The three months passed, but Dr. Dubois did not conduct Paul for the whole of the journey. One day Paul saw him with his three assistants leaving the salle d’interventions at the close of a long but successful thoroscopy; his white jacket unbuttoned, his naked and sweating chest exposed, he looked like a jovial baker at the end of a hard day’s work. The next day he was found dead inside his garage. He had had a fatal heart attack whilst turning the winding handle of his car.
Dr. Bruneau wasted no time on sentiment. “So long as each of Dr. Dubois’s former patients elects to choose me as his doctor, then Dr. Hervet can have no alternative but to offer me the appointment of Médecin Chef,” he informed Paul. He initiated his campaign with an electoral tour of all the rooms in the sanatorium. “Cher monsieur … Chère mademoiselle … Your case … The honour to propose to you my services … Approved methods … No hesitation … In my hands …”
At the same time, and with Dr. Dubois’s body still unburied, a concerted pincer movement started on Les Alpes. Head doctors of minor sanatoria, assistant doctors in leading sanatoria, with one accord laid down their instruments, put on their best suits, and called on Dr. Hervet. “Signatures,” declared Dr. Bruneau. “If every patient signs a request that I should be made Médecin Chef, then Dr. Hervet cannot help but …” There was a brief and formal truce as, hat in hand, the entire medical faculty of Brisset swarmed to the edge of Dr. Dubois’s grave; as the earth was being levelled above the coffin, canvassing recommenced. Then a directive arrived from Dr. Hervet’s headquarters to the effect that, pending appointment of a Médecin Chef, patients would be at liberty to make whatever arrangements they pleased with the doctor of their choice. The corridors of Les Alpes filled with sinister intruders. Dr. Bruneau, roaming his stronghold with the distracted mien of a menaced queen bee, shot poisonous glances at each similarly apparelled rival.
“How lucky for you in the circumstances that the I.S.O. have taken over your bills,” declared M. Halfont, coming unexpectedly upon Paul in a passage.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that——You mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t know what?”
“That the reason your room was so cheap was because Dr. Dubois paid half your bill.”
Half-a-dozen patients were less lucky; having been entirely supported by Dr. Dubois, they now had no alternative but to vacate their rooms. It would have been the same at any other period of Dr. Dubois’s career: his richer patients, all unknowingly, had subsidised his poorer patients whilst he had sought no greater return from his services than the day-by-day means by which they might be sustained. His house did not belong to him. He possessed neither stocks nor shares. He left a widow, the love and gratitude of a multitude of patients and nothing else.
Paul’s sense of personal loss was many-sided; one of its most relevant aspects was the fact that he now needed Dr. Dubois more than at any other time. For the first of the three months his condition had tended to improve; during the second it had held steady; now it was again deteriorating. And this deterioration was so progressive that it became each day more evident that he must abandon all thought of rejoining Michèle in the spring. “But what is it that is going wrong now?” he would demand after Dr. Bruneau had screened him or whilst the doctor was studying his temperature chart; more often, however, he would say nothing, indifferent in his dejection to the pursuit of enlightenment.
His fever mounted. Once more he became incapable of reading. Lying all day without visitors, he took his temperature continually, his mind alternating endlessly between sexual fantasies and the wish that he were dead, between the love which he felt for Michèle and the certainty that it must now come to nothing.
Dr. Bruneau called on him late one evening. Clearly his electioneering activities had not proved therapeutic. The arcs below his eyes had retreated beneath them whilst their colour had changed from black to speckled red; the furrows of his face were deeper and their surfaces suspect. A rash was taking progressive possession of his right cheek and in an attempt at camouflage Dr. Bruneau had taken to coating it with liquid make-up several shades darker than his complexion.
