says the Sister. " I won't have one, I won't," the sick woman tries to scream out in a hollow, con- fused, and suffocated voice. The Sister, with the same unvarying gen- tle words and touch, lays her quietly down, ])ushes up her cap, and raises by little ta]:)s on each side of her head tlie tumbled and flattened ])illow. Sùfer rhiIo!iù')i(\ Then she resumes her rounds. Here and 111 ere the sick people watch her curiously, half raising themselves by means of the wooden bars hanging over their beds, \vhich, long after they have loosed their hold, throw a dancing, flitting shadow over the top of the bed. She stops before a bed of which all the curtains are tightly drawn together. The folds fall stiff and straight to the ground, the strings of the curtain loops droop loose and idly at the corners. Above the closely veiled couch the written placard no longer hangs on the black metal plate. The Sister goes up to the bed, draws aside a curtain, and disappears for a few seconds behind it. Then making the sign of the cross, she lets the curtain fall once more into its former motion- less folds. The Sister's step becomes slower as she approaches the door of the lying-in ward, from whence issue little cries — cries hushed I I 8 Sister Fhilomene. for a moment but to break forth stronger and more persistent. The Sister listens to the cheerfullv clamorous song from the awakened cradles — a song that to her ears is like the joyous twittering of a young brood. After the mournful silence, after the plaintive sounds of illness, suffering, agony, and death, it seems to her that she hears life, living life, calling aloud in the cries and wails of these new-born infants. Suddenly she is sum- moned to a bedside by a shriek of pain, fol- lowed by sobs, like the sobs of a little child. A light throws a glare within the bed-cur- tains. A young man stands there, wearing the resident student's skull-cap and a white apron fastened to the button of his coat. By the light of a taper held on high he ex- amines a weeping and moaning patient. The Sister draws near. " No, not you," he says roughly, taking from her hands the bandage she is bringing and passing it with the taper to the nurse standing at the other side of the bed. And he rapidly moves his hands about the pa- tient's l)ody, renewing the dressing. The Sister does not answer the student, but turns away and disappears at the further end of the Saint-Thérèse ward. UlSr II. The Sister's name in religion was Sister Philomène ; on the civil registers it was Marie Gaucher. Marie Gaucher was the daughter- of a tailoress who, married to a locksmith, earned a couple of shillings a day by working for the big shops. Marie was born in an hour of distress, one January morning, by a gay win- ter's sun ushered into the world between two oaths of the |)arish midwife, who was lo Sister P/iilornhic. annoyed at having been called away from a patient boarding at her house. She began life a tiny thing, not weighing the usual weight of a new-born child, without strength for life's struggle, antl was fed with the poor milk of a mother whose existence was spent in toiling late and early at her eternal stitching. The child lived all the same, and was four years old when her mother died. Her father had left them a year before with a fellow-workman who was starting for Africa, and had not been heard of since. The little child was adopted by an aunt, an elder sister of hfr mother's, in the service of a widow lady, a Madame de Viry, in the Chaussée d'Antin. She had been living there twenty years, had closed the eyes of Monsieur de Viry, and assisted at the birth of the son of the house, little Henry. She was one of those old-fashioned servants who take root in the family circle. Therefore, when one evening, as she was helping her mistress to undress, she spoke of her niece, Madame de Viry did not even give her time to utter a re- quest, and the very day of the mother's fu- neral the child was brought Imme to the Rue Chaussée d'Antin. She looked upon the Sister PJiiloinenc. 1 1 apartment, new as it was to her, witliout any surprise; showed no curiijsity at tlie siglit of the furniture, carj^ets, mahogany cabinets, nor at the clock wicli its classical bronze figures, and the family portraits in their gilt frames. In a very short time the comforts of this home caused the sickly bud to expand and blossom. Her character, at first unsociable and shy, soon toned down; her ])rattle and laugh be- came less constrained, lier manners more nat- ural and fearless ; the ill-grown, puny child began to thrill with the active brightness of a bird. Madame de Viry, who had accepted her widowhood as an austere duty and had retired from society in order to devote herself more entirely to her son, enjoyed the presence of the child, whose romjjs and noise and bright blue eyes filled and warmed her saddened and solitary life. Then, again, Madame de Viry had lost a little girl of the same age, and mothers love to caress even the shadow of their child. The little girl became over-excited by the indulgence shown to her. Tolerated in the drawing-room like a jx-t lapdog, she soon thought it her proper place and joined in little Henry's games on the footing of equality natural to children. The familiarity with 12 Sister Philomene. which the child was treated and her pretty, dainty manners flattered her aunt's vanity, and she felt a secret pride at her being kept out of the kitchen and playing the lady. Marie's little audacities and encroaching ways, her childish conceit that increased by constant association with her superiors, lier nascent coquetry that already revelled in the faded ribbons and discarded frocks bestowed on her by Madame de Viry — all this delighted the old woman, who, with the vulgar affection of a woman of the people, loved to surround the little thing with a respectful tenderness, as though the child were of a different class from her own, des- tined to a higher sphere. Marie was at the age when social barriers seem not to exist, and she was full of illusions; she put on airs with her aunt's friends and the servants of the house, and showed a kind of severe reserve toward the neighboring coal-mer- chant's children who invited her to play in the street. On one occasion she had been allowed to dine with Henry in honor of his having gained a prize at school, and in con- sequence she refused the following day to eat with her aunt in the kitchen. On another oc- casion, not being ])ermitted to join a chil- Sister Philomine. 13 dren's party, given every Shrove Tuesday by Madame de Viry, she remained all day long sulkily seated on a chair in the anteroom, hiding and struggling to suppress her tears. She was wounded by a thousand trifles which she failed to understand and yet suffered from ; the slightest neglect, words heedlessly uttered by Madame de Viry, idle observations betraying social differences, all that she in- stinctively felt placed her in the position of an inferior in the household, bitterly humiliated her. At the end of two years Madame de Viry noticed the evil, saw the irritation of the child, and thought it necessary to change her life and surroundings. Her aunt yielded to Madame de Viry 's arguments, though with, a heavy heart, hardly understanding her rea- sons, and the mistress and maid settled that on the following Monday the little one should enter the orphanage kept by the Sisters of Saint * * *^ situated at the top of the Fau- bourg Saint-Denis. The day of her departure there was a ter- rible scene. The child piteously sobbed and clung to the furniture and to Madame de Viry's skirts. She resisted and struggled with all her might even in her aunt's arms, who was at last obliged to carry her bodily off, 14 Sister Philomene. Once she had entered the convent gates, all the violence of her despair vanished, and her grief became like that of a grown-up per- son — silent and frigid. When the Sisters took off her embroidered cap and the silk frock made out of her mother's wedding dress that her aunt had had dyed, and replaced them by a formal little plaited linen cap and a plain green merino frock, she was seized with a fit of trembling, but her eyes remained dry. However, when she went to bed she broke down, and midnight was long past be- fore she fell asleep. The black veil of her closed but sleepless eyelids seemed flecked with visions of the past, fleeting and fugitive as the fiery sparks that start and flit across a burning paper. There passed before her in a transient gleam the corner of the drawing- room in which she used to i)ut her doll, and against a dark background past memories rose up and met her gaze. At one moment the large wine-basket in which her aunt laid her before carrying her up-stairs to bed stood before her, almost within touch, and the sheet of her crib assumed the shape of the dinner napkins on which she slept in that basket ; or again she recalled the morning romps, when, returning with her aunt from Sisfef Philomène. 15 marketing, she had jumped like a big dog on Monsieur Henry's bed, putting her little icy- cold hands round his neck, till the sleepy fellow, half angrily, half laughingly, opened one eye, and pushed her off onto the carpet. The next day, as there was already a little girl called Marie in the convent, and two of the same name might cause confusion, she was informed that in future she would be called Philomène. This was indeed a desperate blow for the child ; she had been less hurt even by being deprived of the frock she had come in. But now it seemed to her that she was being stripped of all her past life, wrenched away from the happy days she had spent at ]\Iadame de Viry's. She hated the name of Philomène, which was for her the convent baptism, the beginning of a life she loathed and dreaded ; and for a long time she re- fused to answer to her new name. At first the Sisters petted and strove to amuse her, but she opposed a sullen resist- ance, a stolid passivity and dull despair to all their coaxing and kindly attentions. The high, bare walls of the quiet house, full of peace, but also full of silence, seemed but dead to her, and here in the midst of the 1 6 Sister Philoinhie. Sisters, who appeared to her stern and ter- rible even in their gentleness, she drew mor- bidly within herself. The atmosphere she breathed fell cold and chill upon her heart, and she gathered to herself all her tender feelings, as though to cheer and warm herself. She thought of her aunt's kisses, which were not like the kisses of the Sisters, in which she instinctively felt a conventional compassion that failed to satisfy her cravings. For the first time in her life she realized how cold a caress may be. However, little by little the child's grief calmed down. Habit and c/i/iin softened her regrets, lulled her by the monotonous hours, the discipline and unchangeable routine, the sameness of each succeeding day, in a life totally devoid of incidents and ever the same from morning till night ; getting up at five, cleaning the house, all the little ones taking their share, some sweeping, some making the beds, while others dragged the rugs into the yard and shook the dust of them into each other's faces. Then, at nine, soup, and lessons till twelve — reading, writing, sacred history, and the four rules of arith- metic ; at twelve, a dinner composed of soup and the meat from it. which thev nicknamed Sister Philomhir. 17 collet ; at one o'clock, a bell that summoned them back from the play-ground to the work- room, w here the needlework that helped to maintain the establish- ment was car- ried on, the youngest hem- ming kitchen cloths and the more skilful girls making button - holes ; at three, a slice of bread and a short recrea- tion that l)roke the stitching, which was then resumed till seven o'clock ; after that they had a supper of vegetables and played till bed-time at nine. Philomène now no longer cried ; she forgot her plans of running away and was indeed changed as though she had passed through some severe illness. She who had formerly 1 8 Sister rhilovùiir. been so lively, so turbulent, and so expansive had now lost all the spriglitliness and vivac- ity of her character. During the recreations the Sisters liad almost to force her to play. She became singularly quiet, slow even ; her voice drawling, her accent whining. She had the subdued, sad, depressed attitudes and gestures of a half-starved, shivering child. They were not dissatisfied with her at the convent ; she worked steadily, but Avithout zeal. The Sisters only found fault witli her for being; a little lazv. The passive life of tlie convent had, how- ever, only outwardly affected the child's ar- dent nature. The quieter her body the more restless her brain. The whole week before the first Sunday of each month, the day her aunt came to see her, she was in a state of fever. When on that day the little girl was sent for to the parlor, she reached it so trembling and pale with emotion that two or three times her aunt had feared lest she sliould faint. Then all she had to relate since her aunt's previous visit hurried to her lips, strangling and chok- ing her utterance ; she Vi'ould begin phrases and suddenly stop short, gazing anxiously up into her aunt's face. And clinging to the old woman, who laughed but felt more inclined Sister Philomene. 