At his feet a woman was gasping: she was a Spanish woman; she held tightly to a brass crucifix, and called upon angels and saints, upon glorious martyrs and confessors to see her die. O immaculate heart of God! Most holy and exalted Virgin! Cherubim! Pillars of high heaven! Shining archangels! A naïve paradise was strewn about her in the filth; the way of death was ranked with the holy, gathered to watch her pass.
"Water!" A man lifted himself out of the dirty straw. "If there's a human heart in this place, and a hand that's able to give it—water!"
A woman moved forward with a cup; after the man had drunk she eased him back, and, as she turned, Anthony saw it was Mademoiselle Lafargue.
"Here!" said he, startled.
"Some one must do it," she said.
"Are there no nurses?"
The roar of drunken carnival lifted from the recesses of the buildings; shrieks of laughter and screamed curses rose with it.
"Those are the nurses," she said. "None would risk death but them; and they are here not to care for the sick but to eat and drink what has been given for the comfort of the sick."
"How long have you been here?"'
"I come for a time each day, but I am able to do very little."