“Monsieur,” he said, taking up his habitual position at the foot of the bed and bending over it, “we have at last received news of primary importance in respect of your condition.” He coughed with ritualistic precision, a thesis in the art of clearing a blocked throat. “The night air. It gets on the chest,” he commented. “Be prepared for a shock, cher monsieur. But after all, will it be such a shock? You’re no longer a child, you know that something is obviously amiss. Despite a long course of P.A.S. injects, you are once more relapsing. But even two months ago you were not making the progress you should have been. Well, just before he died, Dr. Dubois arranged for new cultures to be grown and tested for P.A.S. resistance. It is now my duty to inform you, monsieur, that the result of that test arrived here today …” Dr. Bruneau fixed Paul with his eye and turned his body sideways like a dueller seeking to present the smallest possible target. “Need I tell you what it is?”
“I’m resistant to P.A.S.”
“Yes.”
“I see.”
“I’m glad you see.”
There was a silence during which Dr. Bruneau’s finger-tips wandered unconsciously to his rash and started to pick at it. “Well, monsieur?” he said suddenly. And as Paul did not reply, he demanded: “What is the matter with you? Where are your questions? Why aren’t you asking me what is to happen next?”
“Well, what is to happen next?”
“That, as you may imagine, is scarcely for me to say.”
“You mean because I’ve got to go back to England at the end of the month?”
“Precisely.”
There was another silence.
Then Dr. Bruneau said: “But if it will help set your mind at rest, I will tell you that any action undertaken by whatever doctor you may have in future will depend upon his vision and his courage. If the decision were to rest with me, I would attempt something vigorous, heroic.” He sawed the air with his fists. “First, I’d subject you to a minute and meticulous bronchoscopy. Then, if the results were propitious, I’d strip down the ribs on the left side of your chest. Then I’d collapse the side of your chest wall on to your lung. Then I’d fix in a good drain. Then I’d——” Dr. Bruneau started to cough. “Then I’d …” Dr. Bruneau bent double. “Then I’d …” Dr. Bruneau wheezed and snorted, twisting his neck and thorax in opposite directions. “Then I’d wait and see,” he declared indistinctly. As he staggered to the door, he seized hold of a volume of Tanguy reproductions which was lying on a table. “Monsieur,” he demanded, “is this still obtainable?”
“Take it,” said Paul.
“I can borrow it?”
“You can keep it.”
“Why keep it? Don’t you want it any more?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve read it.”
“Yes. But the pictures …”
“I’ve looked at them very often.”
“This is not a sign of discouragement?”
“No.”
“Well, thank you, Monsieur Davenant. Thank you very much.”
Paul emptied the contents of the match-box on to the counterpane: twenty-one pills and eighteen capsules. As far as he knew, either group was sufficient; in combination there should be final security. His water-carafe was nearly empty; he got up and filled it at the wash-stand.
As he climbed back into bed his foot became entangled in the flex of the bedside lamp, and the movement he made to save it from falling jerked the pills and capsules to the floor. Cursing, he dropped to his knees and started to pick them up. Three of the capsules eluded him; to avoid further loss of time, he returned to bed. First he cleaned each capsule with his handkerchief. Then he poured some water into his mug.
The pills would be easier to swallow than the capsules; they should be left till last. ‘Well, what are you waiting for now?’ he asked himself. He picked up one of the small, semi-transparent tubes and held it for a moment between the tips of his thumb and finger; then he swallowed it. Then in swift succession he swallowed half a dozen more. He paused in order to regain his breath. ‘If I stopped now I would probably be none the worse for what has happened,’ he thought. The time had passed for being ‘none the worse’. He swallowed three more of the capsules. This must be about the border. Now for the safe-conduct across. He swallowed two more capsules and then the remaining three.
Death should now be within him, unobtrusive but sure; like a seed in a flower pot, like a newly fertilised ovum in the womb, it would burst its envelope, consume and expand. He looked with distaste at the pills. Had he not already swallowed far more than was necessary? If it were intended that he should die, then he would surely die. And if it were not … ‘Intended by whom or by what?’ he asked himself savagely. So even when committed there would still be backward glances. With a self-punishing deliberation he refilled his mug, poured a heap of pills into the palm of his left hand and set himself to swallowing them, indiscriminately and without counting.
