Bed No. 29
When Captain Épivent passed in the street all the ladies turned to look at him. He was the perfect type of a handsome hussar officer. He was always on parade, always strutted a little and seemed preoccupied and proud of his leg, his figure, and his moustache. He had superb ones, it is true, a superb moustache, figure and leg. The first-mentioned was blond, very heavy, falling martially from his lip in a beautiful sweep the colour of ripe wheat, carefully turned at the ends, and falling over both sides of his mouth in two powerful sprigs. His waist was thin as if he wore a corset, while a vigorous masculine chest, bulged and arched, spread itself above his waist. His leg was admirable, a gymnastic leg, the leg of a dancer, whose muscular flesh outlined each movement under the clinging cloth of his red trousers.
He walked with muscles taut, with feet and arms apart, and with the slightly swinging gait of the horseman, who knows how to make the most of his limbs and his carriage, and who seems a conqueror in a uniform, but looks commonplace in a mufti.
Like many other officers, Captain Épivent did not look well in civilian clothes. He had no elegance as soon as he was clothed in the grey or black of the shop assistant. But in his proper setting he was a triumph. He had, besides, a handsome face, the nose thin and curved, blue eyes, and a good forehead. He was bald, and he never could understand why his hair had fallen out. He consoled himself with the thought that, with a heavy moustache, a head a little bald was not so bad.
He scorned everybody in general, with a difference in the degrees of his scorn.
In the first place, for him the middle class did not exist. He looked at them as he would look at animals, without according them more of his attention than he would give to sparrows or chickens. Officers, alone, counted in his world; but he did not have the same esteem for all officers. He only respected handsome men; an imposing presence, that true, military quality being first. A soldier was a gay fellow, a devil, created for love and war, a man of brawn and muscle, with hair on his chest, nothing more. He classed the generals of the French army according to their figure, their bearing, and the stern look of their faces. Bourbaki appeared to him the greatest warrior of modern times.
He often laughed at the officers of the line who were short and fat, and puffed while marching. And he had a special scorn for the poor recruits from the École Polytechnique, those thin, little men with spectacles, awkward and unskilful, who looked as appropriate in a uniform as a bull in a china shop, as he often asserted. He was indignant that they should be tolerated in the army, those abortions with the lank limbs, who marched like crabs, did not drink, ate little, and seemed to love equations better than pretty girls.
Captain Épivent himself had constant successes and triumphs with the fair sex.
Every time he took supper in company with a woman, he thought himself certain of finishing the night with her upon the same mattress, and, if unsurmountable obstacles prevented victory that evening, he was sure, at least, that the affair would be “continued in our next.” His comrades did not like him to meet their mistresses, and the merchants in the shops, who had their pretty wives at the counter, knew him, feared him, and hated him desperately. When he passed, the merchants’ wives, in spite of themselves, exchanged glances with him through the glass of the front windows; those looks that avail more than tender words, which contain an appeal and a response, a desire and an avowal. And the husbands, impelled by a sort of instinct, suddenly turned, casting a furious look at the proud, erect silhouette of the officer. And, when the Captain had passed, smiling and content with his impression, the merchants, handling with nervous hands the objects spread out before them, would declare:
“What a big fool! When shall we stop feeding all these good-for-nothings who go clattering their ironmongery through the streets? For my part, I would rather be a butcher than a soldier. Then if there’s blood on my table, it is the blood of beasts, at least. And he is useful, is the butcher; and the knife he carries has not killed men. I do not understand how these murderers are tolerated, walking on the public streets, carrying with them their instruments of death. It is necessary to have them, I suppose, but at least, let them conceal themselves, and not dress up in masquerade, with their red breeches and blue coats. The executioner doesn’t dress himself up, does he?”
The woman, without answering, would shrug her shoulders, while the husband, divining the gesture without seeing it, would cry:
“Anybody must be stupid to watch those fellows parade up and down.”
Nevertheless, Captain Épivent’s reputation for conquests was well established in the whole French army.
Now, in 1868, his regiment, the One Hundred and Second Hussars came into garrison at Rouen.
He soon became known in the town. He came every evening, towards five o’clock, to Boïeldieu Mall, to take his absinthe and coffee at the Comedy; and, before entering the establishment, he would always take a turn upon the promenade, to show his leg, his figure, and his moustaches.
The merchants of Rouen who also promenaded there with their hands behind their backs, preoccupied with business affairs, speaking of the ups and downs of the market, would sometimes throw him a glance and murmur:
“Egad! that’s a handsome fellow!”