19 ■'i to cry, half-seated on lier aunt's chair, throw- ing her arms round her neck, she coaxed and forced her to put her cheek against her own, and thus raising her eyes and looking into her aunt's face at each question, she asked about the concierge of the house, the butter- w Oman of the street, Madame de V i r y , and Monsieur He n ry , in- (| u i r i n g if she was for- gotten, if they still spoke of her, if Mon- sieur Henrv remem- bered her, and when it would be his birthday that she might write to him. At one o'clock they parted. But the parlor door was hardly closed and the little one alone, when she would again half ()l)en the door, and putting her head in, with y I 20 S/s/rr Philomefie. a sad and roguish smile she Avoiild wave a last kiss to her aunt. If by chance her aunt missed the twelve o'clock visit, from twelve to one the child felt as each one of her companions was summoned a painful shock, a blow at her heart, and she continued uneasy and restless the whole time of vespers. On the bench where she sat side by side with her playmates, one of a long row of small, white, motionless caps, her head was to be seen in constant agitation, turning and twisting round, displaying her anxious little countenance and eager, searching gaze, till at last she would catch sight of the blue ribbons in her aunt's cap amid the throng of other caps. On quitting the church the old woman would wait for her and return with her from the church door to the convent gates, the child insisting on her walking in the ranks and leaning on her arm in the street. The Church loves to surround childhood with pretty and fresh faces. She knows how these little beings, in whom the soul is called to life through the senses, are impressed by the outward appearance of those around them ; she therefore strives to appeal to their eyes, to attract them by the charm of the women who Sister Philomene. 21 teach and tend them. The C'huich chooses for these duties the Sisters whose counte- nances are most pleasing and cheerful, forit seems as though she wished, by the smiling faces of the younger Sisters, to replace the absent mother's smile for the poor little orphans. Of the ten ^ ,\ Sisters who had charge of these or- phans, nearly all were young, nearly all p r e 1 1 y ; those even who had not regu- lar features had a gentle glance, a sweet smile that made them sympathetic and charming. One only formed an exception, and she, poor thing, was utterly devoid of grace. This Sister was slightly humpbacked, one shoulder being higher than the other, spoke with a strong provincial accent that made her thoroughly ridiculous, and, moreover, had a face like a mask. I 2 2 Sister Philonene. It was impossible to see or hear her with- out recaUing Punch to mind. I'hc children had nicknamed her Sister Carabosse. With the gestures of a man, she crossed her legs, stuck her arms akiml)o in speaking, and stood with her hands behind her back. Her man- ners, too, were abrupt and rough, and at first sight her thick, black eyebrows inspired fear. Notwithstanding appearances, however, Sister Marguerite was the best of creatures. The small allowance her family — small land-owners in Périgord — gave her was entirely spent on cakes for the children when taken out walk- ing. Seeing this little girl remain surly and lonely among companions of her own age, not joining even in their games, the kind Sister comprehended that there existed some wounded feeling, some need for consolation in the child whom the other Sisters, rebuffed in their first advances, now abandoned to her isolation. Instinctively she attached herself to Philomène, occupied herself with her dur- ing playtime, bought her a skipping-rope, and lightened her sewing task — in short, Philo- mène became her favorite, her adoj^ted pro- tégée. One day after lunch, without any ap- parent cause, Philomène threw herself into the Sister's arms and burst into tears, find- Sister Philomene. 23 ing no other way of thanking her. The Sis- ter did not know what to say, for she also began to cry, without knowing why, when suddenly the child broke into a laugh, and her moist eyes brightened. As she raised her head she had just caught sight of the ridic- ulous appearance that Sister Carabosse pre- sented with tears streaming down her cheeks. From that moment Philomene became like her little companions ; a slightly serious look only remained on her otherwise open and frank countenance. She took pleasure in the amusements of her age, recovered the spirit, appetite, tastes, and boisterous health of youth, and eagerly joined in all the games. A spirit of emulation took possession of her, and she became interested in her work. She often thought of the large silver heart of the Virgin hanging in the oratory, with the names of the girls who had behaved best during the week pinned up around it ; and she en- vied all the badges distributed for assiduity in the work-room — the green ribbon and silver medal of the Infant Jesus, the red rib- bon of Saint Louis of Gonzague, or the wliite ribbon of the Holy Angels. Each week now brought its amusement, the Thursday's walk, now an intense pleasure, 24 Sister Philomene. which ill early days had seemed so dull and mournful. The Sisters nearly always took the little flock along the banks of the Canal Saint Martin. The children walked two by two, scattering as they passed along, in the mur- mur of their voices, a sound like that of hum- ming bees, watching a boy fishing, or a dog running up and down a barge, or a wheelbar- row trundled over a bending plank ; happy at the mere sight, and happy to breathe in and to listen to the echoes of Paris. At the Feast of the Assumption, on the Mother Superior's /^/f day, and two or three other times a year, they went into the country, S/s/c/' Philimùne. 25 and were usually taken to Saint-Cloud. They went through the park, crossed the bridge at Sèvres, wandered by the river-side, under the trees, till they reached a small inn at Su- resnes. There in the arbors they crowded round the wooden tables, all stained with /.it"i> purple wine, and feasted upon a large cream cheese, bought by Sister Marguerite. These joyous, free, open-air treats, the romps in the tall grass, the wild flowers gathered under the willow-trees — all this impressed the excur- sion more lastingly on Philomène even than the others. She awoke on the ensuing morn- ings filled with these recollections, and when 26 Sister Philomcnc. the sight of the clouds, roads, and river had grown dim in her memory, she still retained of the country she no longer beheld a per- fume, an echo, a sensation of sun ; and the scent of the trees, the rippling of the water came gently back to her as from afar. One day more especially dwelt in her mind. They had, as they returned from the country, entered the grounds of a market-gardener. It was May. The luminous sky had an in- finite though subdued transparency, like a white sky overspread with a softy shimmering veil of blue net. The atmosphere was sweet with the morning's breath. At moments a breeze gently shivered through the trees, and died away like a caress on the children's cheeks. In the tenderness of both sky and air, the pear, peach, cherry, and apricot trees blazed forth in a glory of blossom, silvery clusters nestling on every bough. Under the apple-trees a vast nosegay lay scattered over the red-brown earth, and the sun dancing through the foliage flitted like a bird over the snowy carpet of flowers. The radiant im- pression left by this vision of a soft and de- licious Nature, decked as for a virginal feast, the dazzling orchard caught sight of in its tender springtide of candor and freshness — Sister Philomene. 27 all this lived like a dream in the heart of lit- tle Philomene. Little by little the singular persistency of her sensations, the unconscious faculty for retaining a vision, as it were, of things gone by, made the child more impressionable, and developed in her an acute state of sen- sitiveness. She grew melancholy, and was almost angered at any caress bestowed by the Sisters on the other little girls ; a word or a question addressed to another wounded her as a slight or neglect. She had such a crav- ing for tenderness and affection that any kindness displayed to others seemed some- thing robbed from her ; and this dread, of which she was herself ashamed ; this torture which she hid, was betrayed by an unreason- ing jealousy. One day the whole convent went to spend the afternoon at Madame de Mareuil's near Lagny. Madame de Mareuil was the benefactress of the convent, and every year gave a great lunch to the little or- phans. At the end of the day, while the car- riages were conveying them home, the little ones having had a sip of champagne, all talked at the same time, recalling out loud, as if it were a fairy tale, the wonderful things they had seen — the moat full of water, the great 28 Stsier Philom'ène. gilded gates, the avenues with festoons of ivy, clinging in garlands from tree to tree, and the satin-covered chairs, and the great gallery where the family portraits gazed down on them as they ate, and the boundless park, the marble statues, and the hot-house flowers they did not even know the name of, that looked like wax. Philomène, in the midst of the noise, admiration, and exclamations, alone remained unmoved and silent. "Well, you little dumb thing," said Sister Marguerite, *' you do not say anything. Was it not all fine enough to please you ? What do you mean by being so quiet ? Come, come, I know : you would have liked to have been with the big girls, and the lady to no- tice you. I know what you are, you like — " And the Sister, stopping short, heaved a com- passionate sigh as she looked at the child. That night, before Philomène dropped off to sleep, she felt Sister Marguerite gently pull her blanket up over her hands and her un- covered shoulders. All the kindly Sister's care and attention could not, however, wrest the child's heart from the memory of the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin. Her thoughts continually turned toward her aunt, toward Madame de Viry Sister F/iilomhic. and Monsieur Henry. As in the past, the first Sundays in the month were the most eventful days in her Hfe. If she trembled less when called to the parlor, she still had the same tender caress for her aunt, and exacted al- ways the same promise from the old woman — that when she would be old enough she should return to Madame de Viry's — with a query of " T/uit is certain, is it not ? " full of an anxiety that rose from the very depths of her being. Besides these Sundays, three weeks in the year also caused Philomène the deepest emotion. These were the eight days preced- ing New Year's Day, the eight days i)receding Madame de "\^iry's /rtc- day, and the eight 30 Sisfrr PJulpniene. days before that of her aunt. All that time she lived a double kind of existence, ponder- ing over the letter of good wishes she longed to make so fine. Long in advance she had bought some pretty writing-paper with initials surrounded bv a wreath of embossed roses ; Nvith what embarrassment and diffidence did she strive to set forth well-rounded phrases, similar to those she read in books ! 'NMiat care she took in writing to close the '* ''~- contrition. All her blood seemed to rush to her head and heart. She was shaken all over by inward agitation, by the passionate longing of her childish imagination thirsting for love. She would (juit the confessional bathed in tears, happy to feel them streaming down her cheeks till they reached and moistened her lips. It was a passionate aspiration toward 42 Sister Philomene. all that the first approach to the mystery of the sacrament can bring to an excitable child of twelve — new sensations, inner revelations, unknown ardors. She fancied she had a call ; a new conscience seemed to awake within her ; she felt as if she had dismissed one part of her life, and abruptly entered upon another ; as though the veil of her child- ish soul were torn asunder in a first assump- tion of womanly character and moral respon- sibility. At last the great day came. Philomene had begged her aunt to bring her some eau- de- cologne and some scented pomatum. When she entered the church, in the midst of the other communicants, she stood as if trans- fixed ; she could neither hear nor see any- thing around her, and was so moved that she hardly knew what she was doing. There seemed to be a great hum and roar in her and around her ; the fragrance of the cosmetics she had used enveloped her, and she inhaled them as a breath of Paradise, not realizing that they emanated from her own person. Rays of light streamed through the church, throwing the jewel-like color of the stained- glass windows over the altar. A bluish vapor rose in the dusty daylight. The lighted Sister Philomene. 43 tapers threw their sparkle upon the white frocks. In the nave voices mingled witii per- fumes, and prayers with hymns. The cen- sers swung back with a broken sound in the white-gloved hands. But for Philomene there was nothing but the altar, and on the altar nothing but the tabernacle. She gazed steadfastly at it, and by a wonderful effort riveted her inner sight as well, forcing both mind and vision to pierce through the mist which after long gazing shrouds all things from our view, till she fancied she fathomed the mysterious depths of the gilded shrine, as the sun is divined behind the hill that hides it by the faint light it leaves above. As the girls on the bench rose, she rose too. Her turn came and she received the Host. As she partook of it, she felt an inef- fable sensation of faintness, a rapture that was almost a swoon. From this day the church became for Philomene a calm, holy spot, tender and fa- miliar, like some well-remembered room of childhood's home, full of tender memories of a mother's love. She waited impatiently for Sunday, when she would go there, live there a whole day, lingering on from service l(j service. 44 Sister Philottiene. Nevertheless, Saint Laurent, where the Sisters took the children, was but a shabby little church. Situated at the top of the Boulevard de Strasbourg, and now standing clear from its surroundings, it looked like an old country church, abandoned in the mid- dle of a lonely square, in which maybe some rope-maker carried on his trade. Inside it was cold and bare ; one felt it to be the poverty-stricken parish church of the two faubourgs, the Faubourg Saint Denis and the Faubourg Saint Martin. Not a sound was to be heard under the severely arched roof, along the gray and dirty walls ; at times only the dragging step of slipshod clogs over the pavement, or a harsh and hollow cough broke tlie silence. The congregation was of the poorest class : a second-hand dealer in clothes with a colored handkerchief on her head, a maid carrying home some small family dinner tied up in a cloth, a coal-woman who hissed between her lips a silent prayer, a mother with a basket, and a child in her arras over whom she makes the sign of the cross as she enters, or a seamstress praying with bent head, and finger-tips roughened by the needle raised to her mouth. Women in mourning, with old black dresses, bonnets, and veils Sister Philomhie. 