The third mug of water and nearly a dozen pills still to be swallowed. His neck felt like the conduit of a stopped-up sink; for the moment he could drink no more. He lay back on his pillow and glanced at his watch. Half-past eleven. How long would it take till——He sat up, his heart beating wildly. He seized the remaining pills and, concealing them below the bedclothes, turned out the light. The door opened and in shuffled Sœur Rose.
“You awake?”
He lay very still.
“I said, you awake?” On went the light.
“What’s the matter?” Paul endeavoured to sound as if he had just woken.
“Dr. Bruneau said I was to come and see if everything was all right. Is everything all right?”
“Of course everything is all right.”
“He said he wasn’t going to have you getting up to your tricks because of the result of the test.”
“You mean you’ve woken me just to tell me that.”
“Ah! Your light was on.”
“It was not on.”
“Ah! Ah!” Sœur Rose raised her eyeshade and stared about the room.
“And what’s the matter now?” Paul sat up angrily.
“Nothing. Don’t get waxy.”
“Sœur Rose, will you please leave my room and let me get to sleep.”
“All right. All right.”
“Well, get along, then.”
“I’m off. I’m going.”
“Then for God’s sake go.”
“All right.” Sœur Rose turned off the light and shuffled out of the room. Paul listened dazedly to the sound of the retreating footsteps. If she had arrived a little earlier and had found him on his hands and knees amidst the scattered capsules … If she had arrived a little later and had found him too drugged to respond to her presence … Several minutes passed before he felt sufficiently secure to turn on the light, and even then he took the precaution of covering the bulb with a handkerchief. Then he started to swallow the remainder of the pills. The last three would not go down; each adhered separately to his tongue and started to dissolve. Angrily he spat them out, one after the other, then rinsed his mouth to get rid of the flavour. Then he extinguished the light.
This was the way it ended—the same fœtal position in which it had all begun, he thought, as he pulled the bed-clothes over his head, raised his knees and contracted his body into the smallest possible space. He remained without thinking and without moving for several minutes. Then he had a vision of the grave which awaited him, its dark interior and the earth up-piled. Suffocating he brought his head out from between the sheets into the cold, dry air. ‘Steady …’ he told himself. ‘Steady …’
He lay down again. A mechanism had been set in motion which was now working of its own accord; he had no more to do than to wait quietly. No hopes. No fears. No specific train of thought. Soon he would be extinguished and extinct. He turned on his side and resumed his earlier position.
He began to feel drowsy and he found himself wondering how much longer he had to live and at what stage of the process he would die. Would it be on falling asleep or substantially later? Did one in fact fall asleep? Perhaps he would not fall asleep, perhaps death would creep slowly up and down his conscious body, atrophying one sense, organ and faculty after the other. Perhaps—that was enough. He resisted the development of his thoughts and turned over on his back.
The large family album was at his elbow. He flicked over a few pages, lingered here, passed more rapidly there. Childhood. Private school. Public school. He paused a moment. Once at the close of the holidays he had tried to hang himself: the ill-contrived noose fashioned from dog leads, the beam which he had known to be too low. He turned the page. The Army. Turn over very quickly. The university. This section could bear a little scrutiny. Friends. A few. Michèle. No—she did not belong in the family album. The whole incident had been hopelessly out of character with his life. ‘Out of character in every respect,’ he reflected, ‘save in its end.’ The family album could now be taken up, dusted, secured and ceremoniously kicked down the back stairs. He raised the volume above his head, gathered his force and, in the act of sending it hurtling, crashing down, lost his balance and plunged after it.
First the spray, then Hokusai’s giant wave broke over the bow, knocked him backwards, dragged him with it, drenched, drowned, water running from his hair, eyes and ears, his pyjama jacket adhering to his chest. He tried to snatch a breath. Too slow. The next wave cracked his head against the bottom of the boat. He must get up, get away before the next one. He turned, his mouth and nose discharging water. The black sky rose like a curtain. He saw Dr. Bruneau and some nurses. Then Dr. Bruneau released Paul’s eyelid, which fell back into position.
