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Updated: May 10, 2025
Then he sent La Rapet away, saying to her: "To-morrow morning at five o'clock, without fail." And she replied: "To-morrow at five o'clock." She came at daybreak, and found Honore eating his soup, which he had made himself, before going to work. "Well, is your mother dead?" asked the nurse. "She is rather better, on the contrary," he replied, with a malignant look out of the corner of his eyes.
But I want her to be here within an hour, do you hear?" So the man made up his mind: "I will go for her," he replied; "don't get angry, doctor." And the latter left, calling out as he went: "Take care, you know, for I do not joke when I am angry!" And as soon as they were alone, the peasant turned to his mother and said in a resigned voice: "I will go and fetch la Rapet, as the man will have it.
When Honore returned to breakfast he seemed quite satisfied and even in a bantering humor. He was decidedly getting in his wheat under very favorable circumstances. La Rapet was becoming exasperated; every minute now seemed to her so much time and money stolen from her.
Mother Bontemps confessed, received absolution and communion, and the priest took his departure, leaving the two women alone in the suffocating room, while La Rapet began to look at the dying woman, and to ask herself whether it could last much longer.
And if you do not obey me, I will let you die like a dog, when you are ill in your turn; do you hear?" The peasant, a tall, thin fellow with slow movements, who was tormented by indecision, by his fear of the doctor and his fierce love of saving, hesitated, calculated, and stammered out: "How much does La Rapet charge for attending sick people?" "How should I know?" the doctor cried.
The acolyte, in his red cassock, walked quickly, and the priest, with his head inclined toward one shoulder and his square biretta on his head, followed him, muttering some prayers; while last of all came La Rapet, bent almost double as if she wished to prostrate herself, as she walked with folded hands as they do in church.
When Honore Bontemps entered her cottage, he found her preparing the starch for the collars of the village women, and he said: "Good evening; I hope you are pretty well, Mother Rapet." She turned her head round to look at him and said: "Fairly well, fairly well, and you?" "Oh I as for me, I am as well as I could wish, but my mother is very sick." "Your mother?" "Yes, my mother!"
At nightfall Honore returned, and when he went up to the bed and saw that his mother was still alive, he asked: "How is she?" just as he had done formerly when she had been ailing, and then he sent La Rapet away, saying to her: "To-morrow morning at five o'clock, without fail." And she replied: "To-morrow, at five o'clock."
And if you do not obey me, I will let you die like a dog, when you are ill in your turn; do you hear?" The peasant, a tall, thin fellow with slow movements, who was tormented by indecision, by his fear of the doctor and his fierce love of saving, hesitated, calculated, and stammered out: "How much does La Rapet charge for attending sick people?" "How should I know?" the doctor cried.
She did the work of ten, in spite of her ninety-two years. You don't find any made of that stuff nowadays!" La Rapet answered gravely: "There are two prices: Forty sous by day and three francs by night for the rich, and twenty sous by day and forty by night for the others. You shall pay me the twenty and forty." But the, peasant reflected, for he knew his mother well.
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