Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (547 page)

When Meunier’s visit was approaching its conclusion, there happened an event which caused some excitement in our household, owing to the surprisingly strong effect it appeared to produce on Bertha — on Bertha, the self-possessed, who usually seemed inaccessible to feminine agitations, and did even her hate in a self-restrained hygienic manner.  This event was the sudden severe illness of her maid, Mrs. Archer.  I have reserved to this moment the mention of a circumstance which had forced itself on my notice shortly before Meunier’s arrival, namely, that there had been some quarrel between Bertha and this maid, apparently during a visit to a distant family, in which she had accompanied her mistress.  I had overheard Archer speaking in a tone of bitter insolence, which I should have thought an adequate reason for immediate dismissal.  No dismissal followed; on the contrary, Bertha seemed to be silently putting up with personal inconveniences from the exhibitions of this woman’s temper.  I was the more astonished to observe that her illness seemed a cause of strong solicitude to Bertha; that she was at the bedside night and day, and would allow no one else to officiate as head-nurse.  It happened that our family doctor was out on a holiday, an accident which made Meunier’s presence in the house doubly welcome, and he apparently entered into the case with an interest which seemed so much stronger than the ordinary professional feeling, that one day when he had fallen into a long fit of silence after visiting her, I said to him —

“Is this a very peculiar case of disease, Meunier?”

“No,” he answered, “it is an attack of peritonitis, which will be fatal, but which does not differ physically from many other cases that have come under my observation.  But I’ll tell you what I have on my mind.  I want to make an experiment on this woman, if you will give me permission.  It can do her no harm — will give her no pain — for I shall not make it until life is extinct to all purposes of sensation.  I want to try the effect of transfusing blood into her arteries after the heart has ceased to beat for some minutes.  I have tried the experiment again and again with animals that have died of this disease, with astounding results, and I want to try it on a human subject.  I have the small tubes necessary, in a case I have with me, and the rest of the apparatus could be prepared readily.  I should use my own blood — take it from my own arm.  This woman won’t live through the night, I’m convinced, and I want you to promise me your assistance in making the experiment.  I can’t do without another hand, but it would perhaps not be well to call in a medical assistant from among your provincial doctors.  A disagreeable foolish version of the thing might get abroad.”

“Have you spoken to my wife on the subject?” I said, “because she appears to be peculiarly sensitive about this woman: she has been a favourite maid.”

“To tell you the truth,” said Meunier, “I don’t want her to know about it.  There are always insuperable difficulties with women in these matters, and the effect on the supposed dead body may be startling.  You and I will sit up together, and be in readiness.  When certain symptoms appear I shall take you in, and at the right moment we must manage to get every one else out of the room.”

I need not give our farther conversation on the subject.  He entered very fully into the details, and overcame my repulsion from them, by exciting in me a mingled awe and curiosity concerning the possible results of his experiment.

We prepared everything, and he instructed me in my part as assistant.  He had not told Bertha of his absolute conviction that Archer would not survive through the night, and endeavoured to persuade her to leave the patient and take a night’s rest.  But she was obstinate, suspecting the fact that death was at hand, and supposing that he wished merely to save her nerves.  She refused to leave the sick-room.  Meunier and I sat up together in the library, he making frequent visits to the sick-room, and returning with the information that the case was taking precisely the course he expected.  Once he said to me, “Can you imagine any cause of ill-feeling this woman has against her mistress, who is so devoted to her?”

“I think there was some misunderstanding between them before her illness.  Why do you ask?”

“Because I have observed for the last five or six hours — since, I fancy, she has lost all hope of recovery — there seems a strange prompting in her to say something which pain and failing strength forbid her to utter; and there is a look of hideous meaning in her eyes, which she turns continually towards her mistress.  In this disease the mind often remains singularly clear to the last.”

“I am not surprised at an indication of malevolent feeling in her,” I said.  “She is a woman who has always inspired me with distrust and dislike, but she managed to insinuate herself into her mistress’s favour.”  He was silent after this, looking at the fire with an air of absorption, till he went upstairs again.  He stayed away longer than usual, and on returning, said to me quietly, “Come now.”

I followed him to the chamber where death was hovering.  The dark hangings of the large bed made a background that gave a strong relief to Bertha’s pale face as I entered.  She started forward as she saw me enter, and then looked at Meunier with an expression of angry inquiry; but he lifted up his hand as it to impose silence, while he fixed his glance on the dying woman and felt her pulse.  The face was pinched and ghastly, a cold perspiration was on the forehead, and the eyelids were lowered so as to conceal the large dark eyes.  After a minute or two, Meunier walked round to the other side of the bed where Bertha stood, and with his usual air of gentle politeness towards her begged her to leave the patient under our care — everything should be done for her — she was no longer in a state to be conscious of an affectionate presence.  Bertha was hesitating, apparently almost willing to believe his assurance and to comply.  She looked round at the ghastly dying face, as if to read the confirmation of that assurance, when for a moment the lowered eyelids were raised again, and it seemed as if the eyes were looking towards Bertha, but blankly.  A shudder passed through Bertha’s frame, and she returned to her station near the pillow, tacitly implying that she would not leave the room.

