“Have you felt any pricking sensation?” he asked.
“Not at all, monsieur,” she replied. “I bathe my face and tell my beads with my whole soul, and that is all.”
La Grivotte, who was vain and jealous, and ever since the day before had been going in triumph among the crowds, thereupon called to the doctor. “I say, monsieur, I am cured, cured, cured completely!”
He waved his hand to her in a friendly way, but refused to examine her. “I know, my girl. There is nothing more the matter with you.”
Just then Sister Hyacinthe called to him. She had put her sewing down on seeing Madame Vetu raise herself in a frightful fit of nausea. In spite of her haste, however, she was too late with the basin; the sick woman had brought up another discharge of black matter, similar to soot; but, this time, some blood was mixed with it, little specks of violet-coloured blood. It was the hemorrhage coming, the near end which Ferrand had been dreading.
“Send for the superintendent,” he said in a low voice, seating himself at the bedside.
Sister Hyacinthe ran for Madame de Jonquière. The linen having been counted, she found her deep in conversation with her daughter Raymonde, at some distance from Madame Désagneaux, who was washing her hands.
Raymonde had just escaped for a few minutes from the refectory, where she was on duty. This was the roughest of her labours. The long narrow room, with its double row of greasy tables, its sickening smell of food and misery, quite disgusted her. And taking advantage of the half-hour still remaining before the return of the patients, she had hurried up-stairs, where, out of breath, with a rosy face and shining eyes, she had thrown her arms around her mother’s neck.
“Ah! mamma,” she cried, “what happiness! It’s settled!”
Amazed, her head buzzing, busy with the superintendence of her ward, Madame de Jonquière did not understand. “What’s settled, my child?” she asked.