“Get him out. Quickly. No, wait a moment.”
The bee was hovering above his forearm. He tried to elude it.
“Hold him still.”
The sting. It was going straight through his arm. He cried out.
“Now let’s get him up.”
Another wave was coming. He tried to turn his back. Now … Now … Down it crashed. His eyes opened momentarily on a confusion of light and water. The wave had passed, a new wave was re-forming. He must get away. His arms, legs, and torso were shackled to the base of the boat. As he struggled, his face twisted sideways under one blow and back again under the next. The preliminary spray, then the body of the wave. Swamped. The boat shuddered, tipped and started to sink.
“Open your eyes. You hear me! I said open them. Davenant, wake up. Look out, he’s falling asleep again.”
Sinking … Sinking …
“Get him up. Quick now. That’s right.”
Everything turning, twisting, scattering; in a flurry of flailing arms he soared up past the barnacle-covered hulks and the startled, iridescent creatures, grounded, stood vertical, took in through half-open eyes the ceiling, wall and floor, then started to sink again.
“You can walk, Davenant. Start walking.”
As he fell, the weight of his body brought them all down with him.
“Get him up. Quickly. Quickly.”
His chest was solidly supported above his paper legs. Hands seized his ankles and thrust him forward. He was brought down the corridor into a side passage, his legs articulating convulsively or dragging behind like string. They brought him several times up and down the passage, then dropped him into a chair. A tube was inserted down his throat and removed some minutes later in a mass of blood and foam. Then he was jerked up and propelled once more backwards and forwards along the passage. The ceiling merged with walls and walls with the floor. Several minutes of intensive activity and half a dozen more buckets of water separated the relapse into unconsciousness and Dr. Bruneau’s acknowledgement of the fact. He released Paul’s arm and lowered the latter’s body to the ground. “Take him down to the Service Médical and if he regains consciousness have me informed immediately,” he said.
The twenty hours during which Paul remained unconscious were momentous in the life of Dr. Bruneau. In the morning he was warmly commended by Dr. Hervet for having dealt so resourcefully with Paul’s attempted suicide. At lunch-time Dr. Hervet telephoned to say that after long reflection he had decided to ratify Dr. Bruneau’s application for the appointment of Médecin Chef. During the whole of the afternoon Dr. Bruneau installed his possessions in Dr. Dubois’s bureau and rearranged the furniture. In the early evening, just as he was robing himself before the mirror preparatory to initiating his inaugural round as Médecin Chef (to each patient: “Monsieur, I have the honour to inform you that Dr. Hervet has graciously seen fit to bestow upon me, however undeservedly, the directorship of this sanatorium. In this capacity it will be my most earnest endeavour to serve you to the limit of my humble abilities.”), he had a hæmoptysis of magisterial proportions. He was rushed to bed. A preliminary auscultation revealed that an old cavity in the lung had reopened. He would be immobilised for many months. Dr. Hervet expressed his sympathy and withdrew the appointment.
The appointment was now conferred upon Dr. Roussel, the superintendent of two large clinics in the village and Dr. Bruneau’s most formidable rival. He was a brisk, sympathetic man, courteous and optimistic. He settled into his new quarters with a minimum of delay and got to work immediately. After a rapid review of the outstanding case histories of his new patients he decided that Paul’s problems were the most pressing and he determined that they should be resolved as soon as possible.
And, as he informed Paul at the initial consultation, they would not be unduly difficult to resolve. The reason for the failure of local treatment up to the present was the condition of the surface of his pleura. This could be cleared up by nothing more radical than a weekly lavage of creosote. The treatment would last between six and eight weeks. And how was it to be paid for? Dr. Roussel smiled. The I.S.O. had recently agreed to an extension of a further three months.