But when they knew him, they remarked:
“Look! Captain Épivent! A fine chap, say what you will!”
The women on meeting him had a very queer little movement of the head, a kind of shiver of modesty, as if they felt weak or unclothed in his presence. They would lower their heads a little, with a smile upon their lips, as if they had a desire to be found charming and have a look from him. When he walked with a comrade the comrade never failed to murmur with jealous envy, each time that he saw the same byplay:
“This rascal Épivent has all the luck!”
Among the kept ladies of the town it was a struggle, a race, to see who would carry him off. They all came at five o’clock, the officers’ hour, to Boïeldieu Mall, and dragged their skirts, in couples up and down the length of the walk, while the lieutenants, captains, and majors, two by two, dragged their swords along the ground before entering the café.
One evening the beautiful Irma, the mistress, it was said, of M. Templier-Papon, the rich manufacturer, stopped her carriage in front of the Comedy and, getting out, made a pretence of buying some paper or some visiting cards at M. Paulard’s, the engraver’s, in order to pass before the officers’ tables and cast a look at Captain Épivent, which seemed to say: “When you will,” so clearly that Colonel Prune, who was drinking the green liquor with his lieutenant-colonel, could not help muttering:
“Confound that fellow! He is lucky, that scamp!”
The remark of the Colonel was repeated, and Captain Épivent, moved by this approbation of his superior, passed the next day and many times after that under the windows of the beauty, in full uniform.
She saw him, showed herself, and smiled.
That same evening he was her lover.
They attracted attention, made an exhibition of their attachment, and mutually compromised themselves, both of them proud of their adventure.
Nothing was talked of in town except the amours of the beautiful Irma and the officer. M. Templier-Papon alone was ignorant of their relation.
Captain Épivent beamed with glory; every instant he would say:
“Irma happened to say to me—Irma told me tonight—or, yesterday at dinner Irma said—”
For a whole year they walked about and displayed in Rouen this love like a flag taken from the enemy. He felt his stature increased by this conquest, he was envied, more sure of his future, surer of the decoration so much desired, for the eyes of all were upon him, and it is sufficient to be well in the public eye in order not to be forgotten.
But war was declared, and the Captain’s regiment was one of the first to be sent to the front. Their farewells were lamentable, lasting the whole night long.
Sword, red breeches, cap, and jacket were all overturned from the back of a chair upon the floor; robes, skirts, silk stockings, also fallen down, were spread around and mingled with the uniform abandoned on the carpet; the room upside down as if there had been a battle; Irma, wild, her hair unbound, threw her despairing arms around the officer’s neck, straining him to her; then, leaving him, rolled upon the floor, overturning the furniture, catching the fringes of the armchairs, biting their feet, while the Captain, much moved, but not skilful at consolation, repeated:
“Irma, my little Irma, do not cry so, it is necessary.”
He occasionally wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with the tip of his finger. They separated at daybreak. She followed her lover in her carriage as far as the first stopping-place. Then she kissed him before the whole regiment at the moment of separation. People even found this very pretty, worthy, and very romantic; and the comrades pressed the Captain’s hand and said to him:
“You lucky dog. She had a heart, that kid.”
They seemed to see something patriotic in it.
The regiment was sorely proved during the campaign. The Captain conducted himself heroically and finally received the cross of honour. Then, the war ended, he returned to Rouen and the garrison.
Immediately upon his return he asked news of Irma, but no one was able to give him anything exact. Some said she was married to a Prussian major. Others, that she had gone to her parents, who were farmers in the suburbs of Yvetot.
He even sent his orderly to the mayor’s office to consult the registry of deaths. The name of his mistress was not to be found.
He cherished a great sorrow, and was not at pains to conceal it. He even took the enemy to task for his unhappiness, attributing to the Prussians, who had occupied Rouen, the disappearance of the young girl, declaring:
“In the next war, they shall pay well for it, the beggars!”
Then, one morning as he entered the mess at lunch time, an old porter, in a blouse and oilcloth cap, gave him a letter, which he opened and read:
“My darling: I am in hospital, very ill, very ill. Will you not come and see me? It would give me so much pleasure!
The Captain grew pale and, moved with pity, declared:
“It’s too bad! The poor girl! I will go there as soon as I have had lunch.”
And during the whole time at the table, he told the officers that Irma was in hospital, and that he, by God, was going to get her out. It must be the fault of those unspeakable Prussians. She had doubtless found herself alone without a sou, broken down with misery, for they must certainly have stolen her furniture.
“Ah! the dirty swine!”
