One day he found Mamzelle Aglaé stretched on the bed, with her head tied up in a handkerchief. Her sole complaint that day was, “Aïe—aïe—aïe! Aïe—aïe—aïe!” uttered with every breath. He had seen her so before, especially when the weather was damp.
“Vous pas bézouin tisane, Mamzelle Aglaé? Vous pas veux mo cri gagni docteur?”
She desired nothing. “Aïe—aïe—aïe!”
He emptied his bag very quietly, so as not to disturb her; and he wanted to stay there with her and lie down on the floor in case she needed him, but the woman from below had come up. She was an Irishwoman with rolled sleeves.
“It’s a shtout shtick I’m afther giving her, Nég, and she do but knock on the flure it’s me or Janie or wan of us that’ll be hearing her.”
“You too good, Brigitte. Aïe—aïe—aïe! Une goutte d’eau sucré, Nég! That Purg’tory Marie,—you see hair, ma bonne Brigitte, you tell hair go say li’le prayer là-bas au Cathédral. Aïe—aïe—aïe!”
Nég could hear her lamentation as he descended the stairs. It followed him as he limped his way through the city streets, and seemed part of the city’s noise; he could hear it in the rumble of wheels and jangle of car-*bells, and in the voices of those passing by.
He stopped at Mimotte the Voudou’s shanty and bought a grigri—a cheap one for fifteen cents. Mimotte held her charms at all prices. This he intended to introduce next day into Mamzelle Anglaé’s room,—somewhere about the altar,—to the confusion and discomfort of “Michié bon Dieu,” who persistently declined to concern himself with the welfare of a Boisduré.
At night, among the reeds on the bayou, Chicot could still hear the woman’s wail, mingled now with the croaking of the frogs. If he could have been convinced that giving up his life down there in the water would in any way have bettered her condition, he would not have hesitated to sacrifice the remnant of his existence that was wholly devoted to her. He lived but to serve her. He did not know it himself; but Chicot knew so little, and that little in such a distorted way! He could scarcely have been expected, even in his most lucid moments, to give himself over to self-analysis.
Chicot gathered an uncommon amount of dainties at market the following day. He had to work hard, and scheme and whine a little; but he got hold of an orange and a lump of ice and a chou-fleur. He did not drink his cup of café au lait, but asked Mimi Lambeau to put it in the little new tin pail that the Hebrew notion-vender had just given him in exchange for a mess of shrimps. This time, however, Chicot had his trouble for nothing. When he reached the upper room of la maison grise, it was to find that Mamzelle Aglaé had died during the night. He set his bag down in the middle of the floor, and stood shaking, and whined low like a dog in pain.