The Country Doctor

by Honoré de Balzac

“Every one is in consternation. The trouble is all the greater
because it came as a sudden shock. It was so unexpected. M.
Benassis seemed perfectly well the day before; there was not a
sign of ill-health about him. Only the day before yesterday he
went to see all his patients, even those who lived farthest away;
it was as if he had known what was going to happen; and he spoke
to every one whom he met, saying, ‘Good-bye, my friends,’ each
time. Towards five o’clock he came back just as usual to have
dinner with me. He was tired; Jacquotte noticed the purplish flush
on his face, but the weather was so very cold that she would not
get ready a warm foot-bath for him, as she usually did when she
saw that the blood had gone to his head. So she has been wailing,
poor thing, through her tears for these two days past, ‘If I had
only given him a foot-bath, he would be living now!’
“M Benassis was hungry; he made a good dinner. I thought that he
was in higher spirits than usual; we both of us laughed a great
deal, I had never seen him laugh so much before. After dinner,
towards seven o’clock, a man came with a message from Saint
Laurent du Pont; it was a serious case, and M. Benassis was
urgently needed. He said to me, ‘I shall have to go, though I
never care to set out on horseback when I have hardly digested my
dinner, more especially when it is as cold as this. It is enough
to kill a man!’
“For all that, he went. At nine o’clock the postman Goguelat,
brought a letter for M. Benassis. Jacquotte was tired out, for it
was her washing-day. She gave me the letter and went off to bed.
She begged me to keep a good fire in our bedroom, and to have some
tea ready for M. Benassis when he came in, for I am still sleeping
in the little cot-bed in his room. I raked out the fire in the
salon, and went upstairs to wait for my good friend. I looked at
the letter, out of curiosity, before I laid it on the
chimney-piece, and noticed the handwriting and the postmark. It
came from Paris, and I think it was a lady’s hand. I am telling
you about it because of things that happened afterwards.
“About ten o’clock, I heard the horse returning, and M. Benassis’
voice. He said to Nicolle, ‘It is cold enough to-night to bring
the wolves out. I do not feel at all well.’ Nicolle said, ‘Shall I
go and wake Jacquotte?’ And M. Benassis answered, ‘Oh! no, no,’
and came upstairs.
“I said, ‘I have your tea here, all ready for you,’ and he smiled
at me in the way that you know, and said, ‘Thank you, Adrien.’
That was his last smile. In a moment he began to take off his
cravat, as though he could not breathe. ‘How hot it is in here!’
he said and flung himself down in an armchair. ‘A letter has come
for you, my good friend,’ I said; ‘here it is;’ and I gave him the
letter. He took it up and glanced at the handwriting. ‘Ah! mon
Dieu!’ he exclaimed, ‘perhaps she is free at last!’ Then his head
sank back, and his hands shook. After a little while he set the
lamp on the table and opened the letter. There was something so
alarming in the cry he had given that I watched him while he read,
and saw that his face was flushed, and there were tears in his
eyes. Then quite suddenly he fell, head forwards. I tried to raise
him, and saw how purple his face was.
“‘It is all over with me,’ he said, stammering; it was terrible
to see how he struggled to rise. ‘I must be bled; bleed me!’ he
cried, clutching my hand.... ‘Adrien,’ he said again, ‘burn
this letter!’ He gave it to me, and I threw it on the fire. I
called for Jacquotte and Nicolle. Jacquotte did not hear me, but
Nicolle did, and came hurrying upstairs; he helped me to lay M.
Benassis on my little bed. Our dear friend could not hear us any
longer when we spoke to him, and although his eyes were open, he
did not see anything. Nicolle galloped off at once to fetch the
surgeon, M. Bordier, and in this way spread the alarm through the
town. It was all astir in a moment. M. Janvier, M. Dufau, and all
the rest of your acquaintance were the first to come to us. But
all hope was at an end, M. Benassis was dying fast. He gave no
sign of consciousness, not even when M. Bordier cauterized the
soles of his feet. It was an attack of gout, combined with an
apoplectic stroke.
“I am giving you all these details, dear father, because I know
how much you cared for him. As for me, I am very sad and full of
grief, for I can say to you that I cared more for him than for any
one else except you. I learned more from M. Benassis’ talk in the
evenings than ever I could have learned at school.
“You cannot imagine the scene next morning when the news of his
death was known in the place. The garden and the yard here were
filled with people. How they sobbed and wailed! Nobody did any
work that day. Every one recalled the last time that they had seen
M. Benassis, and what he had said, or they talked of all that he
had done for them; and those who were least overcome with grief
spoke for the others. Every one wanted to see him once more, and
the crowd grew larger every moment. The sad news traveled so fast
that men and women and children came from ten leagues round; all
the people in the district, and even beyond it, had that one
thought in their minds.
“It was arranged that four of the oldest men of the commune should
carry the coffin. It was a very difficult task for them, for the
crowd was so dense between the church and M. Benassis’ house.
There must have been nearly five thousand people there, and almost
every one knelt as if the Host were passing. There was not nearly
room for them in the church. In spite of their grief, the crowd
was so silent that you could hear the sound of the bell during
mass and the chanting as far as the end of the High Street; but
when the procession started again for the new cemetery, which M.
Benassis had given to the town, little thinking, poor man, that he
himself would be the first to be buried there, a great cry went
up. M. Janvier wept as he said the prayers; there were no dry eyes
among the crowd. And so we buried him.
“As night came on the people dispersed, carrying sorrow and
mourning everywhere with them. The next day Gondrin and Goguelat,
and Butifer, with others, set to work to raise a sort of pyramid
of earth, twenty feet high, above the spot where M. Benassis lies;
it is being covered now with green sods, and every one is helping
them. These things, dear father, have all happened in three days.
“M. Dufau found M. Benassis’ will lying open on the table where he
used to write. When it was known how his property had been left,
affection and regret for his loss became even deeper if possible.
And now, dear father, I am writing for Butifer (who is taking this
letter to you) to come back with your answer. You must tell me
what I am to do. Will you come to fetch me, or shall I go to you
at Grenoble? Tell me what you wish me to do, and be sure that I
shall obey you in everything.
“Farewell, dear father, I send my love, and I am your affectionate
son,
“ADRIEN GENESTAS.”

