第71章

HALPERSOHN

The next afternoon at three o'clock a cabriolet stopped before the house, and Godefroid saw Halpersohn getting out of it, wrapped in a monstrous bear-skin pelisse.The cold had strengthened during the night, the thermometer marking ten degrees of it.

The Jewish doctor examined with curious eyes, though furtively, the room in which his client of the day before received him, and Godefroid detected the suspicious thought which darted from his eyes like the sharp point of a dagger.This rapid conception of distrust gave Godefroid a cold chill, for he thought within himself that such a man would be pitiless in all relations; it is so natural to suppose that genius is connected with goodness that a strong sensation of disgust took possession of him.

"Monsieur," he said, "I see that the simplicity of my room makes you uneasy; therefore you need not be surprised at my method of proceeding.Here are your two hundred francs, and here, too, are three notes of a thousand francs each," he added, drawing from his pocket-book the money Madame de la Chanterie had given him to release Monsieur Bernard's book; but in case you still feel doubtful of my solvency I offer you as reference Messrs.Mongenod, bankers, rue de la Victoire.""I know them," said Halpersohn, putting the ten gold pieces into his pocket.

"He'll inquire of them," thought Godefroid.

"Where is the patient?" asked the doctor, rising like a man who knows the value of time.

"This way, monsieur," said Godefroid, preceding him to show the way.

The Jew examined with a shrewd and suspicious eye the places he passed through, giving them the keen, rapid glance of a spy; he saw all the horrors of poverty through the door of the room in which the grandfather and the grandson lived; for, unfortunately, Monsieur Bernard had gone in to change his clothes before entering his daughter's room, and in his haste to open the outer door to the doctor, he had forgotten to close that of his lair.

He bowed in a stately manner to Halpersohn, and opened the door of his daughter's room cautiously.

"Vanda, my child, here is the doctor," he said.

Then he stood aside to allow Halpersohn, who kept on his bear-skin pelisse, to pass him.The Jew was evidently surprised at the luxury of the room, which in this quarter, and more especially in this house, was an anomaly; but his surprise only lasted for an instant, for he had seen among German and Russian Jews many instances of the same contrast between apparent misery and hoarded wealth.As he walked from the door to the bed he kept his eye on the patient, and the moment he reached her he said in Polish:--"You are a Pole?"

"No, I am not; my mother was."

"Whom did your grandfather, Colonel Tarlowski, marry?""A Pole."

"From what province?"

"A Soboleska, of Pinsk."

"Very good; monsieur is your father?"

"Yes."

"Monsieur," he said, turning to the old man; "your wife--""Is dead;" said Monsieur Bernard.

"Was she very fair?" said Halpersohn, showing a slight impatience at being interrupted.

"Here is her portrait," said Monsieur Bernard, unhooking from the wall a handsome frame which enclosed several fine miniatures.

Halpersohn felt the head and handled the hair of the patient while he looked at the portrait of Vanda Tarlowska, born Countess Sobolewska.

"Relate to me the symptoms of your illness," he said, placing himself on the sofa and looking fixedly at Vanda during the twenty minutes the history, given alternately by the father and daughter, lasted.

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-eight."

"Ah! good!" he cried, rising; "I will answer for the cure.Mind, I do not say that I can restore the use of her legs; but cured of the disease, that she shall be.Only, I must have her in a private hospital under my own eye.""But, monsieur, my daughter cannot be moved!""I will answer for her," said Halpersohn, curtly; "but I will answer for her only on those conditions.She will have to exchange her present malady for another still more terrible, which may last a year, six months at the very least.You may come and see her at the hospital, since you are her father.""Are you certain of curing her?" said Monsieur Bernard.

"Certain," repeated the Jew."Madame has in her body an element, a vitiated fluid, the national disease, and it must be eliminated.You must bring her to me at Challot, rue Basse-Saint-Pierre, private hospital of Doctor Halpersohn.""How can I?"

"On a stretcher, just as all sick persons are carried to hospitals.""But the removal will kill her!"

"No."

As he said the word in a curt tone he was already at the door;Godefroid rejoined him on the staircase.The Jew, who was stifling with heat, said in his ear:

"Besides the three thousand francs, the cost will be fifteen francs a day, payable three months in advance.""Very good, monsieur.And," continued Godefroid, putting one foot on the step of the cabriolet, into which the doctor had sprung, "you say you will answer for the cure?""I will answer for it," said the Jewish doctor."Are you in love with the lady?""No," replied Godefroid.

"You must not repeat what I am about to say to you; I only say it to prove to you that I am certain of a cure.If you are guilty of the slightest indiscretion you will kill her."Godefroid replied with a gesture only.

"For the last seventeen years she has been a victim to the element in her system called /plica polonica/,[*] which has produced all these ravages.I have seen more terrible cases than this.Now, I alone in the present day know how to bring this disease to a crisis, and force it outward so as to obtain a chance to cure it--for it cannot always be cured.You see, monsieur, that I am disinterested.If this lady were of great importance, a Baronne de Nucingen, or any other wife or daughter of a modern Croesus, this cure would bring me one hundred--two hundred thousand francs; in short, anything I chose to ask for it.