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Updated: June 27, 2025
From the first, Bianchon and the hospital surgeon had considered Pierrette doomed; and there now took place between the doctor and the disease, the former relying on Pierrette's youth, one of those struggles which physicians alone comprehend, the reward of which, in case of success, is never found in the venal pay nor in the patients themselves, but in the gentle satisfaction of conscience, in the invisible ideal palm gathered by true artists from the contentment which fills their soul after accomplishing a noble work.
Ever since her economical regime began, Sylvie had compelled the maid to sit in the dining-room so that one fire and one lamp could do for all; except when Colonel Gouraud and Vinet came, on which occasions Adele was sent to the kitchen. Pierrette's arrival enlivened the rest of the evening. "We must get her some clothes to-morrow," said Sylvie; "she has absolutely nothing."
The authorities then intervened in consequence of Pierrette's state, which was daily growing worse. The trial of the case, though placed at once upon the docket, was postponed until the month of March, 1828, to wait events. Meantime Rogron's marriage with Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf took place.
During all that month, distressed by Pierrette's horrible sufferings, Monsieur Martener made several journeys to Paris; there he consulted Desplein and Bianchon, and even went so far as to propose to them an operation of the nature of lithotrity, which consists in passing into the head a hollow instrument by the help of which an heroic remedy can be applied to the diseased bone, to arrest the progress of the caries.
"Oh, madame!" was all that Pierrette could say. The other young lady now came forward, and, laying her hand upon Pierrette's bare arm, encouraged her with gentle words, telling her that, this lady was one whom everybody obeyed. Then Madame Rose-colour spoke again: "Be sure that you alter nothing in your costume, little one," said she, shaking at the girl her dainty Malacca cane. "See!
The glance of her cold blue eyes, hard as steel, was forever roving over the furniture and under it, and you could as soon have found a tender spot in her heart as a bit of fluff under the sofa. After the remarks made at Madame Tiphaine's, Sylvie dared not flinch from the three hundred francs for Pierrette's clothes.
The motion was so cruelly significant that the tears sprang to Pierrette's eyes. "Did you prick yourself, little girl?" said the atrocious Vinet. "What is the matter?" asked Sylvie, severely. "Nothing," said the poor child, going up to Rogron. "Nothing?" said Sylvie, "that's nonsense; nobody cries for nothing." "What is it, my little darling?" said Madame Vinet.
These events, produced at the Rogrons by Pierrette's presence, were studied by Vinet and the colonel with the caution of foxes preparing to enter a poultry-yard and disturbed by seeing a strange fowl. The colonel and the lawyer were spending the evening with Rogron on the very day when Sylvie had refused in bitter language to let Pierrette go again to Madame Tiphaine's, or elsewhere.
He had the firmness of a galley-slave without, and the shrinkings of innocence within him, like certain mothers in their moments of mortal trial, when held between two dangers, two catastrophes. Pierrette's inward commotion was like Brigaut's. She slipped the note into the pocket of her apron. The hectic spots upon her cheekbones turned to a cherry-scarlet.
Terror and vengeance wrote their fierce expressions in the wrinkles that lined her skin of yellow ivory; her forehead, half hidden by the straggling meshes of her gray hair, expressed a solemn anger. She read, with a power of intuition given to the aged when near their grave, Pierrette's whole life, on which her mind had dwelt throughout her journey.
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