Thirty Hours with a Corpse

by Maurice Level

  Quickly exhausted and full of pity, the beggar said:

  “Let him get his breath. It’s too heavy for him.”

  “Not a bit of it. He’s a cowardly brute. If I give in to him now, he’ll never pull another load up a hill. Up there! Gee up! . . . Get a stone to wedge up the wheel. We’ll make him go across the road to get a move on.”

  The beggar brought a big stone.

  “Like this,” said the wagoner. “I’ll stay at the wheel. Here’s the whip. Take the bit, head to the left, and lash his legs as hard as you can. That’ll bring him to.”

  Stung by pain, the horse made a big effort. The stones ground and flashed under his feet.

  “That’s it! That’s it!”

  But as the horse strained to one side, the wagoner, bending to push the stone under the wheel, slipped. The horse was drawn back. The man gave a cry and fell.

  He was on his back, his face convulsed, his eyes wild, his two elbows digging into the soil, his strong hands clutching the rim of the wheel as he tried to stop it from passing over his chest.

  In a voice of agony he shouted:

  “Pull him forward! Pull him forward! He’s crushing me . . .”

  Guessing, without seeing, what had happened, the beggar belabored the horse with both lash and handle. But the unwilling animal sank on its knees, rolled on its side, and the cart tilted forward, the shafts on the ground; the lantern upset and went out, and nothing could be heard in the darkness but the sharp breathing of the horse and the stifled moan of the man:

  “Go forward . . . go forward . . .”

  Unable to get the animal up, the beggar rushed to the wagoner trying to free him. But he was firmly held by the wheel. By a prodigious effort he was managing to keep it an inch or two from his body; a slip, a loss of strength, and it would mean being crushed to death . . . He himself understood this so clearly that when he saw the beggar bending over him, he yelled:

  “Don’t touch! Don’t touch! . . . run to the village . . . quick . . . to my father’s house . . . the Luchats . . . the first farm to the right . . . tell them to bring . . . help . . . I can keep like this for ten minutes . . . quick . . .”

  The beggar ran up the hill at full speed. He rushed into the village, which lay straight in front of him. All the shutters were closed. There were no lights; not a soul to be seen anywhere. Dogs barked furiously as he passed, but he heard nothing, saw nothing, his mind concentrated on the awful vision of the man who was lying at the bottom of the hill holding off the great weight that was sinking down on him.

  At last he stopped. Before him the road stretched out on the level. At his right a building stood behind a courtyard. A shaft of light came from the window. This must be the house. He hammered on the shutters with his fists.

  A voice asked:

  “Is that you, Jules?”

  Completely out of breath because of the pace he had come at, he had no voice to reply; he could only keep on knocking. He heard the creaking of a bed, steps on the boards. The window opened, and the head of a sleepy man appeared in the square of light:

  “Is that you, Jules?”

  He had recovered enough voice to pant: “No, but I have come to . . .”

  The farmer did not let him finish.

  “What the devil are you doing here? Waking people at this hour of the night!”

  He shut the window with a bang, muttering:

  “A dirty tramp . . . A good-for-nothing . . .”

  Stupefied by the brutality of the voice and action, the beggar stood transfixed . . . He thought:

  “What did they think I wanted? What harm was I doing . . . I suppose I did disturb their sleep . . . If they only knew, poor things . . .”

  He knocked timidly on the shutter again.

  From inside the voice cried:

  “Still there! . . . Wait a bit! You’ll be sorry if I get up to you.”

  He had got his breath again, and with it came courage.

  “Open the window . . .”

  “Go about your business . . .”

  “Open the window! . . .”

  This time the window opened, and so quickly he had to jump on one side to get out of the way of the shutter. The farmer stood there, furious, a gun in his hand.

  “Do you hear what I say, you starveling? If you don’t clear out and quickly, it’s an ounce of lead you get.”

  The hard voice of a woman called from the bed:

  “Fire at him . . . a good riddance for everybody if you do! They’re no good for anything but thieving, those tramps . . . and worse than thieving . . .”

  Frightened by the gun that was pointed at him, the beggar retreated into the darkness. He trembled and for a moment forgot the poor wretch who was perhaps at that very moment dying on the road. For the first time a bitter anger rose in him. Never before had he felt so despised and rejected.

  Suppose he had been starving, suppose he had knocked to beg for shelter? Had he not a right to a litter of straw near the cattle? to a crust of bread with the dogs? . . . Apparently his rags did not cover even a human being, seeing that the rich could threaten to kill him . . .