Everybody listened with great excitement. Scarcely had he slipped his napkin in his wooden ring, when he rose and, taking his sword from the peg, and thrusting out his chest to make his waist thin, hooked his belt and set out with hurried step to the city hospital.
But entrance to the hospital building, where he expected to enter immediately, was sharply refused him, and he was obliged to find his Colonel and explain his case to him in order to get a word from him to the director.
This man, after having kept the handsome Captain waiting some time in his anteroom, gave him an authorized pass and a cold and disapproving greeting.
Inside the door he felt himself constrained in this asylum of misery and suffering and death. A boy in the service showed him the way. He walked upon tiptoe, that he might make no noise, through the long corridors, where floated a musty odour of illness and medicines. From time to time a murmur of voices alone disturbed the silence of the hospital.
At times, through an open door, the Captain perceived a dormitory, with its rows of beds whose clothes were raised by the forms of bodies. Some convalescents were seated in chairs at the foot of their beds, sewing, and clothed in the uniform grey cloth dress with white cap.
His guide suddenly stopped before one of these corridors filled with patients. He read on the door, in large letters: “Syphilis.” The Captain started; then he felt that he was blushing. An attendant was preparing some medicine at a little wooden table at the door.
“I will show you,” said she, “it is bed 29.”
And she walked ahead of the officer. She indicated a bed: “There it is.”
There was nothing to be seen but a bundle of bedclothes. Even the head was concealed under the coverlet. Everywhere faces were to be seen on the beds, pale faces, astonished at the sight of a uniform, the faces of women, young women and old women, but all seemingly plain and common in the humble, regulation garb.
The Captain, very much disturbed, carrying his sword in one hand and his cap in the other, murmured:
“Irma.”
There was a sudden motion in the bed and the face of his mistress appeared, but so changed, so tired, so thin, that he would scarcely have known it.
She gasped, overcome by emotion, and then said:
“Albert!—Albert! It is you! Oh! I am so glad—so glad.” And the tears ran down her cheeks.
The attendant brought a chair. “Won’t you sit down, sir?” she said.
He sat down and looked at the pale, wretched countenance, so little like that of the beautiful, fresh girl he had left. Finally he said:
“What is the matter with you?”
She replied, weeping: “You know well enough, it is written on the door.” And she hid her eyes under the edge of the bedclothes.
Dismayed and ashamed, he continued: “How did you catch it, my poor girl?”
She answered: “It was those beasts of Prussians. They took me almost by force and then poisoned me.”
He found nothing to add. He looked at her and kept turning his cap around on his knees.
The other patients gazed at him, and he believed that he detected an odour of putrefaction, of contaminated flesh, in this corridor full of girls tainted with this ignoble, terrible malady.
She murmured: “I do not believe that I shall recover. The doctor says it is very serious.”
Then she noticed the cross upon the officer’s breast and cried:
“Oh! you have been decorated; now I am happy. How contented I am! If I could only embrace you!”
A shiver of fear and disgust ran through the Captain at the thought of this kiss. He had a desire to make his escape, to be in the clear air and never see this woman again. He remained, however, not knowing how to say goodbye, and finally stammered:
“You took no care of yourself, then.”
A flame flashed in Irma’s eyes: “No, the desire to avenge myself came to me when I should have broken away from it. And I poisoned them too, all, all that I could. As long as there were any of them in Rouen, I had no thought for myself.”
He declared, in a constrained tone in which there was a little note of gaiety: “So far, you have done some good.”
Getting animated, and her cheekbones getting red, she answered:
“Oh! yes, there will more than one of them die from my fault. I tell you I had my revenge.”
Again he said: “So much the better.” Then rising, he added: “Well, I must leave you now, because I have only time to meet my appointment with the Colonel—”
She showed much emotion, crying out: “Already! You leave me already! And you have scarcely arrived!”
But he wished to go at any cost, and said:
“But you see that I came immediately; and it is absolutely necessary for me to be at the Colonel’s at four o’clock.”
She asked: “Is it still Colonel Prune?”
“Still Colonel Prune. He was twice wounded.”
She continued: “And your comrades? Have some of them been killed?”
“Yes. Saint-Timon, Savagnat, Poli, Saprival, Robert, de Courson, Pasafil, Santal, Caravan, and Poivrin are dead. Sahel had an arm carried off and Courvoisin a leg crushed. Paquet lost his right eye.”
She listened, much interested. Then suddenly she stammered:
“Will you kiss me, say, before you leave me? Madame Langlois is not there.”