45 turned rusty, pass tlu-ough the aisles. Close by the iron railings of the side chapels other old women in linen caps may be seen, with fixed gaze, dilated pupils, and eyes upraised, mumbling prayers. At times also in a cor- ner some bent old man in a shabby blue coat whitened at the seams would kneel humbly on the ground. Philomène, however, did not notice the melancholy aspect of Saint Lau- rent. She did not see that the church was miserable, for she was happy there, and it seemed to her that her pleasure was due to the place itself and its belongings. She was conscious of a vague sensation of comfort and infinite peace, a dreamy idleness and languid satisfaction. The spell she was under while seated in the nave gave her the sensation of a balmy and soothing climate, and the pen- etrating, subtle atmosphere of the church seemed to her that of an ideal fatherland. She was awed on entering by the cold touch of the holy water, she enjoyed the smell of the Ughted tapers and dying incense, and the fading perfume of burnt balm and wax that pervaded the whole church. She delighted in the peaceful calm, broken only now and again by a soft step, the rustle of a dress, the leaves of a book turned over, the murmur of 46 Sister Philomene. l)raying lips. The organ lulled her with a harmony and melody that rocked and soothed her, and she abandoned herself to tlie burst of sound, to the tempest of noise that swept over her, to the celestial chorus that throbbed in her temples and reechoed in her heart. She listened in unconscious rapture to the chant of the priests and choristers, which from the depths of the chapels was responded to from afar by voices young and old. And at vespers, she was deliciously stirred by one of the voices in the choir, a high, thin head voice, tender and penetrating, which seemed to send up on high an echo of the Passion. The voices, music, atmosphere, and per- fume of the church always affected her more and more sweetly as the day wore on. Her thoughts floated more dreamily in tlie wan- ing light that sent from the windows a snowy reflection on the confessionals and confusedly mingled its fading whiteness with the rose- colored light of the tapers and lamps. She sat there, almost sleeping, indulging with a secret delight in the dreams and illusions created by the uncertain light, letting her gaze wander before her over the already dusky chapels, the shadowy nooks and corners round the choir, where the whiteness of a cap, a Sïs/cr Philomene. 47 colorless complexion, the blackness of a shawl or dress, the white edge of a petticoat vaguely outlined some feminine shadows seated on a bench. And when at the end of the last ser- vice the shuffling of the chairs drew her from this torpor, .she was roused from it like a per- son abruptly startled out of a dream. Soon the church was to become more precious still to her. Behind the door, at the apse of Saint Laurent, is a chapel toward which all the poor direct their steps as they enter. In front of it, in the sombre recess of an angle of the wall, stand four rows of little thin tapers stuck on tall prongs fastened into a wooden pedestal, flickering with the fitful and uncertain light of tallow, and throwing a vacillating glimmer into the surrounding gloom. By their faint gleam can just be dis- cerned a dark shadow huddled up against the wooden base, a crushed, abandoned body, bent double like a Christ taken down from the cross, a creature muffled up in a hooded cloak, out of which a hand only is stretched to receive the penny for each taper. The chapel opens at the side ; and on a white and gold altar, covered with lace over faded blue silk, in the midst of tiers of artificial flowers under glass shades, a white Virgin, 48 Sister Philomme. bearing on her bosom seven flaming gold hearts hanging to a white watered ribbon — •' Our Lady of Sorrow " — stands out from a background of azure and golden rays ema- nating from a triangle. Pretty, smiling, and gentle like any young queen, she gracefully upholds on a globe an infant Jesus, who, be- decked with rosaries and medals, seems only intent on playing with Saint John. Above the altar, on a carved frontal, painted green to imitate marble, is written up in great blue letters : " Confraternity of the Blessed and Immaculate Mother of God, Our Ladv of the Sick. Privileged Altar." Madame de Vir^- had fallen ill with a malady that was to end fatally after a long year of suflFering, and Philomène obtained permission from the Sisters to go and pray every Sunday in this chapel " dedicated to the sick." She remained near the entry by the side of the wall covered with white marble tablets, on which were inscribed in golden letters the following outbursts of graritude : '" To Mary, 20th April, 18 — : / called upon Mary and she heard my prayer!' — " O Mary .' oh ! my mother ! " She would re- main on her knees there for more than an hour at a time, and amid all the women — mothers. ¥Ui'i •fhe its «IE if ier X&r T«ar^ DC 3^SfX JET r^^IC'Tr IIX 50 Sister Philomene. bright like that of a child fresh from play, was fading away, and her lips, no longer red, had assumed a violet tinge. She was getting pallid, and her hands grew whiter and thin- ner. She was overcome by a general feeling of discomfort ; aches and pains seemed every day to affect a different part of her body, leaving an intense weariness of both mind and body. She rose from her bed with fatigue, and going up-stairs or running made her heart beat so violently that she had constantly to rest. The least work required an effort, a battle with self. Involuntarily she let her- self sink into a drowsiness that numbed her thoughts and feelings. She vaguely thought of death, talked to her aunt of Madame de Viry's grave, recalled to mind two of her lit- tle companions who had died at her age — not that she wished to die, but the idea haunted her ; she wondered to whom she should leave her prayer-book, who would have her little pictures, her confirmation medal. When she read her mass-book she instinctively turned to the prayers for the dead, taking delight in certain Latin words of that service that sounded dark and gloomy. She did not con- jure up these fancies, but felt drawn toward Sister Philomene. 51 them by mysterious voices. And these thoughts did not fill her with the terror they inspire to older people, who cling to life and are unable to tear themselves away from it. Philomène considered the possibility of death without fear, almost with indifference, and although she did not invite it, she did not re- pel the idea. She had grown accustomed to the thought, and she would have accepted death with the unconcern and disregard for life so often seen in young girls before they attain womanhood. Her piety was increased by these ideas ; she became more zealous, more ecstatic. She pondered upon all the words by which the Church conjures up the image of death and its negation. She dwelt with a certain bitter delight on the images and expressions of woe scattered here and there through her mystical books of piety, like black crosses in a cemetery. If, however, her piety had become more fervent, her temper had lost its equanimity, and Philomène, who till then had been so gentle, was now irritable and impatient. She gave way to anger even with Céline, and would burst into tears when her friend asked what was the matter. Some days she could 52 Sister Philomene. not help crying. The Sisters found her lacking in deference and cheerful alacrity ; she manifested a dislike to washing up the dishes, cooking the dinner, all the different services she had to perform in her turn, and she showed her dislike by a cross and sulky manner ; in fact, she was quite an altered person. Her appetite, too, became capri- cious, full of whimsical fancies, which denial only exasperated. For two months she kept teasing her aunt to bring her a pot of mustard, which the old woman always forgot. Then her eyes became affected, and she suffered from ophthalmia. The Sister in charge of the dispensary attended to her, but ointments proved of no avail ; the disease increased, and it was therefore decided that Philomene should be sent to Monsieur Nekton's gratui- tous consultation, held every Thursday at the School of Medicine. As this would have wasted a whole day for the Sister who taught or the Sister who looked over the work-room, her aunt was requested to take chai'ge of her on that dav. Her aunt came an hour earlier than Philomene expected, as she wished to take her niece liome to breakfast, and to show Monsieur Henry how tall the girl had grown. Sister Fhilomhie. 53 The child hardly spoke to her aunt as they went along, so anxious was she to reach home, and she walked on ahead, hastening by her feverish jDace the lagging steps of the old woman, who hurried to o\ertake her. At last they reached the street, the house, the stairs, and, finally, the door of the new apartment Monsieur Henry had taken after his mother's death. Immediately the door 54 Sister Philoniène. was opened Philomène dashed in ; she wanted to see everything, look at everything ; such a thing was new, that other she remembered of old ; and she went from one thing to another, touching the relics of her childhood, or mar- velling at all the unknown and astonishing refinements of a young man's newly furnished rooms. And when she timidly entered Mon- sieur Henry's room, clinging like a child to her aunt's gown, her heart throbbed violently. Monsieur Henry, in a blue jacket and trousers embroidered in red, stood in front of a mirror fastened by the handle to the win- dow. He was shaving himself with the proud and busy mien of a lad of twenty shaving for the third time in his life, and thereby assum- ing the importance of a man. " Ah ! it's your little girl," he said, raising his head to shave under his chin ; " my beard is so hard.'' And then, turning round half-shaved, holding his tortoise-shell razor on high : " Oh ! I should not have known you again ; what a big girl you are ! A\'ell, are you pleased to come out to spend the day with your aunt ? Ah ! yes, it's true your eyes are bad ; it won't be anything serious. Leave them alone." Then, addressing himself to her aunt : " I hope you are going to give her a good breakfast. Now, Sister Philomene. 55 where are my varnished boots ? I am going out." When Philomene went back at four o'clock she was left for a few minutes in the parlor while her aunt explained to the Sister the oculist's prescription and the treatment that must be followed. The pale gray daylight was on the wane, and its cold gleams whitened the window curtains and threw dim and col- orless reflections on the chocolate-colored walls, on the worn tiles, on the polished wood-work of the chairs, on the wicker arm- chair of the Sister-Superintendent, on the great walnut press in which the linen sent to be hemmed or marked by the children in the orphanage was kept. Nothing was changed in the parlor, everything was in its accustomed place, and yet everything there now looked unfamiliar to the little girl. She seemed to see with different eyes the two lithographic portraits of the Mothers-Superior in the black wooden frames ; the wax figure of the Virgin over the mantelpiece, the china vases with Marie in gilt letters upon them, and the taw- dry hawthorn nosegay of faded yellow paper. She wondered what had happened to the room and its contents that she found it so different. Looking mechanically round the parlor and 56 Sister Philomene. noticing for llie fust lime its cold, bare, and icy aspect, she suddenly felt a sensation of forlornness, the anguish of isolation, like that she had felt on the day she first entered the convent. Céline, who had anxiously been awaiting her return, threw her arms round her neck when she saw her, and plied her with ques- tions about the doctor, what he had said and ordered. Philomene answered shortly in a few words, and began quickly to tell her of the lovely apartment she had been to, of her aunt's kitchen and its look-out on trees, and of the little room where her aunt said she would work \\hen she would have left the convent. And all she had seen that seemed to her so fine, magnificent, fascinating, and unknown hurried to her lips, that trembled with emotion and smiled at the recollection. It was a headlong outpouring, which only stopped for her to take breath in a caress or in a kiss, and ran on inexhaustibly from story to story, from the trimmed cap her aunt had tried on her to the lather of soap Monsieur Henry had stuck on her cheek in kissing her. At last Philomene perceived that Céline re- mained silent, and did not seem to share in her ecstasy. Sister Philomcne. 