“Ah! well, I must go over,” the soldier exclaimed.

He ordered his horse and started out. It was one of those still December mornings when the sky is covered with gray clouds. The wind was too light to disperse the thick fog, through which the bare trees and damp house fronts seemed strangely unfamiliar. The very silence was gloomy. There is such a thing as a silence full of light and gladness; on a bright day there is a certain joyousness about the slightest sound, but in such dreary weather nature is not silent, she is dumb. All sounds seemed to die away, stifled by the heavy air.

There was something in the gloom without him that harmonized with Colonel Genestas’ mood; his heart was oppressed with grief, and thoughts of death filled his mind. Involuntarily he began to think of the cloudless sky on that lovely spring morning, and remembered how bright the valley had looked when he passed through it for the first time; and now, in strong contrast with that day, the heavy sky above him was a leaden gray, there was no greenness about the hills, which were still waiting for the cloak of winter snow that invests them with a certain beauty of its own. There was something painful in all this bleak and bare desolation for a man who was traveling to find a grave at his journey’s end; the thought of that grave haunted him. The lines of dark pine-trees here and there along the mountain ridges against the sky seized on his imagination; they were in keeping with the officer’s mournful musings. Every time that he looked over the valley that lay before him, he could not help thinking of the trouble that had befallen the canton, of the man who had died so lately, and of the blank left by his death.

Before long, Genestas reached the cottage where he had asked for a cup of milk on his first journey. The sight of the smoke rising above the hovel where the charity-children were being brought up recalled vivid memories of Benassis and of his kindness of heart. The officer made up his mind to call there. He would give some alms to the poor woman for his dead friend’s sake. He tied his horse to a tree, and opened the door of the hut without knocking.

“Good-day, mother,” he said, addressing the old woman, who was sitting by the fire with the little ones crouching at her side. “Do you remember me?”

“Oh! quite well, sir! You came here one fine morning last spring and gave us two crowns.”

“There, mother! that is for you and the children.”

“Thank you kindly, sir. May Heaven bless you!”

“You must not thank me, mother,” said the officer; “it is all through M. Benassis that the money had come to you.”