SHE went to the station and waited for him in the sunlight on the platform. She wore a low-necked muslin frock and cotton mittens, and round her neck hung a medallion upon which were painted two cupids struggling with a goat. Some children were trying to walk upon one of the rails; the whistle of the little train could be heard long before it appeared. Noémi was determined that her emotion at the approaching moment should be one of joy. In Jean's absence, her memory of his features had undergone certain modifications; she had as it were re-created him in a form that was no longer repulsive, and her mental image of him was insidiously redrawn. She was so intent upon loving him that she believed herself to be only waiting for the train's arrival that she might clasp this unreal Jean in her arms. It was true that the ghost of a longing glance might have fluttered against her will towards another face, but before God there had never once entered her mind even the suggestion of indiscretion. And in return for this, she felt sure she would be granted the relief of seeing a husband get out of the train quite different from the one whose departure had been a deliverance.
Jean made his appearance upon the step of a second-class carriage. He was indeed a different Jean now, and Cadette's grandson eagerly took the valise from his thin white hands. He walked unsteadily down the platform on Noémi's arm: "But Jean, dear, you're ill!" and he saw as much change in her as she did in him. How she had improved because of his absence! She was even more the resplendent female and he the wizened stunted male than in the priest's parlour not so many months ago. The couple caused a good deal of whispering at the station, and the presence of the newsagent, the station master, and the porter, filled Jean with shame. Noémi said: "I should have driven to meet you in the carriage. Why didn't you write me that you were ill?" And when they reached the house, she prepared his bed and washed his face and hands; she put a table at his elbow, covered it with a white napkin, and gave him the pile of reviews that had accumulated, unread, in his absence. Jean watched her with his sharp little eyes, as a child watches its nurse.
M. Jêrome was against calling in Doctor Pieuchon; he was exasperated at the idea of anyone in the house being ill but himself. His son was barely in bed when he too retired to his, declaring himself to be suffering agonies of pain in every part of his body and loudly refusing the proffered attentions of Cadette. Noémi went to him as soon as she could, not to see how he was, but to get his permission to call in the doctor. He refused point-blank. Pieuchon would not leave the bedside of his germ-ridden son. If she wanted to see a doctor, why not send for the young man with the iodine? Noémi looked away, saying that she had no confidence in him, and anyhow, speaking of germs, wasn't he attending all the consumptives in the district? M. Jêrome silenced her angrily: he had said all he had to say and would thank her to stop pestering him; whereupon he turned his nose to the wall, and at regular intervals came the sighing and the "Oh, God! Oh, God!" that used to waken Jean in the silence of the night.
Noémi found the housemaid unfolding an emergency bed. All that could be seen of Jean was a pair of bright feverish eyes, two flaming cheeks, and a nose that seemed more pointed than ever. He stuttered out his complaints: he was cold in the big bed; he had always preferred a narrow one and now, at least until after the doctor had examined him, it would be unwise for them to sleep together. She would have liked to protest, to pretend that his objections had deceived her; but the words would not come. She leaned over and kissed his moist forehead, but he turned away; the gratitude that had prompted the kiss was horrible to him.
The day drew peacefully and dismally to a close. Jean slept in the silent room, only waking when the spoon tinkled against the saucer. He was not very ill, but Noémi supported him while he drank, and he swallowed slowly in order to keep her cool arm behind his neck as long as possible. At dusk the church bells began to ring, and from the court came the voice of Cadette's grandson: "Hue! Dia!"; he was harnessing one of the horses. M. Jêrome half opened the door; his bare feet were slippered, and he wore an old dressing gown spotted with medicine. He was ashamed of his behaviour an hour or two since, and wanted to be forgiven for it, but the pretended reasons for his visit were anxiety and a desire to be reassured as to his son's condition. Cadette had been ordered to send her grandson to fetch the young doctor with the iodine. Jean objected that he was only a little tired—a few days' rest was all he needed—and when he came the doctor would find no justification for such an urgent call.
Noémi sat silently in her shadowy corner; she listened to the rattle of cart-wheels growing fainter and fainter and, without a sob or any movement of her body, she wept. A sudden shower pelted against the windows, hastening the fall of night, and neither she nor Jean thought of lighting the lamp until Cadette came to lay a table for supper near Jean's bed. While they ate, Noémi asked him whether he had finished the work for which he had gone to Paris. Jean shook his head, and she asked no further questions.
The cart clattered again in the court. "There's the doctor," Jean said, and Noémi stood up and edged away out of the lamplight. The sound of his voice and footsteps were to her ears like the rumbling of an imminent storm. Cadette opened the door and he entered the room looking stouter than Noémi had expected; people called him a "handsome devil." He had black hair and a high colour; his eyes boldly sought Noémi's and then slowly followed every contour of her body. He too had been thinking about her! Noémi trembled in her haven of obscurity while the doctor examined the invalid. "Please unbutton your shirt. A handkerchief will do, Madame. Now count thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three...." In the lamplight Jean's protruding bones were pitifully evident. No, there was nothing alarming in M. Péloueyre's condition, but they would have to keep an eye on his lungs. A tonic was prescribed, and some injections of cacodyl. From time to time during the examination the young doctor glanced at Noémi. How could he help thinking that it was she who had contrived to get him into the house? If not, it was absurd to have asked a doctor to drive four miles in the evening to examine a young man who was suffering from fatigue.
He sat for a while with them, ponderously denying that he had ever pretended he could cure such an advanced case as young Pieuchon with his iodine treatment. His rustic drawl made a deep masculine sound in the room. Noémi felt herself being watched, but the young man saw only a silent shadowy form. He spoke of forestalling the disease, and explained that M. Péloueyre was like soil specially prepared for the growth of bacilli: "I might call him 'tuberculisable' soil. Didn't the late Mme. Péloueyre die of consumption?" The technical jargon fell strangely from lips that were made for kissing.
M. Péloueyre would have to be watched, the doctor said, and he stood up expecting the usual request to call again to see his patient. But Noémi was silent, and he asked bluntly whether M. Péloueyre would like him to continue his visits, if only to give him the injections. "What do you think, Noémi?" No reply was forthcoming and Jean asked again, thinking she had not heard. "Say what you think, Noémi; shall the doctor come again?" This time she brought out a reply: "It will be quite unnecessary," and Jean was afraid that he would take offence at the tone of her voice. He put the burden of the decision upon the doctor, who replied without embarrassment that he would come the moment he was sent for. Noémi took the lamp and preceded him out of the room; then she felt his warm breath upon her neck as she rapidly descended the stairs. The cart was waiting at the door, and he took his seat beside Cadette's grandson without receiving a single glance from her. The boy clucked to the horse whose hind quarters were visible in the gleam of the carriage light. Then the wind blew out the lamp Noémi was holding, and she stood in the darkness upon the threshold of that lifeless house, listening while the noise of the wheels died away in the night. She could not sleep, for Jean was tossing feverishly and muttering unintelligible phrases in his iron bed. She got up to tuck in the bedclothes, and laid her hand upon his forehead as though he were the baby that would never be born to her.