57 "Philomène," Céline now said in a gentle, solemn tone, " when we are in bed to-night we will make a spiritual retreat in the tomb of Christ, and implore him to grant us a love for meditation and contemplation." After this episode Philomène was seized afresh with a paroxysm of fervor and piety. Giving to prayer all the time she could pos- sibly devote to it, she strove, as it were, to prolong its echo within her by keeping up during her work a murmur of prayer on her lips and a constant thought of it in her mind. During play-time she wrote religious exer- cises ; she confessed and communicated whenever she was permitted to do so, and at Saint Laurent, during mass and vespers, she was so completely absorbed that nothing had the power to withdraw her attention nor turn her thoughts from God. This enthusiasm lasted nearly two years. Then it seemed to her as if little by little an unknown power that she could hardly sub- due, and which must eventually conquer her, were taking possession of her. Her peace of mind, her will even, disappeared amid the fears and anxieties she could not suppress. When she wished to pray she no longer found the same facility, the same inclination that had for- 58 Sister Philomene. merly borne her along without an effort. The Divine Presence became to her only an idea instead of a sensation, and Philomene was still convmced but no longer penetrated by it. All the spiritual food that had till now sustained her had in the same way become tasteless and had lost its invigorating sweetness. Now her faith had no raptures and suavity to up- hold her against the bitterness, melancholy, discontent, impatience, and restless agitations with which her conscience was struggling. She felt temptations draw round her, and these temptations, which it would formerly have hardly cost her a moment's reflection to cast aside, now preoccupied her like a fixed idea, and, by dint of dreading them, she fell under their haunting influence. At the same time, in the midst of all this languor and cool- ing fervor, her defenceless soul was har- assed by an ideal of perfection which it could not attain, but toward which it was forever bounding as in a paroxysm of fever, with aspirations, resolutions, and longings, by vows of rules and penitence. Then, worn out by clutching at this phantom of holiness, she sank back into restlessness and uncertainty. She secretly rebelled against mortifications ; her obedience was no longer eager, her im- Sister Philomene. 59 agination was a torture, and whatever will she had left seemed to 'ner a will from which all grace had fled. Thus did this soul, which had known all the joy of absorption in God, strive and waste away in the struggle. Each day de- stroyed something, extinguished some ardor ; each day aggravated the disease so deadly to faith, the disease the Church calls dryness, comparing, as it does, the souls that suffer from it to arid lands without water. And the more she struggled, the more she strove to cure the evil, the more she eagerly strained toward that ideal of perfection she had neg- lected to seek for in the hour of health and repose — the more she suffered, and the more her mind was confused and uncertain. Dis- belief alone could end this conflict, in which the poor child was torn to pieces by her own thoughts, and Philomene had not yet reached that state. She prayed, neverthe- less, but was not comforted. Why did those things that formerly ap- pealed to her no longer touch her ? Often and often she sadly turned back to her prayer- book, a shabby little leather-covered book with a gold line round it and blue-tinted edges, a book similar to every other of the 6o S/'sfcr Philomhie. kind published by Adrien Leclerc, printer to our Holy Father the Pope, and to his Grace the Archbishop of Paris. In order to pro- tect it she had encased it in a neatly stitched black merino ^vrapper, fastened by a couple of dark mother-of-pearl buttons and loops that made a kind of clasp. Between the cover and the binding she had placed all the scraps of paper she had relating to her aunt and Madame de Viry, and the few letters she had ever received. In the book itself, the edges of which were so faded and thumbed that they had assumed the color of dry moss, she had crammed between every page — till the volume was nearly bursting — a number of sacred images, prayers to the Sacred Heart, and flowers picked during her Vv'alks, which for her represented memorable dates. This book, the book of her first Communion, the receptacle of her souvenirs and her hopes, she had prized as a relic and a friend. Now she opened it, turned over the leaves, and saw nothing more in it than in other books — lines and letters — and she closed it again as a thing dead. Céline saw Philomène's struggles, and strove to aid and calm her. She longed to endow her with some of her strength of will, resolution, simple faith, and the senti- Sisler Philomene. 6i ment of vocation that time only made more certain and powerful ; but Philomene, self- shamed, rebuffed her, and finally begging to be left alone, drew herself away from her friend. Then Céline would send her notes every evening after supper, asking her to kiss her when they met on their way to the dor- mitory, and with this kiss, in which she would have wished to seize hold of Philomène's soul and bear it away to God, Céline would slip into her hand a little folded paper, care- fully ruled, on which she had written in copy- book handwriting : Gifts of piety that render God's service pleasant and sweet ; or else, Fruit of Charitv that unites us to God through love. When Philomène's evening kiss was cold or indifferent, or that she seemed merely to put up her cheek from habit, instead of the little papers, Céline would slip into her hand long letters, scribbled in pencil unknown to the Sisters : " God has put into my heart an affection pleasing to him. I shall strive to be with you what I think God wishes; for he commands us not only to love him, but also to make him be loved. I trust that if you pray to Mary she may receive you amongst her children, and then we will strive by our good example to kindle in the hearts 62 Sister Philomene. of our companions the desire to become one of her family. Be more devout, and I will pray God Almighty to help you." Such were the tone and phraseology of these letters, which Céline always signed : '''Her who is always your friend in the blessed hearts of Jesus and Mary r This went on, till at last Philomene, wearied out, impatiently, angrily even, pushed aside the scribbled scraps of paper Celine held out to her. Philomene now found a diversion and re- lief in some new fancies that had taken pos- session of her. Thoughts of marriage ran through her brain, not, indeed, as a settled plan, but vaguely, confusedly, softly veiled, like objects visible in the distance. She did not think of any one in particular whom she would wish to marry ; she had no precise notion indeed about marriage, but turned to the thought instinctively and calmly as some- thing that might be. And her imagination conjured up the pure, white-robed figure, which, to a little girl, is the lasting impres- sion left of a wedding — the white dress and wreath of orange-blossoms. Then at times she dreamed of still greater happiness, of a community of spirit, a two-fold existence, of devotedness, of mysterious joys that she Sister Philomine. 63 knew not, for which she knew no name, but which must surely dawn on the horizon of a new life. She was still an innocent child, knowing nothing, divining nothing ; her ingenuous- ness was also greater than usual at her age ; for instance, on one occasion, when several of her playmates, the eldest of whom was younger than herself, were talking together, one of them happened to say : " Did you see how Berthe blushed when she met her cousin in the parlor ? Certainly she has a liking for him." " How silly you are," retorted another ; " it does not make you blush ; it makes you turn pale." " Dear me ! " said Philomène, " I thought one only turned pale when hurt." Two great voids were suddenly created in Philomène's existence. Sister Marguerite was sent to the south for a few months to recruit her health, and Céline left the orphanage to begin her novitiate at the Mother House of the Sisters of Saint Augus- tine. From this moment the convent life became insupportable to Philomène ; it was worse than solitude. She was seized with desperate 64 Sister Philomene. longings to leave it, to run away and go to her aunt. The atmosphere, the walls, the very sky overhead, all became odious to her, and her health gave way under the ennui that devoured her both body and soul. The Sisters became anxious and allowed her aunt to visit her oftener ; the convent fare, that seemed to disgust Philomene so that she hardly touched it, was replaced by more delicate food. Notwithstanding all this care, Philomene grew paler and thinner, and her eyes seemed larger and more feverish in her wan little face. One day, after six months, on the occasion of a visit from her aunt, she threw herself into the old woman's arms, and hugging her and crying at the same time, im- plored her to take her away, saying she would die there, that she felt as if some serious illness were hanging over her. Her aunt had need of all her courage to reply that it was quite impossible to take her away, that she was still too young ; but she promised to have her home when she would be twenty, and when, in all i)robability. Monsieur Henry would be married and she could be his wife's maid. A last tear rolled down Philomène's cheek, but she did not utter a word. At the end of a week her aunt received a Sister P/iilotnhie. 65 letter in which Philomène said she was very sorry for the scene she had made, that she had waited a few days to see if her good reso- lutions held out. The letter ended as follows: " .... I hope that l)y the grace of God and the advice of our good Mother Superior this will not occur again. I shall not leave this establishment, but, by the will of God and your consent, perhaps I shall only leave it to enter — I say no more at present ; time will speak for me." Her aunt, attaching no im- 66 Sister Philomene. portance to this last phrase, was quite reas- sured by the letter. However, the anxiety of the Sisters was awakened, two or three of their young girls having died of a decline similar to that Philomene was suffering from. They noticed that Philomene eat nothing at meals ; she even tried to disguise the fact by hiding her bread up her sleeves. The convent doctor declared, after examining Philomene, that her digestive organs were already affected, and the Sisters, alarmed, sent at once for her aunt, who, hearing what the doctor had said, immediately took the child away. Monsieur Henry was just then travelling in Italy ; the old woman could therefore de- vote all her time to her niece, amuse her and take her out walking during her convalescence. And holding out to the poor girl the prospect of a future in which they should always be together, telling her how useful she would be to her in her old age, she gradually and gently brought back to life and hope this crushed and weary heart. One morning the door-bell rang loudly. It was Monsieur Henry. "How do you do, old woman ? All right, eh?" said the young man. "Ah ! this is youi Sis/c/- J'/i/7()i/ii/ic, 67 niece. How pale slic is ! I say, your aunt tells nic you ha\e become deuced pious." And he burst out laughing and kissed her on both cheeks. Philomène trembled all over. " Give me a match — you must take care of yourself," resumed Monsieur Henry, puf- fing away at a cigar, " and not do too mucli. Get out my clothes, old woman ; I want to take a turn on the boulevards. Has a letter come from the Rue des Martyrs ? By the bye, I've brought you something, Philomène — a rosary — one blessed at Rome. It is somewliere in my box. Ah ! while I think of it, I am going to confide to you a most im- portant charge — you will see that my shirts have all the buttons on." Whereupon Monsieur Henry went out, and did not return till the following day. From that time Monsieur Henry's service became Philomène's sole preoccupation. She taxed her ingenuity and strove to surprise him by her thoughtful attentions. She endeavored to find out his favorite habits and pet fancies. Never was a stitch wanting to Monsieur Henry's gloves ; his pipes were always clean ; the smallest details of his toilet were as care- fully attended to as though the eye of an old- fashioned provincial mother had scrutinized 68 Sister PJiiloJucne. and inspected them. All the knick-knacks in his room, which her old aunt often left un- dusted and in disorder, were now carefully tidied and neatly placed ready to his hand. Monsieur Henry seemed delighted at being so well served, but he scarcely thanked Phil- omène, except by an absent " Good-day," or some broad, good-natured joke. At break- fast, while Philomène waited on him, he was absorbed in the newspaper, propped against his glass, and hardly vouchsafed her a " thank you." After breakfast and three pipes smoked in silence, he would take up his hat and dis- appear for the day. This bachelor establishment, giving but little work to the aunt and niece, left their evenings free. When the winter months came round, the old woman, not knowing how to keep herself awake, acquired the habit of going down into the porter's lodge, where all the different servants of the house met and in turns treated each other to tea. First there was the porter with :s. pince-nez that he affectedly toyed with — a short, fat widower, well informed on money matters, and know- ing how to turn his money to account in all sorts of investments and underhand loans. Then there was a fellow with a brown-bread S/s/tw riiilomhie. 