Part 23

“Yes, my good Mme. Polge, what is to become of us? Things cannot go on much longer as they are. Jenkins will not give way; the children are as obstinate as mules. There is no denying it, they will all slip through our fingers. There is the little Wallachian--I mark the king, Mme. Polge--who may die from one moment to another. Just think, the poor little chap for the last three days has had nothing in his stomach. It is useless for Jenkins to talk. You cannot improve children like snails by making them go hungry. It is disheartening all the same not to be able to save one of them. The infirmary is full. It is really a wretched outlook. Forty and bezique.”

A double ring at the entrance gate interrupted his monologue. The omnibus was returning from the railway station and its wheels were grinding on the sand in an unusual manner.

“What an astonishing thing,” remarked Pondevez, “the conveyance is not empty.”

Indeed it did draw up at the foot of the steps with a certain pride, and the man who got out of it sprang up the staircase at a bound. He was a courier from Jenkins bearing a great piece of news. The doctor would arrive in two hours to visit the Home, accompanied by the Nabob and a gentleman from the Tuileries. He urgently enjoined that everything should be ready for their reception. The thing had been decided at such short notice that he had not had the time to write; but he counted on M. Pondevez to do all that was necessary.

“That is good!--necessary!” murmured Pondevez in complete dismay. The situation was critical. This important visit was occurring at the worst possible moment, just as the system had utterly broken down. The poor Pompon, exceedingly perplexed, tugged at his beard, thoughtfully gnawing wisps of it.

“Come,” said he suddenly to Mme. Polge, whose long face had grown still longer between her ringlets, “we have only one course to take. We must remove the infirmary and carry all the sick into the dormitory. They will be neither better nor worse for passing another half-day there. As for those with the rash, we will put them out of the way in some corner. They are too ugly, they must not be seen. Come along, you up there! I want every one on the bridge.”

The dinner-bell being violently rung, immediately hurried steps are heard. Seamstresses, infirmary-nurses, servants, goatherds, issue from all directions, running, jostling each other across the court-yards. Others fly about, cries, calls; but that which dominates is the noise of a mighty cleansing, a streaming of water as though Bethlehem had been suddenly attacked by fire. And those groanings of sick children snatched from the warmth of their beds, all those little screaming bundles carried across the damp park, their coverings fluttering through the branches, powerfully complete the impression of a fire. At the end of two hours, thanks to a prodigious activity, the house is ready from top to bottom for the visit which it is about to receive, all the staff at their posts, the stove lighted, the goats picturesquely sprinkled over the park. Mme. Polge has donned her green silk dress, the director a costume somewhat less neglige than usual, but of which the simplicity excluded all idea of premeditation. The Departmental Secretary may come.

And here he is.

He alights with Jenkins and Jansoulet from a splendid coach with the red and gold livery of the Nabob. Feigning the deepest astonishment, Pondevez rushes forward to meet his visitors.

“Ah, M. Jenkins, what an honour! What a surprise!”

Greetings are exchanged on the flight of steps, bows, shakings of hands, introductions. Jenkins with his flowing overcoat wide open over his loyal breast, beams his best and most cordial smile; there is a significant wrinkle on his brow, however. He is uneasy about the surprises which may be held in store for them by the establishment, of the distressful condition of which he is better aware than any one. If only Pondevez had taken proper precautions. Things begin well, at any rate. The rather theatrical view from the entrance, of those white fleeces frisking about among the bushes, have enchanted M. de la Perriere, who himself, with his honest eyes, his little white beard, and the continual nodding of his head, resembles a goat escaped from its tether.

“In the first place, gentlemen, the apartment of principal importance in the house, the nursery,” said the director, opening a massive door at the end of the entrance-hall. His guests follow him, go down a few steps and find themselves in an immense, low room, with a tiled floor, formerly the kitchen of the mansion. The most striking object on entering is a lofty and vast fireplace built on the antique model, of red brick, with two stone benches opposite one another beneath the chimney, and the singer’s coat of arms--an enormous lyre barred with a roll of music--carved on the monumental pediment. The effect is startling; but a frightful draught comes from it, which joined to the coldness of the tile floor and the dull light admitted by the little windows on a level with the ground, may well terrify one for the health of the children. But what was do be done? The nursery had to be installed in this insalubrious spot on account of the sylvan and capricious nurses, accustomed to the unconstraint of the stable. You only need to notice the pools of milk, the great reddish puddles drying up on the tiles, to breathe in the strong odour that meets you as you enter, a mingling of whey, of wet hair, and of many other things besides, in order to be convinced of the absolute necessity of this arrangement.

