Jean silenced him with a gesture. 'You don't owe me anything—we are quits,' said he; 'the Prussians would have picked me up over there, if you hadn't carried me away on your back. And again, the other day, too, you saved me from their clutches. That's twice you've paid me, and it's rather my turn to risk my life for you. Ah! I shall be anxious now at not having you with me any longer.' His voice was trembling, and tears started from his eyes: 'Kiss me, youngster.'
And they kissed; and, as it had been in the wood on the night of their escape, their embrace was instinct with the fraternity born of the dangers that they had incurred together, during those few weeks of heroic life in common, which had united them far more closely than years of ordinary friendship could have done. The days of starvation, the sleepless nights, the excessive fatigues, the constant peril of death—with all of these was their emotion fraught. Can two hearts ever take themselves back when by a mutual gift they have thus been blended together? Nevertheless, the kiss which they had exchanged amid the darkness of the trees had partaken of the new hope that flight had opened to them; whereas this kiss, now, quivered with the anguish of parting. Would they meet again, some day? And how—in what circumstances of grief or joy?
Dr. Dalichamp, who had climbed into his gig again, was already calling Maurice. Then, with all his soul, the young fellow at last embraced his sister, Henriette, who, extremely pale in the black garments of her widowhood, was looking at him and silently weeping. 'I confide my brother to you,' said he; 'take good care of him, and love him, as I love him myself!'
[CHAPTER IV]
DARK DAYS—BAZAINE THE TRAITOR—THE TIDE OF WAR
Jean's room, a large chamber with a tiled floor and lime-washed walls, had formerly been used as a fruitery. You could still detect there the pleasant scent of apples and pears, and the only furniture was an iron bedstead, a deal table and two chairs, together with an old walnut wardrobe, wonderfully deep and containing a multitude of things. The quietness was profoundly soothing; only a few faint sounds from the adjacent cowhouse could be heard, the occasional lowing of cattle and the muffled stamping of their hoofs. The bright sunshine came in by the window, which faced the south. Merely a strip of slope could be seen, a cornfield skirted by a little wood. And this mysterious closed room was so hidden away from every eye that no stranger could even have suspected its existence.
Henriette immediately settled how things were to be managed. In view of avoiding suspicions it was arranged that only she and the doctor should have access to Jean. Silvine was never to enter the room unless she were called—for instance, at an early hour in the morning when the two women tidied the place; after which the door remained as though walled up, throughout the day. If the wounded man should need anyone at night-time, he would merely have to knock on the wall, for the room occupied by Henriette was adjacent. And thus it came to pass that after many weeks of life amid a violent multitude, Jean suddenly found himself separated from the world, seeing no one but the doctor and that gentle young woman whose light footsteps were inaudible. And whilst she ministered to his wants with an air of infinite goodness, he again saw her as he had espied her on the first occasion, at Sedan, looking like an apparition, with small and delicate features save that her mouth was somewhat large, and with hair the hue of ripened grain.
During the earlier days the wounded man's fever was so intense that Henriette scarcely left him. Dr. Dalichamp dropped in every morning, under pretence of fetching her to go to the ambulance with him; and he would then examine Jean's leg and dress it. After fracturing the tibia, the bullet had passed out again, and the doctor was astonished at the bad appearance of the wound, and was afraid there might be some splinter there—though in probing he was unable to detect any—which would necessitate an excision of the bone. He had spoken on the subject to Jean, but the latter revolted at the thought of having his leg shortened and going lame all the rest of his life: no, no, indeed, he would rather die at once than become a cripple. The doctor therefore simply kept the wound under observation, dressing it with lint soaked in olive oil and phenic acid, after inserting a gutta-percha drainage-tube, so that the pus might flow away. At the same time, however, he warned Jean that if he did not perform an operation the cure would probably take a very long time. Yet it happened that the fever abated during the second week, when the state of the wound also became more favourable—at least so long as the patient remained quite still.
Henriette's intercourse with Jean was then regulated in a systematic way. Habits came to them both; it seemed to them as though they had never lived otherwise, as though they would go on living like that for ever. She gave him all the time that she did not devote to the ambulance, saw that he ate and drank at regular hours, and helped him to turn over with a strength of wrist that would never have been suspected in a woman with such slender arms. At times they chatted, but during the earlier period they more often remained together without speaking. Yet they never seemed to be bored. It was a very calm, reposeful life for both of them—for him crippled by the battle, and for her in her widow's gown, and with her heart crushed by her bereavement. He had felt somewhat intimidated at first, for he was fully conscious that she was his superior, almost a lady, whereas he had never been anything but a mere peasant and soldier. He could barely read and write. However, he had felt more at his ease on finding that she treated him like an equal, without any display of pride. And this emboldened him to show himself as he really was, intelligent after a fashion, thanks to his sober common-sense. To his astonishment, moreover, he would often feel less coarse and heavy than formerly, full of new ideas that he had never dreamt of before. Was this the outcome of the abominable life that he had been leading for two months past? It was as though he were emerging refined from all his physical and moral sufferings. He regained, however, a still greater measure of self-possession on realising that she did not know much more than he did. Her mother's death had turned her when very young into a little housewife, with three men, as she put it, to take care of—her grandfather, her father, and her brother—so that she had not had much time for schooling. Reading, writing, a rudimentary knowledge of spelling and cyphering—beyond that she did not go. And, therefore, if she still somewhat intimidated Jean, if she still appeared to him to be above all others of her sex, it was simply because he knew her to be superlatively good, endowed with extraordinary courage, albeit she appeared to be merely a retiring little woman taking her pleasure in the petty duties of life.