69 complexion and coarse red lips, the groom of a stock-broker living on the first floor, and who, owing to his master's encouragements — the said master being flattered by his style — tried with a hoarse voice to catch the low tone of the servants in the plays at the Palais Royal. Then there was the cook of the lady on the second floor — a foreign lady, who os- tensibly gave card-parties and was said to be a Russian spy — a big Flemish woman, always half-tipsy, bursting with fat and exploding with laughter and low mirth. Often, too, this Flemish woman would bring her hus- band, the most villanous type of cab-driver, a man whose nose and forehead exhaled alcohol at all hours of the day, and his chin, disfigured by some skin disease, was half hid- den in a filthy muffler. Two or three flighty maids of disreputable women, ferret-featured and coarse-mouthed, made up this select so- ciety, to which may be added the nurse of a paralyzed man, her red nose adorned by a black wart. These people were indeed enough to make one sick. The men and women reeked of wine, corruption, envy, sloth- — all the vices of domesticity. Their instincts and tastes seemed impregnated with the odors of the 70 Sister Philomine. stable, of all kinds of grease and filth. The vices they had caught in listening to their masters had in them become still more debased, just as the remains of an orgy moulder away on the pantry shelves. Their mouths only uttered foul protestations and base accusations ; their talk was of revenge- ful anonymous letters, and their discussions of impudent ways of robbing, wasting, and pilfering, of brazen theories on theft, and of keeping accounts with four purses — the silk stocking purse, or the dripping perquisites ; the sou in the franc i)urse, or so much per cent. ; the pickings purse, or shopping gains ; and the market penny purse. This was fol- lowed by the ogress laugh of the Flemish woman, the chaff of the caddish groom, the slang of the maids, and the horrible language of the sick-nurse. Their voices, words, and mirth struck a chill ; it sounded like convicts making merry. Gifted with a strong dose of stupidity, on which Paris life had made little impression, Philomène's aunt did not realize nor fathom the depravation of these vicious people. She laughed like the rest and with the rest, but her faithfulness, her natural honesty and thorough disinterestedness, made her listen Sister Philomene. 71 without comprehending, and slie lived in the midst of this corruption not only without feeling tempted to imitate it, but unconscious of its existence. On the other hand, while Philomene was at first startled and instinc- tively alarmed, her very ignorance concealed from her the ugliest side of these folk. She heard much that she did not understand — words with double meaning that had no sense for her ; phrases finished off by gestures, the indecency of which was unknown to her ; shameless avowals that she listened to as mere inventions. At first, however, they had a certain respect for her candor and the innocence of her youth. In her presence the cynical speeches assumed a kind of reserve, and, moreover, in the porter's lodge every- body petted with coarse amiability the niece of Monsieur Henry's housekeeper. Indeed, the groom, who always heard his master talking of the practical side of life, had from the first gauged the position. From the out- set he had reflected that Philomène's aunt was the old and valued servant of a bache- lor ; that if he married the niece — and he viewed his position of husband with much philosophy — and through his wife entered Monsieur Henry's establishment, he might 72 Sister Philomene. settle down in it, eventually replace the aunt, who was but mortal, and in good time become the real master of a house in which there was nothing to do and where the mas- ter was supposed to be an easy-going young man. Such was the plan he at once con- ceived, and he accordingly began paying his court to Philomene by offering her bunches of faded violets and launching coarse com- pliments at her, of a style that savored more of fisticuffs. At the groom's first attentions an insurmountable disgust took possession of Philomene and opened her eyes ; a sudden perception revealed to her in one instant the man and his associates, and now she dreAV back when they wished to embrace her. However, as she was too shy openly to show her feelings, the domestics set down her marked coolness toward the groom to mere school-girl whims. Her aunt did not notice her revulsion of feeling and continued to drag her to these I)arties. One evening the groom — having been given a box at the Gaîté by his master's mistress, who acted at that theatre — had in- vited both aunt and niece, and Philomene had to remain there for four hours side by side with the groom, to whom the obscurity Sister Philovùnc. 73 of the box lent confidence, while at every moment the Flemish cook, excited like all common people at a play, screamed out to her at the top of her voice : " I say, my girl, you're having fine fun ! " Fora moment Philomène hoped she would faint. She continued to wait on Monsieur Henry at breakfast and Monsieur Henry always read his newspaper. Philomène longed for a word, a remark, a question ; she would even have been satisfied with the caress he mechanically bestowed on the old cat. She longed to sacrifice herself for the young man, whose image had remained united in lier youthful imagination to all the fascinating domination of her childhood's dreams. Had he been ill, she would willingly have spent nights nursing him ; had he suddenly lost all his money, she would have only been too happy to serve him for nothing. She thought of all kinds of mis- fortunes and catastrophes that might give her the opportunity of showing her affection and of making some return to the family to whom she owed all. A request for a plate, or a silver knife to peel a pear would rouse her painfully from these thoughts, in which she absorbed herself as in a golden dream, wishing almost that these misfortunes and catastrophes 74 Sister Philomine. would occur. Some days she could have implored Monsieur to scold her, to reproach her with some neglect, to show some dis- pleasure — anything, indeed, if he would only have noticed her. The coarseness of her surroundings and the indifference of her young master made the poor girl suffer cruelly. She felt ill and weary, and the whole atmosphere around her seemed either to smother her or to be a blank. The fact was that under the convent edu- cation her intelligence alone had remained that of the people, in keeping with her class in life, and in harmony with her future, while the rest of her faculties had been cultivated and raised to a high degree of sensitiveness. The religious education, with all its enervat- ing culture, had refined all the aspirations of her mind, and by the spirituality of its nature borne the child far away from the instincts and morality of her equals, so that Philomène experienced in the sphere that was her own a jarring sensation of discomfort, the vague impression of a fall and exile. Life, which she now saw in all its crudity, wounded every feeling within her, and she could not ac- custom herself to its blows. The materialism of the passions, sentiments, and affections, Si's/er Philomene. 75 the brutality of the impressions, actions, and langungc natural to workingmen or servants, estranged her from the men, who inspired her with both fear and contempt. Neither did the women, on the other hand, attract her, and she did not feel any affinity with creatures who appeared so different from her and seemed, indeed, of a sex different from her own. Often in that low company tastes and cravings would impatiently arise within her ; she felt drawn toward a certain ele- gance, a certain amiability of intercourse, certain proprieties that she could not have de- fined, but of which, like a well-bred j^erson, she felt the want. For what really affected her most painfully was not so much the ig- norance of the servants, or their infamous and wicked natures, but the form in which this ignorance, infamy, and low nature was manifested. Their cynicism, which was new to her, pained her almost in a physical man- ner. And the young girl, who did not know much more than to read and write, who was totally deficient of mother wit, and whose brain was only filled with books of piety and a few simple novels, who by her intelligence was assuredly inferior to most of these men and women, actually (ompared herself in this 76 Sister Fhiloniene. company to an unfortunate soul in purga- tory, so much did she suffer from this suffer- ing, which Avas one of instinct and sensation. The young girl's heart was overflowing with tenderness, which met with no more response than her delicate attentions were welcomed with satisfaction. Her convent life had not only over-refined her soul, but had also ripened her heart in its hot-house atmosphere; and all that discipline and mortifications had suppressed of ardor in her nascent senses had only intensified the fervor of her amor- ous aspirations. Naturally affectionate, her heart was filled with tender yearnings by the voluptuous suavity of her religious books, by their ever-repeated imagery of perfumes and flowers — dews of May, celestial odors, fragrant roses and lilies ; it had softened in the church atmosphere, in the murmur of the orisons sweet as mystic kisses, under the pen- etrating gentleness of the confessor's voice, l)efore the Sacred Heart, which the Sisters told her she must mentally bear like a flower on her bosom. It was a heart painfully at- tuned to love that she brought to confession — to the sacrament a heart ardently prepared for it. Love, love resounded all around her, and under the flame of this scorching word, Sister Philonùnc. 77 in her prostrations before the S[)()usc of her soul, the King of her love, the Beloved of her heart, in her aspirations toward Divine love, sweeter to her than honey, she had felt lier heart dissolve in tenderness and swoon in the rapturous love that inspired Correggio and Saint François de Sales with a vision of the Virgin's death. Such was the heart the young girl had brought away with her from the con- vent, and it was with a terrible anguish she felt it overflow within her. Philomène resigned herself to life, notwith- standing her sufferings ; but she carefully hid them, as a wounded man will with his hand compress and conceal his wound. Who could she confide in ? Her aunt would not have understood her ; moreover, she feared to profane her suffering by acknowledg- ing it. One evening that she had gone up to bed, Monsieur Henry, who was now in the habit of staying out all night, returned home. He was slightly intoxicated, and had, moreover, the cheerful expansion of a man who has co- piously dined. He spoke loud, and in a thick voice, stammering out his words. " I say, old girl," he said to the aunt, stretching himself in an arm-chair, " you 78 Sister Phi/oni'ene. ought really to have had nephews — instead of nieces ! Young girls, do you see — young girls are not always convenient in a bachelor's house. Now, this evening — this evening I should — not have come home alone ; but what an infernal row there'd have been — about that child. You'd have been so cross — of course — I know girls must be respected — but it's an awful — awful bore. I say this — ■ you know — not to make you send her away — -eh ? — no — but — ^you told me one day that she loved that wretched groom. Well — let them marry — because, a married woman — a married woman — can hear and see anything — a married woman can — whereas your deuced niece " The sound of a fall, of a heavy thud like a bundle thrown down, was heard outside the door. It v/as Philomène, who, hearing the bell while she was yet on the back- stairs, and recognizing Monsieur Henry's ring, had come down-stairs again to bid him good-night ; she had let herself in with her latch-key, had stepped noiselessly along the I)assage, had listened, heard — and fainted dead away on the ground. Her aunt and Monsieur Henry, who was sobered in an instant, dashed water in her Sister Philomhic. 79 face and slapped the palms of her hands. When she came to herself she was writhing in a fit of hysterics and seated on an arm- chair Monsieur Henry had placed before the open window. A flood of tears relieved her, but she remained dazed and bewildered, not knowing why she was there nor the reason of her tears ; and it was only when Monsieur Henry repeated several times that he had spoken heedlessly, that she should never be sent away, but should do exactly as she pleased, and made a thousand other soothing speeches, as if to a sick child, that she re- membered what had taken place. After this scene their usual life was re- sumed, as though nothing had occurred. Philomène seemed to have completely for- gotten all and was totally unembarrassed. One morning, about three weeks afterward, as Monsieur Henry rose from breakfast, Philomène, addressing him for the first time without his first speaking to lier, said, in a calm and steady voice he had never remarked before : " Monsieur Henry, I want to ask your for- giveness—and to thank you for liaving been so kind to me — and your mother also. I shall never forget it." And as Monsieur Henry 8o Sister Philoincnc. looked at her in astonishment, she hfted up her face : " Will you kiss me, Monsieur Henry ? It will be good-by." And without giving him time to interrupt her, she added, with an effort and hurriedly, like some one summoning up all their courage: " Yes ; I am going away. I leave on Monday to begin my novitiate at the Sisters of Saint Augustine ; but I shall always pray for you. Monsieur Henry, and for your happiness." Philomène spent two months of her proba- tion in the Mother House of the Order of Saint Augustine, clothed in the black dress and little black cap of the postulants. At the end of these two months of exercises and religious training, of manual work in the house, the thorough earnestness of her vocation showed that she was worthy of beginning her novitiate. The Veni Creator was solemnly chanted for her by the com- munity, and she appeared in church with the white muslin veil and blue sash that novices wear during the services. Shortly after the ]^eiii Creator she was per- mitted to take the habit. On this occasion she was dressed like a bride, in the wedding- S/s/fr Philomaic. 