The gloomy-walled apartment is so large that to the visitors at first the nursery seems to be deserted. However, at the farther end, a group of creatures, bleating, moaning, moving about, is soon distinguished. Two peasant women, hard and brutalized in appearance, with dirty faces, two “dry-nurses,” who well deserve the name, are seated on mats, each with an infant in her arms and a big nanny-goat in front of her, offering its udder with legs parted. The director seems pleasantly surprised.

“Truly, gentlemen, this is lucky. Two of our children are having their little luncheon. We shall see how well the nurses and infants understand each other.”

“What can he be doing? He is mad,” said Jenkins to himself in consternation.

But the director on the contrary knows very well what he is doing and has himself skilfully arranged the scene, selecting two patient and gentle beasts and two exceptional subjects, two little desperate mortals who want to live at any price and open their mouths to swallow, no matter what food, like young birds still in the nest.

“Come nearer, gentlemen, and observe.”

Yes, they are indeed sucking, these little cherubs! One of them, lying close to the ground, squeezed up under the belly of the goat, is going at it so heartily that you can hear the gurglings of the warm milk descending, it would seem, even into the little limbs that kick with satisfaction at the meal. The other, calmer, lying down indolently, requires some little encouragement from his Auvergnoise attendant.

“Suck, will you suck then, you little rogue!” And at length, as though he had suddenly come to a decision, he begins to drink with such avidity that the woman leans over to him, surprised by this extraordinary appetite, and exclaims laughing:

“Ah, the rascal, is he not cunning?--it is his thumb that he is sucking instead of the goat.”

The angel has hit on that expedient so that he may be left in peace. The incident does not create a bad impression. M. de la Perriere is much amused by this notion of the nurse that the child was trying to take them all in. He leaves the nursery, delighted. “Positively de-e-elighted,” he repeats, nodding his head as they ascend the great staircase with its echoing walls decorated with the horns of stags, leading to the dormitory.

Very bright, very airy, is this vast room, running the whole length of one side of the house, with numerous windows and cots, separated one from another by a little distance, hung with fleecy white curtains like clouds. Women go and come through the large arch in the centre, with piles of linen on their arms, or keys in their hands, nurses with the special duty of washing the babies.

Here too much has been attempted and the first impression of the visitors is a bad one. All this whiteness of muslin, this polished parquet, the brightness of the window-panes reflecting the sky sad at beholding these things, seem to throw into bold relief the thinness, the unhealthy pallor of these dying little ones, already the colour of their shrouds. Alas! the oldest are only aged some six months, the youngest barely a fortnight, and already there is in all these faces, these faces in embryo, a disappointed expression, a scowling, worn look, a suffering precocity visible in the numerous lines on those little bald foreheads, cramped by linen caps edged with poor, narrow hospital lace. What are they suffering? What diseases can they have? They have everything, everything that one can have: diseases of children and diseases of men. The fruit of vice and poverty, they bring into the world hideous phenomena of heredity at their very birth. This one has a perforated palate, and this great copper-coloured patches on the forehead, all of them rickety. Then they are dying of hunger. Notwithstanding the spoonfuls of milk, of sweetened water, which are forced down their throats, notwithstanding the feeding-bottle employed now and then, though against orders, they perish of inanition. These little creatures, worn out before birth, require the most tender and the most strengthening food; the goats might perhaps be able to give it, but apparently they have sworn not to suck the goats. And this is what makes the dormitory mournful and silent, not one of those little clinched-fisted tempers, one of those cries showing the pink and firm gums in which the child makes trial of his lungs and strength; only a plaintive moaning, as it were the disquiet of a soul that turns over and over in a little sick body, without being able to find a comfortable place to rest there.

Jenkins and the director, who have seen the bad impression produced on their guests by this inspection of the dormitory, try to put a little life into the situation, talk very loudly in a good-natured, complacent, satisfied way. Jenkins shakes hands warmly with the superintendent.

“Well, Mme. Polge, and how are our little nurslings getting on?”

“As you see, M. le Docteur,” she replies, pointing to the beds.

This tall Mme. Polge is funereal in her green dress, the ideal of dry-nurses. She completes the picture.

But where has Monsieur the Departmental Secretary gone? He has stopped before a cot which he examines sadly, as he stands nodding his head.