It was such trifles as this that were the great events in the life of Mère Marchette and Pierre. There was a tenderness, an unselfishness, an idyllic devotion in their love which no amount of wealth, or culture, or rank could have heightened; but in the lad’s veins was the blood of a soldier, that stirred hot with the currents of a vigorous youth. Of the army he had dreamed from his cradle, and strong as was his love for Mère Marchette the force of destiny was stronger. It was the old tragedy of youth and age, of the absorption of maternal love and the restless impulses of the boy’s heart. Pierre justified his desire to himself with the excuse that he could earn more money in the ranks; but his grandmother knew, only too well, the force of the instinct he had inherited. She had seen the same struggle in the life of his father.
When Pierre was eighteen he shouldered his musket and marched away, leaving poor old Mère Marchette as much a stranger in Paris as when she had come to it two years before to weep and pray alone. It would hardly be within the power of words to paint the anguish which lay between Pierre’s departure and that hot July noon when Mère Marchette lay dying at the Salpêtrière. Always in Paris she had been like a wild thing, caged and bewildered, confused by the life that swirled about her in the great city, even when she had been sustained by the presence of Pierre. When he was gone the gentle old soul began to die of homesickness and heartbreak. For two years she fought death stolidly but persistently, refusing to acknowledge to herself that she was breaking down under the stress of loneliness and sorrow. She came of a race that died hard, and although she was past eighty she looked forward hopefully to the time when Pierre should leave the army and come back to live with her again.
But the struggle for existence in Paris was hard, even when the joy of working for Pierre sustained her; when he was gone it became intolerable. At the end of two years the strength and courage even of the sturdy Norman peasant woman were exhausted; and then a dreadful disease, which had before shown itself in her family, seemed to take advantage of her weakness to spring upon her. She had been a charwoman in the family of Jean Lommel’s mother, and so it came about that through the influence of the young doctor she had been admitted to the Salpêtrière when she was already dying from cancer in the stomach.
There was no patient in the ward who was not of better birth than Mère Marchette. She was of all most deficient in education, in knowledge of the world, in the graces of life; and yet of them all it was only the poor old peasant woman who awakened in the minds of the attendants a glow of genuine affection. There are some people who are born to be loved, and when these rare beings remain worthy of it, neither age, nor poverty, nor sickness can destroy their power of awaking affection. The hired nurses touched their lips to her forehead in kisses given furtively, as if they were surprised, and prepared to be ashamed of the emotion which called from them this unwonted display. The doctors spoke to her in tones unprofessionally soft, while Dr. Lommel, who had charge of the ward, treated her with an affectionate courtesy scarcely less warm than that he would have shown to his own grandmother. They all knew that Mère Marchette must die, and from counting the time in weeks they had dropped to days, and then to hours. Indeed it seemed only the old woman’s will which kept her alive now until Pierre should come. She had borne all her sufferings without a murmur, but she had not been able wholly to repress the cry of her heart. The young soldier’s regiment was in Algiers, and there had been difficulties about his furlough. Had it been any other death-bed in the hospital to which he had been summoned these difficulties would hardly have been surmounted; but in behalf of Mère Marchette the physicians had worked so zealously that all obstacles were removed and Pierre’s leave of absence granted. From the moment she had been told that her grandson was on his way she had been perfectly quiet, and, as the doctor said, had devoted her whole being to keeping alive until Pierre should come.
And on this hot July noon the train which was bringing Pierre was drawing nearer to Paris, and Mère Marchette lay so still that she seemed scarcely to breathe,—so still that one might fancy she would not even think, lest in so doing she exhaust some precious grain of strength and so should die without the blessing of that last embrace.
III.
Whoever keeps himself informed of the course of modern scientific investigations is likely to be aware that during the last decade especial attention has been given at the Salpêtrière to that strange physical or psychical force known as hypnotism. M. Charcot, chief of the school of the Salpêtrière, has particularly distinguished himself by his researches. Attacked at first by his professional brethren, it has been his good fortune to live to see the scientific value of hypnotism acknowledged, and to be triumphantly readmitted to the Academy of Sciences, which had at first stigmatized his investigations as mere charlatanism. Charles Féré, an assistant physician at the Salpêtrière, with Richer, Bourneville, and nearly a score other distinguished men, have pursued their investigations with great zeal and thoroughness, and have produced a valuable literature devoted to this intricate subject.
It will be easily understood that all the physicians at the Salpêtrière, and especially the younger men, could not fail to be deeply interested in this new and fascinating branch of science. The facts upon which had been founded the theories of mesmerism, animal magnetism, and other shadowy systems were reduced to order and scientifically tested. M. Charcot and his associates worked with much care and thoroughness, and, without being able to solve the mystery of the force with which they dealt, they proved its value as a therapeutic agent. In the cure of nervous diseases, and in dealing with hysterical patients, they obtained remarkable and satisfactory results. They were even able to alleviate suffering by simply assuring the patient, while in a hypnotic sleep, that he would be free from pain on waking.
To the outside observer no feature of this strange power is more remarkable than the influence the hypnotist may exert over his subject after the trance is broken. A hypnotized person may be told to perform any act on awaking, and, when seemingly restored to his normal condition, bears the impress of that command so strongly that he is urged to obey it by an irresistible impulse. It is quite as easy, moreover, to foist upon the patients the most extraordinary delusions. The subject is told that upon awaking a bottle will seem to be a lamp, a blank card a picture, or any other deception which comes into the mind of the hypnotist; and so perfect is the working of this mysterious and terrible law that the delusion is accomplished to its minutest details.
Dr. Lommel, like all his young confrères, had become intensely interested in all these researches, so like a scientific realization of the fairy tales of the Orient. He had even tried some experiments on his own account; and when the sufferings of Mère Marchette became pitifully intense he had ventured to attempt the substitution of hypnotism for opiates in relieving her distress. The old woman had not easily yielded to this influence. Susceptibility to hypnotism is more apt to be found in hysterical or nervously sensitive subjects than in such sturdy characters. By degrees, however, Dr. Lommel established control over her. In the end, to throw her into a hypnotic sleep he had only to hold his forefinger an inch or two from her forehead, so that her eyes in looking at it turned upward and inward a little. He did not experiment with Mère Marchette; he felt too tenderly toward the old woman to make her the subject of scientific investigation outside of the direct line of treatment. He simply said, “When you awaken you will be free from pain, Mère Marchette;” then he would breathe lightly on her forehead and the sick woman would awaken, to lie as peaceful and painless as if no terrible disease was gnawing like a tiger at her vitals.