8i dress that had so long haunted her youtliful dreams. A certain elegance and affected coquettishness, the innocent and last touch of coquetry for her sacrifice, was revealed in all her attire. She had assisted at high mass in the crowded chapel, the Superior on her right hand, and the Mistress of tlie Novices on her left, holding a lighted taper, emblem of the Divine light that illumined her soul. After mass the officiating priest had said : " \Miat is your request ? " " I request admission into this Holy House, to serve God according to the rules prescribed by our holv founder, Saint Au- gustine." " Do you thoroughly know the rules ? " "Yes." And Philomène had recited out loud the rules of the order. " Do you promise to conform to them and obey them ? " " Yes, I [jroniise so to do, by the grace of God." Then the priest had delivered a long ex- hortation on the sacrifices necessary in a re- ligious life, on the advantages of such a life, on the dangers of the wo rid, and the decep- tions of those who seek for happiness in it, and, after having again asked Philomène if 6 82 Sister Philomene. she persisted in her intentions, the priest had cut off a lock of her hair, and she had left the chapel. When she returned there all her hair had been cut off, she was clothed in the costume of the order, each portion of which, one by one, had been blessed ; a thin woollen veil had replaced the muslin one, her face was swathed in white linen that half covered her forehead, and the ample, long woollen gown enveloped her in its heavy, straight folds. Her name in religion had been already given her. She had been laid under the mortuary pall, and while the Dc Profundis had been sung over her, a prayer had risen from her heart — the prayer offered up while under the pall, which the nuns aver is always granted — a prayer imploring the grace and mercy of God for those who had succored and assisted her childhood. Three months later, the novice — who had still seven months of novitiate before she could pronounce her vows — was sent to the hospital at * * * . She was about to re- place a Sister carried off by typhoid fever ; and this Sister, whose death thus pointed out to Philomene the path of duty and charity, was her former friend, Céline, since then Sister Laurence. TIT. The house-surgeons Avere gathered to- gether in the resident's room. It was a vaulted hall, and the stone walls were running down with the damp that oozed out of them. Opposite tlie gray door was a \\indo\v that opened on to a yard two feet above the level of the floor. In the wall to the right of the door was a large cupboard used as a wardrobe and linen closet. To the left, ()\er a copper fountain, hooked on to Sister Philomine. 85 the wall and caijped by a towel, a great, black-painted set of pigeon-holes displayed pell-mell in its divisions bundles of paper, note-books, and old newspapers. Beyond this was a little white china stove, and an un- tidy, curtainless bed — the bed of the resident surgeon on duty at night. On the othei side of the room was a great pi[)e-rack, and a big slate on which the house surgeons wrote down, in case they should be wanted, the name of the ward in which they would be found. A sheet of paper hung on a nail, adorned with a childish caricature of the governor of the hospital. On another nail was suspended another sheet of paper with a long list of names and ages marked in the margin — an alphabetical list of patients that a doctor, anxious to study diseases of the heart, had placed there, in order to be apprised of any deaths, and to be able to assist at the post-mortem examinations. In this room were seven men, their heads covered with close skull-caps, seated round a table on which an old woman had just placed a smoking-hot leg of mutton. One only among them, the surgeon on duty for the day, had kept on his apron ; those belonging to the others were hung up on pegs, and to 86 Sisfer PhiIo7nhh\ the lapel of their coats were fixed little pin- cushions, covered with red or violet-headed pins, whicli had the effect of nosegays. They were talking. " What ! you didn't know what had become of poor Lemesle ? He is the medical adviser of the Rue Sainte-Marguerite-Saint-Antoine. . . . The wine-shop is his consulting room ; each consultation is chalked up on the wall, and each chalk-mark is worth a glass of spirits, and the pot-man rubs out the score accord- ing to his consumption." " Poor fellow ! " " So clever, too ! " "I say, Dubertrand, shall you go to the ball at Bicêtre to see the lunatics dance ? " " At what time does it come off ? " " In the afternoon."' " Don't go there . . . there's no fun. . . . It's like a ball of lawyers, . . . nothing characteristic about it." " There must, however, be some hysteric patients, and that might be amusing." " Amusing ! . . . No indeed ! One day, at a ball of that sort, we — that is, the gover- nor, Chappe, and I — were completely hemmed in by the creatures, and could not get rid of them. ..." Sisier Philo mène 87 " Have you ever seen them act in theatri- cals, Noël ? " " No." "Now and again, when some epileptic makes too much ado, they seize him and turn him out. ... I was with you, Pichenat, wasn't I, when . . . ? '' " Yes, yes." " What's the matter with you, Pichenat, this morning ? " " The matter ! . . . ^\'hy, I had a scene this morning when the rounds were made. ... I am furious. . . . You know my chief is very aggravating ; he has only been ap- pointed as a substitute, and you haven't an idea what a plague he is ! Luckily, he won't be here more than a fortnight. ... If he annoys me again tomorrow, I shall apply for leave. . . . He is really too trying ! One day he will order ipecacuanha all round ; the next day he will say : ' No hurry, wait, let nature take its course ! . . .' The day after that it will be : * Gentlemen, a waiting policy is all very well for idle rich people, but have we any right to pursue that line here ? Here is a cabinet-maker who has to gain his liveli- hood and wants to be at work again as soon as possible !....' And thereupon ii^eca- 88 Sister Philomene. cuanha is ordered all round the ward ! And so it goes on !.. . What an idiot ! " " Have you begun your lectures to the dressers yet, Noël ? " "Yes." " How many attend ? " " About twenty." " Haven't you a fellow called Girardeau in your class ? " " Yes, . . . and he does well. 1 be- lieve we shall make something of him." " He comes from my part of the world. 1 commend him to you. He is poor. They lost everything in '48. . . . Besides that, his father is blind ; ... he supports him." " As he walks ? " " No, no ; by giving lessons in music and spelling in the intervals of his medical studies. . . ." "Monsieur Pichenat, you are wanted in the Sainte-Marthe ward," said the old wo- man who waited on the surgeons. " Have you not got some numbers of the Medical Gazette at home ? " " I believe I have some." " You will bring them back, won't you ? " " Who is Number 47 ? " inquired Pichenat as he reentered the room. Siskr Philom'cvc. 89 " How should I know ? That's rather good. ... I can remember the patients by their iHness, but not by their number." " Barnier, have you read Runeau's work on the use of baths in the time of the Romans ?" " No, he has not sent it to me. ... Is it a thick book ? " "A volume no thicker than my thumb. I have not cut it yet." " It may be interesting, . . . but he should have taken a wider view of the subject — made a philosophic and historic study of med- icine generally. Why did he not seize upon the low morals of antiquity as a whole, the scandals of Greek and Roman society ? . . . There was a subject for him ! . . . And then his book would have been quite the fashion. ..." " What has become of Thierry ? " " I saw him to-day in the school of medi- cine. . . . He composed his essay in thirty hours ! " " You don't say so ! " " He's a wag, is Thierry. . . . One day he borrowed from me a superb tumor, on pretence of analyzing it with the aid of the microscope. As he is a better hand at the 90 Sister Fhilomhic. microscope than I am, . . . and as I had no time ... in short, I gave him all I had done, . . . and wlieu I went to ask him for the analysis he told me he was going to use it himself, . . . that he had not finished ; . . . all kinds of excuses ! '* Theft of a tumor 1 The case is not provided for by law ! "' "There's a knock at the door." " Come in ! •' A young man entered, with long hair fall- ing over a red woollen comforter. He was a candidate for the fifth examination in medi- cine, and came to ask about the diseases of the various patients on whom he was to be interrogated. They replied : '' Go up-stairs. . . . • You will find some one about." When he had shut the door behind him : " There's cool cheek, to come and ask us to do the examiners in that way, without even bringing a recommendation from any one ! " He's as artful as a cochineal ! " Madame Bizet ! " The old woman came forward. " What's this food ? Have you ever eaten human flesh ? " Sister Philomhie. gi '' () monsieur ! " " \\W\, Madame Bizet, this is precisely the same tiling. ... Do you think you have any clear idea, Madame Bizet, as to what may be the taste of human flesh ? " " Lor' ! how dreadful ! ... I don't know. ... It must be like rabbit, I should think." " No, Madame Bizet, you are wrong ; it is a flavor between mutton and beef. I don't only speak from the accounts of travellers, you know, Madame Bizet. . . . One day a woman was brought here who had been try- ing to asphy.xiate herself ; she had fallen on the brazier. Her arm was roasted ... to a turn. If you could only cook your chops as well, Madame Bizet ! " " Talking of chops, do you know that the commissariat actually refused one the other day to my chief for a patient ? " " Disgusting, 'pon my word ! " " And what did your chief say ?" " Nothing." " He is generall)- down on them for things like that." " He simply gave the Sister ten francs (eight shillings) to buy chops for the patient." "Ah ! here comes the doctor! " There was a shout from the whole party. 92 Sister Philomhie. as a former student, who had just received his diploma, entered, carrying a bundle of his theses in blue paper covers under his arm. " Have breakfast, eh ? " "Yes." " Madame Bizet, ... a napkin." "Yes, sir." And the old woman brought the doctor the napkin reserved for guests — a white pillow cover. '■ Our warmest congratulations, old fellow." The doctor sat down, amid many hand- shakes, saying in a melancholy tone : " Not that I am a bit cheerful, though ! " "How so?" " To leave Paris. . . ." " Where are you going ? " " I am going to practise at Péronne. . . , Ah ! ugh ! a country town ! And he began to eat mournfully. " Ah ! I understand. Do you remember our first year at Bicêtre, eh, doctor ? That was a fine time. What larks we had ! . . . Our rooms were over those of the retired list, who retire after thirty years' service in the hospitals — A'j- ;r/(?.5'rt';//'i', as they are called. . . . They did not rest much, I can tell you. We used to spend the night rolling logs in the passages. . . . Lorry made such an awful Sister Philo mené. 93 row witli his violin. . . . Tlien they were not particular as to the visits we received. . . . Just imagine, we used to make punch on the roof ! That was a game that used to send comets across the observatory telescopes. . . . And on the Bicêtre fête day — that was when we were at our best ! The Bicêtre fellows would not let us dance. . . . There were more than twenty of us. . . . The officers took our part. . . . What a row we did make. ... It appears that it is all changed now. The students are watched, the concierge has to make reports ; they are expected to behave like a parcel of school-girls, and not to snore at night ! " " Do you remember, Barnier, that brute of a patient who threatened to thrash me when he got out ?" " Yes ; because you kept him on low diet. . . ." " Well, I met him the other day on the Pont des Arts y " Ah ? " " Yes, and I had mended him too well, evidently, for he seemed as strong as a Turk. ... I took the other side of the bridge." There was a clear, sharp ring, and ahiujst at 94 Sister PJiilomene. the same momenl the shadow of a bier stop- ping before the window took away half the daylight from the room. " Yes," said a house-surgeon to the doctor, " it is always at this hour and at this spot just as it was in your time, . . . cross-post for eternity ! " " Pass me the brandy." " Which pipe will you have ? 1 )eatirs-head, or the lead-poisoned face ? " " No, the other." There was a knock at the door. "Come in!" " Monsieur Pichenat," said a ward-maid, " it's for a Avoman you are wanted — a birth." " Just one's luck ! Something always turns up just as one has lighted a pipe." " Grumble away ! You would have had cause to do that if you had been in my place two years ago. . . . 'Phat was a hospital where one was kept going all day. And the nights ! I calculated I was called up seven times on an average. . . . And then that confounded step of the attendant in the courtyard and coming up the stairs. Then in the morning at six o'clock a drumming at the door ! Come in ! A burial sheet to sign. ^Vhen 1 tliink that it was an idiot of a Sister r/iiloiiihic. gt house-surgeon who gave the committee the idea of verifying a death ! What a notion : . . . Patients who have l)cen a couple oî months dying in a ward. . . . ^\'hy, they have been dead long enough before any one notices it, only they obstinately continue to breathe ! . . ." " Are the operations satisfactory just now ? " asked the doctor. " So-so ! " " No, for some time past they liave not done well." "There is sometimes a run of bad luck. . . ." And what is annoying about it is that it does not depend upon the surgeon. The operation may be perfectly well done ; it is a bit of bad luck, like a hand at lansquenet. . . . One passes or not. . . . Positively, it IS a toss-up. . . ." " Yes, it is a chance. . . . For instance, last year my chief fell ill ; . . . he had just done five-and-twenty operations, one after another, without a single drawback, and very serious operations, mind you. Harder was sent to replace him. . . . You know Harder is every bit as good. Well, he did five oper- ations ; all died ! When it came to the sixth, 96 Sister Philomcne. he put his instruments in his pocket and left and did not return." " He was (luite right, to my mind." ''They are not as unlucky here as in the hospital I have just come from. For the last two years they have lost every case. ... It was no joke at last. At one time, on the men's side, there was purulent infection on the third floor, lockjaw on the second, and hospital pyaemia on the first. . . ." " Well done ! " " What is curious is that they lose many more in Paris than in the provinces, . . . where they are often famously hacked about." "Come, come, there are very good sur- geons in the provinces ; one must not con- found them all in one condemnation." Pichenat, who had returned, had seated himself in the principal arm-chair, and amused himself by teasing his neighbor with one of the peeled sticks which the stu- dents used as fencing sticks. Suddenly this neighbor sprang from his chair upon the table. " What is the matter with you, Malivoire ? Why are you figuring away on the table ? " " No ; I have only got onto the rostrum,'' gravely replied the young surgeon answering Sister I'/nloincuc. 