Maurice Level - Thirty Hours with a Corpse, and Other Tales of the Grand Guignol

“Is that you, Jules?”

He made no reply. When the window opened and he saw the farmer’s face and again heard the question, he replied:

“No! It’s the starveling who came here before to tell you your son lay dying on the road.”

The terrified voice of the mother mingled with that of the father:

“What does he say?… What does he say?… Come in… quick, quick…”

But he pulled his hat down over his eyes and walked slowly away as he murmured:

“I’ve something else to do now… There’s no need to be in such a hurry. You are too late… It was when I came before that you ought to have made haste. He’s got the whole load of hay on his ribs now.”

“Quick, quick, father!” sobbed the woman. “Run! Run!”

As he drew on some clothes, the father shouted:

“Where is he!… Listen… Come back… For the love of God tell…”

But the beggar, his stick on his shoulder, was lost in the darkness.

And the only reply was the call of a cock that had been awakened by the voices and crowed from a dunghill, and the howling of the dog that raised its head and bayed at the moon.

“AS FOR me,” declared pretty young Madame Chaligny, “if ever I were obliged to have an operation and it was absolutely necessary to give me an anaesthetic, I would not place myself in the hands of any doctor I didn’t know personally… When I come to think of it, it seems to me that it would be ideal to be chloroformed by a man who was in love with you.”

At this the old doctor, who had been sitting listening in silence, probably because they were speaking of his profession, shook his head.

“No, Madame, no. You are quite wrong there. That is the very last man you ought to choose.”

“Why? With a man who loved her a woman would feel completely at ease; her thoughts would be concentrated on him, and she would not run the risk of having her mind distracted in a way that might prove dangerous at such a moment. There must be even a sort of rare voluptuousness in sinking into unconsciousness with beloved eyes gazing into yours… Then, think of the enchantment of coming to… of the return to consciousness…”

“Don’t make any mistake about that return,” smiled the doctor. “There’s very little poetry about it. The sick person emerges painfully from the heaviest of all intoxications, and at such a moment the prettiest woman in the world lacks charm and runs the risk of disenchanting the most ardent lover.”

After a little silence, he added gravely:

“She runs a still more terrible risk—that of never returning at all.”

As everyone protested he went on:

“I will tell you a story to illustrate what I mean, an old and very sad story. I am the tragic hero of it, and if I am able to speak of it today, it is because the telling can no longer compromise anyone. I am the only one left of those who played a part in it, and you will lose your time if you try to discover the names of people who are now in their graves. I am seventy years old; I was twenty-four then, so you see…

“I was house-surgeon at a hospital when I first met the woman who was the great and only love of my life. I would have done the maddest things to be able to see her; to keep her happy, out of the reach of any trouble, I was capable of making any and every sacrifice; I would have killed myself without regret rather than have a breath of suspicion touch her.

“We were very young. They had married her to a man twenty years older than herself, and I can say with truth, though the words sound strange from the mouth of an old man, that she loved me as much as I loved her.

“We had found complete happiness in each other for some months, discreetly, and without causing the slightest remark, when one morning I received a hasty line from the husband begging me to come and see his wife who was ill. I rushed to the house. I found her in bed, very pale, with the anxious face, blue-circled eyes, pinched nose and lifeless hair I had so often seen at the hospital. The night before she had been seized with violent pains in the side; they had put her to bed, and since then she had lain there moaning, hiccoughing between her sobs, warding off with terrified gestures any hand that approached her, her appealing eyes begging no one to touch her.

“There was not an hour, not a minute to lose. We sent for my chief, and it was decided to operate there and then.

“You must have been through it to understand the difference between calmly preparing to operate on people you don’t know, and the horror of doing it for someone very dear to you.

“While they were getting the next room ready for the operation, my poor little darling beckoned to me, and trying to keep the pain out of her voice whispered:

“‘I’m not afraid… Don’t worry about me… you will put me to sleep, won’t you?…’

“I protested with a gesture, but she persisted:

“‘I beg you to do it. You must… No one but you…’

“I had neither the time nor the strength to say no. They came and carried her away.

“Then began my Calvary.

“While my chief and the other doctors and nurses moved about the room, I took the bottle of chloroform and the compress.

“She started back as she inhaled the first few drops, then smiled at me and gave herself up without further resistance. But she did not go off properly. Perhaps it was that, too moved to measure it carefully, I gave too little chloroform, letting too much air pass between the handkerchief and her lips. Also I could not help thinking of all the accidents that might happen, of the cases of syncope I had seen or heard of, and it was not astonishing that my eyes were not as sharp as usual, my fingers uncertain…

“My chief, his sleeves turned up, his streaming hands stretched out, came up:

“‘Has she gone off ?’

“The sound of his voice braced me. It took my mind to the hospital, and I pulled myself together as I replied:

“‘No, sir, not yet.’

“‘Hurry…’

“I bent over her asking:

“‘Can you hear me?…’

“She opened her eyes and lowered the lids twice to say ‘yes.’

“‘Is there a buzzing in your ears?… What can you hear?’

“She murmured:

“‘Bells…’

“As she spoke she seemed to shrink a little. One of her arms fell inert on the table; her breathing grew even, her face paler, and little blue veins appeared at the side of the nose. I bent over her: her breath was sibilant, and heavy with the smell of chloroform: she was asleep.

“‘You can begin now, sir,’ I said to my chief.

“But when I saw the knife move along the white body, leaving behind it a red line, my agitation returned. As I watched them cut and pinch her flesh, it seemed to me that they were cutting and pinching my own. My hand stole up mechanically and stroked her face. Suddenly her legs moved with an instinctive gesture of defense, and she moaned.

“My chief straightened himself:

“‘But you haven’t got her under.’

“I poured some drops of chloroform on the compress; they made a large gray stain on the fine batiste.

“The operator bent over her again.

“But again she moaned and began to mutter incoherent syllables.

“How I longed for it all to be over; longed to see her come to herself, to have done with the awful nightmare! She was now motionless, but she continued to moan and mutter, and suddenly among the murmurings she pronounced distinctly a name, mine: Jean.

“A shudder ran through me. Speaking as if in a dream she went on:

“‘Don’t worry… I’m not afraid…’

“Great God, it was I who was afraid!

“Not so much afraid that she would never come to, that she would die in my arms, but afraid that in her delirium she would betray our secret.