The eyelids were lifted no more.  Once I looked at Bertha as she watched the face of the dying one.  She wore a rich
peignoir
, and her blond hair was half covered by a lace cap: in her attire she was, as always, an elegant woman, fit to figure in a picture of modern aristocratic life: but I asked myself how that face of hers could ever have seemed to me the face of a woman born of woman, with memories of childhood, capable of pain, needing to be fondled?  The features at that moment seemed so preternaturally sharp, the eyes were so hard and eager — she looked like a cruel immortal, finding her spiritual feast in the agonies of a dying race.  For across those hard features there came something like a flash when the last hour had been breathed out, and we all felt that the dark veil had completely fallen.  What secret was there between Bertha and this woman?  I turned my eyes from her with a horrible dread lest my insight should return, and I should be obliged to see what had been breeding about two unloving women’s hearts.  I felt that Bertha had been watching for the moment of death as the sealing of her secret: I thanked Heaven it could remain sealed for me.

Meunier said quietly, “She is gone.”  He then gave his arm to Bertha, and she submitted to be led out of the room.

I suppose it was at her order that two female attendants came into the room, and dismissed the younger one who had been present before.  When they entered, Meunier had already opened the artery in the long thin neck that lay rigid on the pillow, and I dismissed them, ordering them to remain at a distance till we rang: the doctor, I said, had an operation to perform — he was not sure about the death.  For the next twenty minutes I forgot everything but Meunier and the experiment in which he was so absorbed, that I think his senses would have been closed against all sounds or sights which had no relation to it.  It was my task at first to keep up the artificial respiration in the body after the transfusion had been effected, but presently Meunier relieved me, and I could see the wondrous slow return of life; the breast began to heave, the inspirations became stronger, the eyelids quivered, and the soul seemed to have returned beneath them.  The artificial respiration was withdrawn: still the breathing continued, and there was a movement of the lips.

Just then I heard the handle of the door moving: I suppose Bertha had heard from the women that they had been dismissed: probably a vague fear had arisen in her mind, for she entered with a look of alarm.  She came to the foot of the bed and gave a stifled cry.

The dead woman’s eyes were wide open, and met hers in full recognition — the recognition of hate.  With a sudden strong effort, the hand that Bertha had thought for ever still was pointed towards her, and the haggard face moved.  The gasping eager voice said —

“You mean to poison your husband . . . the poison is in the black cabinet . . . I got it for you . . . you laughed at me, and told lies about me behind my back, to make me disgusting . . . because you were jealous . . . are you sorry . . . now?”

The lips continued to murmur, but the sounds were no longer distinct.  Soon there was no sound — only a slight movement: the flame had leaped out, and was being extinguished the faster.  The wretched woman’s heart-strings had been set to hatred and vengeance; the spirit of life had swept the chords for an instant, and was gone again for ever.  Great God!  Is this what it is to live again . . . to wake up with our unstilled thirst upon us, with our unuttered curses rising to our lips, with our muscles ready to act out their half-committed sins?

Bertha stood pale at the foot of the bed, quivering and helpless, despairing of devices, like a cunning animal whose hiding-places are surrounded by swift-advancing flame.  Even Meunier looked paralysed; life for that moment ceased to be a scientific problem to him.  As for me, this scene seemed of one texture with the rest of my existence: horror was my familiar, and this new revelation was only like an old pain recurring with new circumstances.

* * * * *

Since then Bertha and I have lived apart — she in her own neighbourhood, the mistress of half our wealth, I as a wanderer in foreign countries, until I came to this Devonshire nest to die.  Bertha lives pitied and admired; for what had I against that charming woman, whom every one but myself could have been happy with?  There had been no witness of the scene in the dying room except Meunier, and while Meunier lived his lips were sealed by a promise to me.

Once or twice, weary of wandering, I rested in a favourite spot, and my heart went out towards the men and women and children whose faces were becoming familiar to me; but I was driven away again in terror at the approach of my old insight — driven away to live continually with the one Unknown Presence revealed and yet hidden by the moving curtain of the earth and sky.  Till at last disease took hold of me and forced me to rest here — forced me to live in dependence on my servants.  And then the curse of insight — of my double consciousness, came again, and has never left me.  I know all their narrow thoughts, their feeble regard, their half-wearied pity.

* * * * *

It is the 20th of September, 1850.  I know these figures I have just written, as if they were a long familiar inscription.  I have seen them on this pace in my desk unnumbered times, when the scene of my dying struggle has opened upon me . . .

(1859)

This novella was first published in 1864 and
is Eliot’s literary homage to Thackeray.
 
Brother Jacob
is a satirical modern fable that draws telling parallels between eating and reading. The novella also reveals Eliot’s deep engagement with the question of whether there are ‘necessary truths’ independent of our perception of them and the boundaries of art and the self.