97 to the name of Malivoire, " for the discussion of the budget. Gentlemen, there was a time, I should say a (lolden Age, when the admin- istrative power made it their chief delight to feed us well. And such was the generosity of the committee in those days, according to the traditions that have been handed down to us, that a surgeon might have started an eating-house with what the committee pro- vided for him. Obliged now to find our own food, we chose from amongst us a treasurer who seemed worthy of our confidence. . . ." " Now hear me ! " cried Pichenat. " It is to the conduct of this responsible individual, in whom we placed entire confi- dence, and ^\ho shamefully pockets perqui- sites, ..." " Hear, hear ! " ". . . that I wish to call your attention. Pichenat — I name him, gentlemen — is always taking cabs ; it is true, he allows me to share them, but he pays for them. I saw him to- day holding a confab with his bootmaker, and paying his bill ! . . ." " Quite the contrary," said Pichenat. " Gentlemen, he talks of taking a box at the Opera. . . . One word, gentlemen, in conclusion. At Bicêtre we lived for twenty- 7 98 Sister Philomhic. five francs a month ; Pichenat dares to ask us eighty." " Why did you appoint me treasurer ? " " So that you should treasure up, to be sure." " Malivoire, you are kicking over my brandied coffee ! " " Down with you, Malivoire ! " " Is there any ink here ? . . . and a pen of any kind ? " asked the doctor. And he began to write at the end of the table dedi- cations on copies of his essay. " By the way, does any one want a well-prepared heart 1 Who would like to have it ?" " It would suit me ; I'll take it." " You have a fresh novice in the Sainte- Thérèse ward ? " " Haven't you seen her ? " " No, and don't care to. At the hospital I was in last year they had the Sisters of Sainte- Marthe." " Ah ! to be sure— Jansenist Sisters." '' Don't talk to me about your Jansenist Sisters ! They are all marked with small- pox. " And the youngest knew our professors when they were students." "What is the name of our novice ? They Sisier Philovicnc. 99 have names ; 1 don't know where they fish them up from. ..." " Is not her name Sister Ambroisine ? " 'No, Sister Philomène." '' She is very pretty." " And, besides, she seems a good sort of creature. . . . Slie does not jnill a face as long as your arm. . . ." "The nose in that face might, however, be smaller with advantage. ..." " Yes ; but she has blue eves and a soft glance." " Is it a 4; or an /' at the end of Métivier ? " inquired the doctor, still writing. "As." " The best of her is that she is graceful. . . . She does not move awkwardly. . . ." "As for me, I don't know what she has or she has not, but she seems to me charming. What do you say about her, Barnier ? " " Ah ! to be sure, she is in the Sainte- Thérèse ward ; it is Barnier she works under. Well, Barnier ? " " My dear fellow, as to me, . . . what would you have me say ? . . . I do not like these young Sisters on j^rinciple. I have a horror of romance. . . I hate little girls who lake it into their heads to become lOO Sister Philovicne. nuns, witliout knowing why or wlicrcfore . . . just a ronianlic idea, just as they might take a fancy to some cousiii who ( ame home for the vacation. . . . The old ones, whose heart and hand do not tremble — thev are the right sort." " But come, old fellow, they must mnke a beginning." " True, but I can't help feeling so. Only yesterday evening she wanted to help me with a dressing. I was afraid she might turn faint, as she did the other day, and I could not refrain from snubbing her." IV Sister I^kilomène had entered on her hos- ])ital work with a feeling of tlie deepest emo- tion. She had thought and pondered over it, hoping to become familiarized with the idea ; but it Iiad, nevertheless, haunted and filled her soul with terror. Day by day she felt weaker and less able to struggle against her apprehensions, against the poignant iui- I02 Sister Philomene. ages conjured up by the mere sight of a great hospital wall pierced with its small win- dows. Her imagination, working in the dark, exaggerated the horrors concealed behind. She anticipated something like the colored anatomical plates she had as a child caught sight of somewhere in the students' Quartier Latin. And the very vagueness of it all created for her a hideous fiction. Her temples throbbed and her cheeks flushed when for the first time she entered the ward confided to her charge. The very pokers she saw on the stoves she took for cauterizing irons. She fancied she was go- ing to see morsels of flesh, hideous stains on sharp steel instruments — all the dread paraphernalia of surgery at its horrible work. Instead of these horrors, she saw rows of white beds, white curtains — white linen every- where — the pleasing air of fresh cleanliness of a young girl's bedroom. The polished floors shone. The patients rested peacefully on their pillows. The rosy tint of a fine au- tumn day lit up the transparent whiteness of the beds. Streaks of light played upon the bright copper dishes and the tin cans and ba- sins, and the laughter of the house surgeons, Sister Philomène. 103 the murmur of the convalescents' chatter gave everywhere a note of youth and cheerful- ness. The whole ward was pervaded with so much brightness, peace, and order ; so clever a veil was thrown over the misery and filth of disease, over the martyrdom of the wretched sufferers ; liorror was so well clothed, suffering was so calm, and agony so noiseless, that the Sister, to her surprise, was calmed and reassured by the reality she dreaded. She was not only relieved, but filled with confidence and joy, freed at last from the terrors of her imagination, and proud to feel stronger than she had ever hoped to be. She dreaded above all the sight of death, and she now found herself in presence of it. A man had just died, his stretched-out hands lay flat on the bed. A brown knitted vest barely covered his chest; his body was raised on a couple of pillows; his head, thrown back and slightly turned on one side, displayed a thick black beard, pinched nostrils, and hol- lowed eyes. His hair clung moist and damp round his head, and his mouth was wide open, as though departing life had forced the lips apart in the last supreme expiration. He lay there, still warm, yet wrapped and stiffened in I04 Sisfrr Pliilomhic. the invisible shroud of death. The Sister re- mained a long time gazing at him, till she felt no more emotion before the corpse than would have stirred her at tlie sight of a waxen figure. For several days she maintained this firm courage, and it was with surprise and satis- faction that she ascertained how easily she overcame the weakness and cowardice of her nature. Slie had begun to think herself pro- perly inured when, one evening, looking at the wan, pallid face of a sleeping patient, her heart failed her, and she had to catch hold of the bed-post to avoid falling. Until then, by her power of will and by diligent absorption in her duties, she had escaped the impression and shock'of all she saw around her. But the time liad come when all this emotion un- wittingly accumulated within her must burst forth, and slie broke down under the strain of the constant shocks that had passed un- heeded at the time. Her nerves, wrung by the spectacle of the hospital ever before her eyes, became unstrung, fevered, and irritated, and noises — such, even, as a tin cup falling • — would send a i)ainful thrill through every fibre. Every day revealed to her more vividly the Sister Philomme. 105 things that the hospital conceals so admira- bly from view at first sight. The students' heads bending over a sick-bed were not so close together that her eye could not glance between them and catch sight of some raw, bleeding wound. Death at all hours crossed her path, in that ghastly brown box that hid the corpse, adding a mysterious terror to the horror of death. Things of which the meaning at first escaped her now assumed a new significance as she passed them. Mere sights called up some painful recollection that frightened her, some image that pained her, saturated as they were with the sufferings she had tended ; and when she beheld the wooden stretcher standing empty in the ante- room, her fancy peopled it again with the pale women carried off upon it to the operat- ing room, and brought back paler still. Her very marrow was chilled and her legs trem- bled under her at the images thus evoked. At the top of the wide stairs she so often went up and down on her way to the Sainte- Thérèse ward there was a big landing, and on that landing a wall that she had to pass. When her gown brushed against it, she was seized with terror, like a child in the dark. Never- theless, it was a wall like any other, a wall io6 Sister Philomhie. devoid even of those dark stains to ])e seen on many another hospital wall, that a bloody hand leaves on its passage — but behind it the Sister right well knew was the dissecting- room. The hospital, the wards, the beds soon be- came for her Hke that wall : what her eyes saw not her mind seemed to see. Her imag- ination carried her behind every curtain, near each suffering bed ; it was, indeed, a kind of abominable second sight that nothing could arrest. Often under the harrowing torture of these ceaseless perceptions tears rose to her eyes, tears that she repressed at the moment, but which welled up again a minute later. Everyday scenes, the most ordinary incidents of hospital life, sounds and sights that had nothing dramatic about them, threw her sud- denly into a half-fainting condition. A trifle was enough to bring tears to her eyes and make her falter in this ultra-sensitive state. io8 Sister Philomhie. Utterly discouraged and unable to restrain her feelings, it was as the last drop that makes the vase overflow. She w'as as much worn out by these emo- tions as a gambler by along night of play. It seemed to her that her very reasoning gave way, and her j^hysical power was so crushed down that there were moments when she could have screamed out, ''''Enough, enough for to-Jay ! '' But she immediately walked, and moved about ; bestirring herself unneces- sarily, fulfilling some duty she need not have performed ; and thus reconquering possession of her senses, compelled them to obey and serve her. In the evening, when not on duty as night nurse at the hospital, she returned to the com- munity with her mind a blank, incapable of thought or energy. She could hardly follow the meaning of her prayers, or even remem- ber the familiar words. The only ideas that came to her mind were mechanical — a weari- some repetition of her physical impressions. They were not recollections but images that passed before her, to which she abandoned herself in a passive contemplation ; images which, by a strange illusion, mercilessly brought before her eyes the living reality. In Sister Philomene. 109 vain slie prayed in order to forget ; but the odor, the insupportable odor, that clung to her clothes and the very pores of her skin, would not be forgotten. The hospital was no longer a vision ; she was in it once more. Long did she maintain tlie struggle, trying to overcome her repugnances, offering her sufferings to God, and imploring him to grant her the courage to be faithful in perse- verance. VI. Therf, is a certain liour in the morning — about ten o'clock — when the movement caused by the attendants, the animation of tlic ])atients, throws into a hospital a certain lirightness, almost gayety. It is like a sort of respite in the day's suffering. The doctor's rounds and the dressing of wounds are over ; the approach of the dou who thought I had such a good 14 2TO Sister Philomene. figure, you who were so proud of me — do you remember ? — even you would not have the courage to look at the place now ! It would indeed have been better to have died ! " XXXIV. " Why are you so restless, my child ? You must try and remain quiet," said the head surgeon the following morning. He went up to her, looked at her, felt her pulse, then uncovering her chest, listened for a long time to her breathing. " You do not detect anything abnormal. Monsieur Barnier, do you, either in the action of the heart or mngs 212 Sisto- Philomene. " No, nothing." " Exactly, neither do I. You are going on very well, my cliild." When he reached the end of the ward, the surgeon turned to the house-surgeons and dressers, saying : " Gentlemen, I had said there would be no lecture to-day ; I have changed my mind, we will go down to the amphitheatre." And when the surgeons and students had taken their places on the benches : "Gentlemen," he said, "I wish to call your attention to the patient Number Twenty-nine. The operation intrusted by me to one of you has been most skilfully performed. I could not have done it better myself than Monsieur Barnier. You have just seen that poor woman, and have noticed how carefully I ex- amined her lungs and heart. I requested Monsieur Barnier also to repeat the experi- ment, and you heard us declare that we found all the organs in their normal condition. The patient is neither suffering from erysipelas, nor phlegmon, nor does her state betray symp- toms of peritonitis, pleurisy, pericarditis, or any abdominal lesion. There is nothing that should alarm us, and yet I must confess I am most seriously ahirnied. We are forced to ad- s isle r Philoinenc. 