The child rose slowly from the floor, crept to the wash-basin and with his trembling, bruised hands wiped away the blood that was flowing out of his nose and mouth. A loud, gurgling sound came from the corner where Jeanne Marie sat. It seemed half like a cry, half like a sob. When Simon looked around, his wife lay pale and motionless on the floor; she had sunk from her chair in a swoon.
Simon grasped her in his strong arms and carried her to the bed, laid her gently and carefully down, and busied himself about her, showing a manifest anxiety.
"She must not die," he murmured, rubbing her temples with salt water; "she must not leave me alone in this horrible prison and with this dreadful child.--Jeanne Marie, wake up, come to yourself!" She opened her eyes, and gazed at her husband with wild, searching looks.
"What is the matter, Jeanne Marie?" he asked. "Have you pain? Are you sick?"
"Yes," she said, "I am sick, I am in pain."
"I will go to bring you a physician, you shall not die! No, no, you shall not die, you shall have a physician. The Hotel Dieu is very near, they will certainly allow me to go as far as there, and bring a doctor for my dear Jeanne."
He was on the point of hastening away, but Jeanne Marie held him fast. "Remain here," she murmured, "do not let me be alone with him--I am afraid of him!"
"Of whom?" asked Simon, astonished; and as he followed the looks of his wife, they rested on the boy, who was still busy in checking the blood that was flowing freely from his swollen nose.
"Of him!" asked Simon, in amazement.
Jeanne Marie nodded. "Yes," she whispered, "I am afraid of him, and I do not want to remain alone with him, for he would kill me." Simon burst into a loud, hoarse laugh. "Now I see that you are really sick, and the doctor shall come at once. But they certainly will not let me leave this place, for this despicable brat has made us both prisoners, the miserable, good-for-nothing thing!"
"Send him away; let him go into his own room," whispered Jeanne Marie. "I cannot bear to see him; he poisons my blood. Send him away, for I shall be crazy if I have to look at him longer."
"Away with you, you viper!" roared Simon; and the boy, who knew that he was meant--that the term viper was applied only to him--hastily dried his tears, and slipped through the open door into his little dark apartment.
"Now I will run and call the porter," said Simon, hurriedly; "he shall send some one to the Hotel Dieu, and bring a physician for my poor, dear, sick Jeanne Marie."
He hastened out, and turned back, after a few minutes, with the report that the porter himself had gone to bring a doctor, and that help would come at once.
"Nonsense!" cried Jeanne Marie; "no doctor can help me, and there is nothing at all that I want. Only give me something to drink, Simon, for my throat burns like fire, and then call little Capet in, for in his dark room his eyes glisten like stars, and I cannot bear them."
Simon shook his head sadly; and, while holding a glass of cold water to her lips, he said to himself: "Jeanne Marie is really sick! She has a fever! But we must do what she orders, else it will come to delirium, and she might become insane."
And with a loud voice he called, "Capet, Capet! come here, come here! you viper, you wolf's cub, come here!"
The boy obeyed the command, slowly crept into the room, and sat down in the rush-chair in the corner. "He shall not look at me," shrieked Jeanne Marie; "he shall not look into my heart with his dreadful blue eyes, it hurts me--oh! so much, so much!"
"Turn around, you viper!" said Simon. "Look round this way again, or I'll tear your eyes out of your head! I--"
The door leading to the corridor now opened, and an old man, leaning on a cane, entered, wearing on his head a powdered peruke, his bent form covered with a black satin coat, beneath which a satin vest was seen; on his feet, silk stockings and buckled shoes; in his lace-encircled hand, a cane with a gold head.
"Well," cried Simon, with a laugh, "what sort of an old scarecrow is that? And what does it want here?"
"The scarecrow wants nothing of you," said the old man, in a kindly way, "but you want something of it, citizen. You have sent for me."
"Ah! so you are the doctor from the Hotel Dieu."
"Yes, my friend, I am Citizen Naudin."
"Naudin, the chief physician at the Hotel Dieu?" cried Simon. "And you come yourself to see my sick wife?"
"Does that surprise you, Citizen Simon?"
"Yes, indeed, it surprises me. For I have been told so often that Citizen Naudin, the greatest and most skilful physician in all Paris, never leaves the Hotel Dieu; that the aristocrats and ci-devants have begged him in vain to attend them, and that even the Austrian woman, in the days when she was queen, sent to no purpose to the celebrated Naudin, and begged him to come to Versailles.
We heard that the answer was: 'I am the physician of the poor and the sick in the Hotel Dieu, and whoever is poor and sick may come to me in the house which bears the name of God. But whoever is too rich and too well for that, must seek another doctor, for my duties with the sick do not allow me to leave the H6tel Dieu.' And after that answer reached the palace--so the great Doctor Marat told me--the queen had her horses harnessed, and drove to Paris, to consult Doctor Naudin at the Hotel Dieu, and to receive his advice. Is the story really true, and are you Doctor Naudin?"
"The story is strictly true, and, my friend, I am Doctor Naudin."
"And you now leave the Hotel Dieu to come and visit my sick wife?" asked Simon, with a pleasant look and a flattered manner.
"Does your wife not belong to my poor and sick?" asked the doctor.
"Is she not a woman of the people, this dear French people, to whom I have devoted my services and my life? For a queen Doctor Naudin might not leave his hospital, but for a woman of the people he does it. And now, citizen, let me see your sick wife, for I did not come here to talk."