  His first impulse was to raise his stick and beat upon the shutter, then he reflected:

  “If I knock again he will fire . . . If I call, it will rouse the village and they will have knocked me senseless before I can explain what I want. If I go somewhere else for help, it will be just the same . . .”

  After a moment of hesitation he set off at a gallop to go back and try to save unaided the comrade of a few minutes. He ran wildly, urged forward by the fear of what might have happened while he was away . . . What would he see when he got there . . .

  This terror lent him the strength of the legs of a young man, and he was soon back near the place where the wagon had stopped. He cried:

  “Comrade!”

  No reply. He called again:

  “Comrade!”

  The darkness was so dense he could not find the horse . . . But he heard a neighing and went forward. The animal, still on its side, was lying a few steps from him, the wagon tilted forwards.

  “Comrade! Comrade!”

  He bent down, and as the moon came out from behind a cloud he saw the man with his arms spread out like a cross, his eyes shut, blood coming from his mouth. The wheel, which seemed enormous, was buried in his chest as in a rut.

  Unable to do anything more for the poor mutilated creature, his anger against the parents blazed up more fiercely than before. A desire for revenge gripped him; he ran back to the farm, and this time he had no fear of the gun, no feeling but one of savage joy as he beat on the shutters.

  “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.

  Under Chloroform

  “AS FOR me,” declared pretty young Madame Chaligny, “if ever I were obliged to have an operation and it was absolutely necessar
y 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.

  “She began to stammer words that increased my fear. Hardly knowing what I was doing, I said:

  “ ‘Sir, she is not completely under . . .’

  “ ‘Because she chatters? . . . What does that matter so long as

  she doesn’t move? . . .’

  “At that moment her voice rose clearly, every word distinct:

  “ ‘I’m not afraid . . . You are with me . . . You put me to sleep . . .’

  “There was no knowing what she might say next, and terrified, I administered more chloroform . . . Four, five times, tilt on tilt, I poured it on the compress and held it to her face. Her voice, now uneven, came to me muffled by the handkerchief I held against her mouth.

  “ ‘I am asleep . . . I can hear the bells . . . When I am well again we will go for walks together as we used to . . .’

  “I lost my head. I thought that her husband, who was in the next room and probably near the door, would hear, that the others would understand. She, so proud, she whom no suspicion had ever touched, who till then had been above all suspicion, would be dishonored.

  “To get her quite under, to try to keep her silent, I tilted the bottle, I tilted it again. The compress became heavy in my hand.

  “ ‘We shall be together . . . at night,’ chanted the voice. ‘And you will take me in your arms again . . . you will . . .’

  “I lost my reason. What would the next words be? I poured . . . I poured . .
. I no longer knew what I was doing.

  “Then came the moment when I found that the bottle was empty. I realized that I had given too much. Terrified, I flung the compress away; with a hasty finger I lifted one of her eyelids and saw that the pupil of the eye was fixed, dilated so that there was nothing left of the iris but a transparent ring. I wanted to shout: ‘Stop! . . .’

  “The word was strangled by the contraction in my throat.

  “At the same moment I heard the voice of my chief, short and anxious:

  “ ‘What’s this . . . What . . . the blood-pressure is low.’

  “With a violent movement he pushed me away:

  “ ‘But she’s not breathing . . . Some oxygen . . . some ether . . . quick . . .’

  “Alas! Too late.

  “Her poor head rolled lifeless; her blue eye, the eyelid still up, was glazed and looked at me with an empty stare . . .

  “We tried everything, but nothing was any good. Syncope, the horrible white syncope, as we call it, had taken her from me.”

  For a few moments he sat lost in thought, then went on:

  “I know perfectly well that such accidents happen frequently; that no one is safe from the treachery of chloroform. But I also know that if I had not loved her and had done my work with cold indifference; if I had not been overwhelmed by the double anguish of holding her life in my hands and hearing her unconsciously betraying the secret that would ruin her, I should not have to reproach myself with causing her death . . .”

  He was silent. A wave of sadness passed through the room as if it had been carried in on the chilly autumn wind that blew against the damp window.

  Madame Chaligny, her head on the back of her armchair, sat gazing into space like a person lost in a dream.

  The party broke up early that night.

  The Man Who Lay Asleep

  WORN OUT with fatigue, half dead with hunger, Ferrou got to the gates of Paris as night was falling. For eight days he had dragged himself from village to village, getting strength from the desire to see once again, now that he was out of prison, the great city with its broad streets and the narrow roads which night suddenly peoples with moving and silent forms. For five years he had thought of nothing but his return, storing up hate and a desire for murder strong enough to make his first action the purchase of a knife he had sharpened in the dark on the stone edge of a well. As he walked along, his fingers were constantly on the handle.