And, in spite of the disgust which came to his lips, he placed them against the wan forehead, while she, throwing her arms around him, scattered random kisses over his blue jacket.
Then she said: “You will come again? Say that you will come again—Promise me that you will.”
“Yes, I promise.”
“When, now. Can you come on Thursday?”
“Yes, Thursday—”
“Thursday at two o’clock?”
“Yes, Thursday at two o’clock.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Adieu, my dearie.”
“Adieu.”
And he went away, confused by the staring glances of the dormitory, bending his tall form to make himself seem smaller. And when he was in the street he took a long breath.
That evening his comrades asked him: “Well, how is Irma?”
He answered in a constrained voice: “She has a trouble with the lungs; she is very ill.”
But a little lieutenant, scenting something from his manner, went to headquarters, and, the next day, when the Captain went into mess, he was welcomed by a volley of laughter and jokes. They had got vengeance at last.
It was learned further that Irma had led a very gay life with the Prussian General Staff, that she had gone through the country on horseback with the colonel of the Blue Hussars, and many others, and that, in Rouen, she was no longer called anything but the “Prussians’ woman.”
For eight days the Captain was the victim of his regiment. He received by post and by messenger, notes from those who can reveal the past and the future, circulars of specialists, and medicines, the nature of which was inscribed on the package.
And the Colonel, catching the drift of it, said in a severe tone:
“Well, the Captain had a pretty acquaintance! I send him my compliments.”
After some twelve days he was called by another letter from Irma. He tore it up in a rage, and made no reply to it.
A week later she wrote him again that she was very ill and wished to see him to say farewell.
He did not answer.
After some days more he received a note from a chaplain of the hospital.
“The girl Irma Pavolin is on her deathbed and begs you to come.”
He dared not refuse to follow the chaplain, but he entered the hospital with a heart swelling with wicked anger, with wounded vanity, and humiliation.
He found her scarcely changed at all and thought that she had deceived him. “What do you want with me?” he asked.
“I wish to say farewell. It appears that I am near the end.”
He did not believe it.
“Listen,” said he, “you have made me the laughingstock of the regiment, and I do not wish it to continue.”
She asked: “What have I done?”
He was irritated at not knowing how to answer. But he said:
“Don’t imagine I am coming back here to be joked by everybody on your account.”
She looked at him with languid eyes, where shone a pale light of anger, and answered:
“What have I done to you? I have not been nice to you, perhaps! Is it because I have sometimes asked for something? But for you, I would have remained with M. Templier-Papon, and would not have found myself here today. No, you see, if anyone has reproaches to make it is not you.”
He answered in a clear tone: “I have not made reproaches, but I cannot continue to come to see you, because your conduct with the Prussians has been the shame of the town.”
She fell back suddenly in the bed, as she replied:
“My conduct with the Prussians? But when I tell you that they took me, and when I tell you that if I took no thought of myself, it was because I wished to poison them! If I had wished to cure myself, it would not have been so difficult, I can tell you! But I wished to kill them, and I have killed them, come now! I have killed them!”
He remained standing: “In any case,” said he, “it was a shame.”
She seemed to choke, and then replied:
“Why is it a shame for me to cause them to die and try to exterminate them, tell me? You did not talk that way when you used to come to my house in the Rue Jeanne d’Arc. Ah! it is a shame! You have not done so much, with your cross of honour! I deserve more merit than you, do you understand, more than you, for I have killed more Prussians than you!”
He stood dazed before her, trembling with indignation. He stammered: “Be still—you must—be still—because those things—I cannot allow—anyone to touch upon—”
But she was not listening: “What harm have you done the Prussians? Would it ever have happened if you had kept them from coming to Rouen? Tell me! It is you who should stop and listen. And I have done more harm than you, I, yes, more harm to them than you, and I am going to die for it, while you are singing songs and making yourself fine to inveigle women—”
Upon each bed a head was raised and all eyes looked at this man in uniform, who stammered again:
“You must be still—more quiet—you know—”
But she would not be quiet. She cried out:
“Ah! yes, you are a pretty poser! I know you well. I know you. And I tell you that I have done them more harm than you—I—and that I have killed more than all your regiment together—come now, you coward.”
He went away, in fact he fled, stretching his long legs as he passed between the two rows of beds where the syphilitic patients were becoming excited. And he heard the gasping, hissing voice of Irma pursuing him:
“More than you—yes—I have killed more than you—”
He tumbled down the staircase four steps at a time, ran off and shut himself up in his room.
The next day he heard that she was dead.