The Country Doctor

H >> Honore de Balzac >> The Country Doctor


"I shall go over to Benassis to-morrow, of course," said Genestas to
himself, "and I will see what he says before I make up my mind what to
do with that fellow," and with that he went to a farewell dinner given
to him by his brother officers. He would be leaving Grenoble now in a
very few days.

As the lieutenant-colonel returned after the dinner, his servant
handed him a letter. It had been brought by a messenger, he said, who
had waited a long while for an answer.

Genestas recognized Adrien's handwriting, although his head was
swimming after the toasts that had been drunk in his honor; probably,
he thought, the letter merely contained a request to gratify some
boyish whim, so he left it unopened on the table. The next morning,
when the fumes of champagne had passed off, he took it up and began to
read.

"My dear father----"

"Oh! you young rogue," was his comment, "you know how to coax whenever
you want something."

"Our dear M. Benassis is dead----"

The letter dropped from Genestas' hands; it was some time before he
could read any more.

"Every one is in consternation. The trouble is all the greater
because it came as a sudden shock. It was so unexpected. M.
Benassis seemed perfectly well the day before; there was not a
sign of ill-health about him. Only the day before yesterday he
went to see all his patients, even those who lived farthest away;
it was as if he had known what was going to happen; and he spoke
to every one whom he met, saying, 'Good-bye, my friends,' each
time. Towards five o'clock he came back just as usual to have
dinner with me. He was tired; Jacquotte noticed the purplish flush
on his face, but the weather was so very cold that she would not
get ready a warm foot-bath for him, as she usually did when she
saw that the blood had gone to his head. So she has been wailing,
poor thing, through her tears for these two days past, 'If I had
/only/ given him a foot-bath, he would be living now!'

"M Benassis was hungry; he made a good dinner. I thought that he
was in higher spirits than usual; we both of us laughed a great
deal, I had never seen him laugh so much before. After dinner,
towards seven o'clock, a man came with a message from Saint
Laurent du Pont; it was a serious case, and M. Benassis was
urgently needed. He said to me, 'I shall have to go, though I
never care to set out on horseback when I have hardly digested my
dinner, more especially when it is as cold as this. It is enough
to kill a man!'

"For all that, he went. At nine o'clock the postman Goguelat,
brought a letter for M. Benassis. Jacquotte was tired out, for it
was her washing-day. She gave me the letter and went off to bed.
She begged me to keep a good fire in our bedroom, and to have some
tea ready for M. Benassis when he came in, for I am still sleeping
in the little cot-bed in his room. I raked out the fire in the
salon, and went upstairs to wait for my good friend. I looked at
the letter, out of curiosity, before I laid it on the
chimney-piece, and noticed the handwriting and the postmark. It
came from Paris, and I think it was a lady's hand. I am telling
you about it because of things that happened afterwards.

"About ten o'clock, I heard the horse returning, and M. Benassis'
voice. He said to Nicolle, 'It is cold enough to-night to bring
the wolves out. I do not feel at all well.' Nicolle said, 'Shall I
go and wake Jacquotte?' And M. Benassis answered, 'Oh! no, no,'
and came upstairs.

"I said, 'I have your tea here, all ready for you,' and he smiled
at me in the way that you know, and said, 'Thank you, Adrien.'
That was his last smile. In a moment he began to take off his
cravat, as though he could not breathe. 'How hot it is in here!'
he said and flung himself down in an armchair. 'A letter has come
for you, my good friend,' I said; 'here it is;' and I gave him the
letter. He took it up and glanced at the handwriting. 'Ah! /mon
Dieu/!' he exclaimed, 'perhaps she is free at last!' Then his head
sank back, and his hands shook. After a little while he set the
lamp on the table and opened the letter. There was something so
alarming in the cry he had given that I watched him while he read,
and saw that his face was flushed, and there were tears in his
eyes. Then quite suddenly he fell, head forwards. I tried to raise
him, and saw how purple his face was.

"'It is all over with me,' he said, stammering; it was terrible
to see how he struggled to rise. 'I must be bled; bleed me!' he
cried, clutching my hand. . . . 'Adrien,' he said again, 'burn
this letter!' He gave it to me, and I threw it on the fire. I
called for Jacquotte and Nicolle. Jacquotte did not hear me, but
Nicolle did, and came hurrying upstairs; he helped me to lay M.
Benassis on my little bed. Our dear friend could not hear us any
longer when we spoke to him, and although his eyes were open, he
did not see anything. Nicolle galloped off at once to fetch the
surgeon, M. Bordier, and in this way spread the alarm through the
town. It was all astir in a moment. M. Janvier, M. Dufau, and all
the rest of your acquaintance were the first to come to us. But
all hope was at an end, M. Benassis was dying fast. He gave no
sign of consciousness, not even when M. Bordier cauterized the
soles of his feet. It was an attack of gout, combined with an
apoplectic stroke.

"I am giving you all these details, dear father, because I know
how much you cared for him. As for me, I am very sad and full of
grief, for I can say to you that I cared more for him than for any
one else except you. I learned more from M. Benassis' talk in the
evenings than ever I could have learned at school.