2 1 3 mit, gentlemen, however painful the admis- sion," the surgeon gloomily pursued, " that our knowledge and experience often meet with mysteries that thwart and humiliate us, mys- teries that we cannot fathom, notwithstanding all our studies, which we fail to imderstand in spite of all our efforts, and which we are obliged to explain by the word, accident ! because we have no other to explain the in- comprehensible. Some five or six years ago I operated a patient for the same trouble ; the day after the operation I found her worried, anxious, agitated, feverish, and restless, with- out having been able to detect any internal disorder any more than in our present case. At the end of three days she died and the post-mortem examination gave no explanation of the cause of her death nor did it reveal any important injury. Monsieur Barnier, you are now fully warned ; watch your patient most carefully, and treat her l)y the most energetic means." XXXV. " I AM so thirsty ; give me something to drink ! " Romaine exclaimed the moment the house-surgeon came ui) to her bed. "Ah! I don't feel well." She did nothing but toss about, turn her head from side to side, stretch out her arms and raise her legs one after the other. She complained of suffocations, pains in the S/sfr/- PJiiloinene. 215 back, sickness, and a general sensation of lassitude. Barnier spent the whole day and night watching and tending her, opposing violent remedies to the violence of the malady ; but his efforts were powerless to assuage the fever, calm the agitation, staunch the thirst, and lull even for an hour the restlessness of those limbs that unceasingly moved beneath the sheets. In the morning the head surgeon changed the dressing. The wound jiresented a natural appearance, but the patient was in a state approaching that of delirium and her case was pronounced hopeless. XXXVI. Romaine no longer spoke to Barnier. All of a sudden, in the middle of the day, she abruptly seized his hands, entwining her fingers in his, clutching hold of him ^vith all her might, and fixing on him her large eyes, of whicli tlie pupils had become mere black dots amid the surrounding white. "I shall not die, shall I, Barnier?" she said, in a voice that was choked and suffo- Sister Philovihie. 217 cated at intervals. " I will not die . . . I won't, no, I won't ! My dear Barnier, make me live. ... I am too young to die. The priest has been ; he was here a minute ago. . . . But you are nothing but a trum- pery set of doctors here, then ! . . . Oh, I've got hold of you ; you can't make me let go. . There ! I don't care about losing my beauty ... do anything you like, only let me live, only that — live ! live ! . . ." Then hardly had she uttered these words than, with a gesture of horror, she thrust away Barnier's hands, which she had been holding as in a vise. " Ah, butcher ! " she exclaimed, "how you cut away, how you hacked at me. It was nothing to you, nothing but flesh. . . . Get away ! . . . How glad I am I left you. . . . I only wish I had led a worse life, had had more fun, deceived more men ! " And she laughed, but her laugh broke into sob. " Romaine, Rom.aine, I entreat you ! . . ." said Barnier. But the dying woman again caught hold of him, her trembling hands groping along his arms in an effort to clutch hold of him. " The others ! what do I care about them ? . They may all die for aught I care ! 2 1 8 Sister Philomhie. But I am young ; I am strong ; my life is not over. . . . We live to be old in our family. . . . I've never had anything the matter w ith me. ... I used to cross the bridges in the winter when it was freezing, with nothing but a chemise on my back. Do you remem- ber those Saturdays, the nights of the masked balls ? What does that dog of a Sister want, hanging round here ? Much I shall care for all her trash when I shall be out of this place ! . . . O God! how I suffer! . . . What thirst ! . . . Ah, butcher ! if I had caught hold of you with my teeth at the moment you'd have felt how I can bite ! . . . Yes, drink . . . give me something to drink . . . my tongue is as dry as wood ! " She drank, her fingers let go, and she sank back into the heavy, exhausted sleep which seems a foretaste of death sent to those who are about to die. Barnier, utterly brO'ken down, fled ; and he heard, as he passed near a sick-bed, Sister Philomène say between the curtains : " Yes, it is really abominable. That kind of women ought not to be admitted here. There ought to be separate rooms for them, where they would at least die without mak- ing such scandal." XXXVII. Dinner was just over, and the munching of the last crusts of bread sounded through the ward Uke the nibbUng of mice. Two young women, in flying white caps, white jackets, and black skirts, were walking arm-in-arm up and down the room, laughing and joking like a couple of tomboys. " Sister ! Mother ! " they said, repeating 2 20 S/s/rr P/iilometie. in a jeering tone the names exchanged by the Sister and under-nurses. " It is ([uite a family affair here ; it is only sons that are never mentioned." And they laughed aloud, till one of the two, dragging her leg, said to the other : " Not so quick, please ; it hurts my hip." A drawling, plaintive voice, panting at each word, issued from a bed and muttered : " Some talk of their legs . . . others . . . of their arms . . . others . . . every one seems in pain here." A scream rose from another bed. " How she howls ! " said the two girls as they resumed their walk up and down. '' Oh, what a milksop ! " called out a pa- tient from her bed ; " she makes herself at home. She wouldn't dare to scream like that if the doctor were here." " Ah ! well, I shan't scream like that to- morrow," uttered a voice, striving to steady itself. " To-morrow ! " replied another, in hollow tones. "I wish to-morrow were come, that I might know what they are going to do to me." " So would I. I would give anything this night were over." Sister Philo ml ne. 221 " It's awful to sec any one die like that right under your nose," said the patient on the right-hand side of Number Twenty-nine's bed. " She's been an hour picking at her sheets." " The lady is picking up her things ready to be off," said the girls as they passed by. The day was drawing to a close. A mysterious twilight had already begun to throw a veil over the whole ward, and the waning light, pale as a ray of the moon, looked like a vapor driven upward to the tops of the curtains or testers by the dark shadows rising from the floor. The dull, opaque windows showed only a patch of twi- light on the uppermost panes, and above, against the curtain-rod, a last glimmer threw a wide splash of light on the first fold of the curtains. The two extremities of the ward were already enveloped in shade, but at the end where the Sister's glass den fell under the light of a window a last faint ray of light, passing through the muslin curtains, created a kind of haze, something similar to the mist seen at dawn rising from a field covered with hoar-frost. Against this background of haze the passers to and fro were vaguely and in- distinctly seen like shadows flitting by. 222 Sister Philoniene. The little pulleys and chains by whicli the night-lights were suspended creaked as they worked when, one after the other, the night- lamps were lowered and brought within reach of the ward-maid who lighted them. Then, at one end of the dark, sombre ward, where the dim flame of the farthest night- light flickered between four columns in front of a small altar, the darkness seemed to grow alive and fill with shadowy figures. It was a confused and automatic kind of gathering, seemingly increased by black or white forms at every moment, although not a step of the assembling figures, not a rustle of the crowd- ing skirts, could be heard, so noiselessly did they move. When they reached the circle of light cast by the night-light, into which they laboriously carried their chairs, the invalids stood re- vealed ; a tall, black woman, her spare form tightly wrapped in a little black shawl tied at the back, walking witli her arms advanced like a person afraid of falling ; then a couple of little old women came, arm-in-arm, with short, faltering steps and bent backs, one holding up the chair wliich the other carried ; a tall young woman with a coil of black hair falling low on her neck moved forward alone, Sister Philo ml- ne. 223 looking slight and e\-en elegant in the gray hospital costume ; then the two laughing girls ; then a woman with a colored handker- chief on her head and her arm slung in a scarf fastened to her white jacket ; then a country woman witli her peasant's cap. Half-carried by two women, who supported her under each arm, a pretty young woman painfully drew near, smiling— with her head slightly thrown back— a sweet, sad smile to her companions, who, as she seemed to give way, said, encouragingly : " Come, come, step, Madame Lazy-bones." Sister Philomène, standing on the altar- steps, slowly lit the eight tapers in the two candlesticks, saying, from time to time, " Hush ! " without turning round, when the murmur of voices behind her grew too loud. By degrees, as the flame rose from the can- dlesticks, a white Virgin with a blue silk col- lar, paper hydrangeas in gilded wooden vases, a little waxen infant Jesus in a manger sur- mounted by a pointed roof and cross over all, stood out, brilliantly revealed ; and the burning tapers cast their light on the side of the altar over the top of a tall press, where a (juantity of white wooden crutches and crooked sticks had been thrown. 2 24 Sister Philom'ene. The patients were seated o\\ chairs placed in a circle ; the young woman who was so weak had the only arm-chair present, and her two companions placed a pillow at her back and covered her legs with an eider-down (juilt. The Sister went up to a small bell against the wall. She rang a first peal, waited for a moment's silence, then rang a second peal and said in a clear \oice, " Let us pray ! " and fell on her knees on the floor in the mid- dle of the circle before the altar. Her voice rose amid the silence, it ascended under the vaulted roof with a penetrating vi- bration, and in a quiet, piercing tone that sounded like a kind of melody. It was a sharply modulated voice, ])ure as crystal, thin and clear like a child's ; virginal like the song of a bird ; a voice like the soul of a musical instrument which seemed to pour forth the prayer she uttered. The Sister began by thanking God for all His mercies ; for having drawn us from noth- ing ; for daily bestowing His blessings upon us ; and making herself the medium of the patients' gratitude, speaking in the name of the sick, the fevered, and the suffering, she said : " What return, O my God, can / make Sis fer Philomcnc. 225 for Thy innumerable blessings ? . . . all ye saints and angels, unite with vie in praising the God of mercies, who is so bou?itiful to so un- worthy a creature !'' . . . And from the end of the ward a stifled nuirnuir of voices from the bed-ridden patients mingled with her voice. At this noise a scream came from Ro- maine's bed, and a confused sound of blas- phemous words broke in through the prayers. " Let us examine our consciences,'' continued the Sister, in the same tone. " Let us exam- ine what sins we may have fallen into by thought, word, deed, or omission ^ And after a moment's silence, her voice rose again, clear and calm : " / grieve from the bottom of my heart that I have been so un- grateful to Thee for Thy benefits, and have so often offended Thee, my God and my chief goody " The priest ! the priest ! Here, shake the curtains ! " yelled Romaine. " Ah ! they are at mass, they are singing. Ah ! what foolery their church is. . . . They have left the door open. . . . Barnier ! they are coming ; I hear them. ... Ah ! the death doctor. . . . Get out, wretched priest ! " " Let us pray," said the Sister, in an au- thoritative and severely firm voice : " Our 15 220 Sister Philomene. J'ather wlio art in heaven. Hallotved l>c thy name." And the invalids answered from their chairs or beds with a rumbHng hum, which died away by degrees as one after the other of the feeblest uttered a tardy Amen. "No music! What a nuisance they are ! Take away the flowers — they stink ! They don't know how to sing. I tell you I know a better song than that. Wait a bit : it's a funny kind of tune," and Romaine sang : La petite Rosette, Voulant voii' dii pavs. Passant à la ba)rihr Un commis l'arrêta, Siii disant : " La petite vière, Que portez ïvns do>ic la? Approchez, belle blonde. Approchez de plus près." * * Little Rosette, Wishing to travel, Passing through the gates The toll-man sto]ipe(l her, Saying : " My little woman. What are you carrying? Come near, fair one, Come nearer to me." Sister Fliiloinhie. 227 '' Hail, Mary, full of grace . . ."said the Sister, raising her voice, which became louder, stronger, and more dominant as she pitilessly dwelt on the last words of the Ave ; " Pray for us sinners ncm< and at the hour of our deaths "Come away! "cried Romaine. "1 \vill climb over the little wall. Oh, he loved me well. Ah, I know they say he was a love- child." '' I believe in God . . . I confess to Almighty God . . ." said the Sister, and her emotionless voice commanded silence ; it was like a hand of iron placed over the mouth of agony, sternly crushing back the delirium hovering on the lips of death. ''Lord, have mercy. . .Christ Jiave mercy ! and she let the verses fall in a harsh tone, dropping on the wretched woman the words of the Litany of the Sacred Heart one by one, like handfuls of smothering earth. " Barnier ! " called out Romaine in a broken voice that seemed a wail, " I want my teeth and my hair to be left with mc ... I won't have the amphitheatre porters. ..." The Sister went on : " Remember, most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known ')hat any one who fled to thy protection, implored 2 28 Sister Pli Homme. thy help, a?id sought thy intercession 7c