A Tale of Two Cities
Page 7
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When I returned to the young woman, I found her acting crazily in the same pattern of cries that she had been following before. I knew that this could go on for many hours, and that it could easily end in her dying.
I repeated the medicines that I had given her, and I sat by the side of the bed until well into the night. She never changed the high loud shouts, never changed the pattern of her words or stopped saying them clearly. They were always, "My husband, my father, and my brother! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Quiet!"
This went on for twenty-six hours from the time when I first saw her. I had come and left twice, and was again sitting by her when she started to show signs of stopping. I did what I could to help her, and soon she fainted and lay like she was dead.
It was like the wind and rain had stopped at last, after a long and awful storm. I took the cloths off her arms and called the servant woman to help me make her body comfortable, and to smooth out the dress that she was wearing, for it had a tear in it. It was then that I learned that a baby had started to grow in her, and it was then that I lost what little hope I had had of her pulling through.
"Is she dead?” asked the Marquis whom I will still call the older brother, coming into the room from having been out riding his horse.
"Not dead," said I, "but close to it."
"What strength there is in their low class bodies!" he said, looking down at her with some interest.
"There is strength enough.” I answered him, "to make us afraid when one is so very sad and so without hope."
First he laughed at my words, and then he made an angry face. He moved a chair with his foot near to mine, told the servant woman to leave, and said in a quiet voice:
"Doctor, finding my brother in this trouble with the country people, I said that your help should be asked for. Many people think well of you, and, as a young man with a good future ahead of you, you must know what is best for you. The things that you see here are things to be seen, but not spoken of."
I listened to the woman's breathing and tried not to answer.
"Will you be so kind as to answer me, Doctor?"
"Sir," said I, "in my job what people say to me when I am helping them should always be between only me and them.” I was careful with my answer, because I was worried about what I had seen and heard.
Her breathing was so difficult to see that I carefully felt for movement in her heart. She was only just alive. Turning around as I returned to my chair, I found both of the brothers looking at me.