"You cannot imagine the scene next morning when the news of his
death was known in the place. The garden and the yard here were
filled with people. How they sobbed and wailed! Nobody did any
work that day. Every one recalled the last time that they had seen
M. Benassis, and what he had said, or they talked of all that he
had done for them; and those who were least overcome with grief
spoke for the others. Every one wanted to see him once more, and
the crowd grew larger every moment. The sad news traveled so fast
that men and women and children came from ten leagues round; all
the people in the district, and even beyond it, had that one
thought in their minds.

"It was arranged that four of the oldest men of the commune should
carry the coffin. It was a very difficult task for them, for the
crowd was so dense between the church and M. Benassis' house.
There must have been nearly five thousand people there, and almost
every one knelt as if the Host were passing. There was not nearly
room for them in the church. In spite of their grief, the crowd
was so silent that you could hear the sound of the bell during
mass and the chanting as far as the end of the High Street; but
when the procession started again for the new cemetery, which M.
Benassis had given to the town, little thinking, poor man, that he
himself would be the first to be buried there, a great cry went
up. M. Janvier wept as he said the prayers; there were no dry eyes
among the crowd. And so we buried him.

"As night came on the people dispersed, carrying sorrow and
mourning everywhere with them. The next day Gondrin and Goguelat,
and Butifer, with others, set to work to raise a sort of pyramid
of earth, twenty feet high, above the spot where M. Benassis lies;
it is being covered now with green sods, and every one is helping
them. These things, dear father, have all happened in three days.

"M. Dufau found M. Benassis' will lying open on the table where he
used to write. When it was known how his property had been left,
affection and regret for his loss became even deeper if possible.
And now, dear father, I am writing for Butifer (who is taking this
letter to you) to come back with your answer. You must tell me
what I am to do. Will you come to fetch me, or shall I go to you
at Grenoble? Tell me what you wish me to do, and be sure that I
shall obey you in everything.

"Farewell, dear father, I send my love, and I am your affectionate
son,

ADRIEN GENESTAS."


"Ah! well, I must go over," the soldier exclaimed.

He ordered his horse and started out. It was one of those still
December mornings when the sky is covered with gray clouds. The wind
was too light to disperse the thick fog, through which the bare trees
and damp house fronts seemed strangely unfamiliar. The very silence
was gloomy. There is such a thing as a silence full of light and
gladness; on a bright day there is a certain joyousness about the
slightest sound, but in such dreary weather nature is not silent, she
is dumb. All sounds seemed to die away, stifled by the heavy air.

There was something in the gloom without him that harmonized with
Colonel Genestas' mood; his heart was oppressed with grief, and
thoughts of death filled his mind. Involuntarily he began to think of
the cloudless sky on that lovely spring morning, and remembered how
bright the valley had looked when he passed through it for the first
time; and now, in strong contrast with that day, the heavy sky above
him was a leaden gray, there was no greenness about the hills, which
were still waiting for the cloak of winter snow that invests them with
a certain beauty of its own. There was something painful in all this
bleak and bare desolation for a man who was traveling to find a grave
at his journey's end; the thought of that grave haunted him. The lines
of dark pine-trees here and there along the mountain ridges against
the sky seized on his imagination; they were in keeping with the
officer's mournful musings. Every time that he looked over the valley
that lay before him, he could not help thinking of the trouble that
had befallen the canton, of the man who had died so lately, and of the
blank left by his death.

Before long, Genestas reached the cottage where he had asked for a cup
of milk on his first journey. The sight of the smoke rising above the
hovel where the charity-children were being brought up recalled vivid
memories of Benassis and of his kindness of heart. The officer made up
his mind to call there. He would give some alms to the poor woman for
his dead friend's sake. He tied his horse to a tree, and opened the
door of the hut without knocking.

"Good-day, mother," he said, addressing the old woman, who was sitting
by the fire with the little ones crouching at her side. "Do you
remember me?"

"Oh! quite well, sir! You came here one fine morning last spring and
gave us two crowns."

"There, mother! that is for you and the children"

"Thank you kindly, sir. May Heaven bless you!"

"You must not thank me, mother," said the officer; "it is all through
M. Benassis that the money had come to you."

The old woman raised her eyes and gazed at Genestas.

"Ah! sir," she said, "he has left his property to our poor
countryside, and made all of us his heirs; but we have lost him who
was worth more than all, for it was he who made everything turn out
well for us."

"Good-bye, mother! Pray for him," said Genestas, making a few playful
cuts at the children with his riding-whip.

The old woman and her little charges went out with him; they watched
him mount his horse and ride away.

He followed the road along the valley until he reached the bridle-path
that led to La Fosseuse's cottage. From the slope above the house he
saw that the door was fastened and the shutters closed. In some
anxiety he returned to the highway, and rode on under the poplars, now
bare and leafless. Before long he overtook the old laborer, who was
dressed in his Sunday best, and creeping slowly along the road. There
was no bag of tools on his shoulder.

"Good-day, old Moreau!"

"Ah! good-day, sir. . . . I mind who you are now!" the old fellow
exclaimed after a moment. "You are a friend of monsieur, our late
mayor! Ah! sir, would it not have been far better if God had only
taken a poor rheumatic old creature like me instead? It would not have
mattered if He had taken me, but HE was the light of our eyes."

"Do you know how it is that there is no one at home up there at La
Fosseuse's cottage?"

The old man gave a look at the sky.

"What time is it, sir? The sun has not shone all day," he said.

"It is ten o'clock."

"Oh! well, then, she will have gone to mass or else to the cemetery.
She goes there every day. He has left her five hundred livres a year
and her house for as long as she lives, but his death has fairly
turned her brain, as you may say----"

"And where are you going, old Moreau?"

"Little Jacques is to be buried to-day, and I am going to the funeral.
He was my nephew, poor little chap; he had been ailing for a long
while, and he died yesterday morning. It really looked as though it
was M. Benassis who kept him alive. That is the way! All these younger
ones die!" Moreau added, half-jestingly, half-sadly.

Genestas reined in his horse as he entered the town, for he met
Gondrin and Goguelat, each carrying a pickaxe and shovel. He called to
them, "Well, old comrades, we have had the misfortune to lose him----"

"There, there, that is enough, sir!" interrupted Goguelat, "we know
that well enough. We have just been cutting turf to cover his grave."

"His life will make a grand story to tell, eh?"

"Yes," answered Goguelat, "he was the Napoleon of our valley, barring
the battles."

As they reached the parsonage, Genestas saw a little group about the
door; Butifer and Adrien were talking with M. Janvier, who, no doubt,
had just returned from saying mass. Seeing that the officer made as
though he were about to dismount, Butifer promptly went to hold the
horse, while Adrien sprang forward and flung his arms about his
father's neck. Genestas was deeply touched by the boy's affection,
though no sign of this appeared in the soldier's words or manner.

"Why, Adrien," he said, "you certainly are set up again. My goodness!
Thanks to our poor friend, you have almost grown into a man. I shall
not forget your tutor here, Master Butifer."

"Oh! colonel," entreated Butifer, "take me away from here and put me
into your regiment. I cannot trust myself now that M. le Maire is
gone. /He/ wanted me to go for a soldier, didn't he? Well, then, I
will do what he wished. He told you all about me, and you will not be
hard on me, will you, M. Genestas?"

"Right, my fine fellow," said Genestas, as he struck his hand in the
other's. "I will find something to suit you, set your mind at rest
---- And how is it with you, M. le Cure?"

"Well, like every one else in the canton, colonel, I feel sorrow for
his loss, but no one knows as I do how irreparable it is. He was like
an angel of God among us. Fortunately, he did not suffer at all; it
was a painless death. The hand of God gently loosed the bonds of a
life that was one continual blessing to us all."

"Will it be intrusive if I ask you to accompany me to the cemetery? I
should like to bid him farewell, as it were."

Genestas and the cure, still in conversation, walked on together.
Butifer and Adrien followed them at a few paces distance. They went in
the direction of the little lake, and as soon as they were clear of
the town, the lieutenant-colonel saw on the mountain-side a large
piece of waste land enclosed by walls.

"That is the cemetery," the cure told him. "He is the first to be
buried in it. Only three months before he was brought here, it struck
him that it was a very bad arrangement to have the churchyard round
the church; so, in order to carry out the law, which prescribes that
burial grounds should be removed a stated distance from human
dwellings, he himself gave this piece of land to the commune. We are
burying a child, poor little thing, in the new cemetery to-day, so we
shall have begun by laying innocence and virtue there. Can it be that
death is after all a reward? Did God mean it as a lesson for us when
He took these two perfect natures to Himself? When we have been tried
and disciplined in youth by pain, in later life by mental suffering,
are we so much nearer to Him? Look! there is the rustic monument which
has been erected to his memory."

Genestas saw a mound of earth about twenty feet high. It was bare as
yet, but dwellers in the district were already busily covering the
sloping sides with green turf. La Fosseuse, her face buried in her
hands, was sobbing bitterly; she was sitting on the pile of stones in
which they had planted a great wooden cross, made from the trunk of a
pine-tree, from which the bark had not been removed. The officer read
the inscription; the letters were large, and had been deeply cut in
the wood.


D. O. M.

HERE LIES

THE GOOD MONSIEUR BENASSIS

THE FATHER OF US ALL

PRAY FOR HIM.


"Was it you, sir," asked Genestas, "who----?"

"No," answered the cure; "it is simply what is said everywhere, from
the heights up there above us down to Grenoble, so the words have been
carved here."

Genestas remained silent for a few moments. Then he moved from where
he stood and came nearer to La Fosseuse, who did not hear him, and
spoke again to the cure.

"As soon as I have my pension," he said, "I will come to finish my
days here among you."



ADDENDUM

The following personage appears in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Murat, Joachim, Prince
The Vendetta
The Gondreville Mystery
Colonel Chabert
Domestic Peace