Incapable of finding consolation in the practice of his profession, which gave him such power over feminine weakness, the poor bonesetter felt himself born for the joys of family and yet was unable to obtain them.
The good man's excellent heart was concealed by a misleading appearance of joviality in keeping with his puffy cheeks and rotund figure, the vivacity of his fat little body, and the frankness of his speech. He was anxious to marry that he might have a daughter who should transfer his property to some poor noble; he did not like his station as bonesetter and wished to rescue his family name from the position in which the prejudices of the times had placed it. He himself took willingly enough to the feasts and jovialities which usually followed his principal operations. The habit of being on such occasions the most important personage in the company, had added to his natural gaiety a sufficient dose of serious vanity. His impertinences were usually well received in crucial moments when it often pleased him to perform his operations with a certain slow majesty. He was, in other respects, as inquisitive as a nightingale, as greedy as a hound, and as garrulous as all diplomatists who talk incessantly and betray no secrets. In spite of these defects developed in him by the endless adventures into which his profession led him, Antoine Beauvouloir was held to be the least bad man in Normandy.
Though he belonged to the small number of minds who are superior to their epoch, the strong good sense of a Norman countryman warned him to conceal the ideas he acquired and the truths he from time to time discovered.
As soon as he found himself placed by the count in presence of a woman in childbirth, the bonesetter recovered his presence of mind. He felt the pulse of the masked lady; not that he gave it a single thought, but under cover of that medical action he could reflect, and he did reflect on his own situation. In none of the shameful and criminal intrigues in which superior force had compelled him to act as a blind instrument, had precautions been taken with such mystery as in this case. Though his death had often been threatened as a means of assuring the secrecy of enterprises in which he had taken part against his will, his life had never been so endangered as at that moment. He resolved, before all things, to find out who it was who now employed him, and to discover the actual extent of his danger, in order to save, if possible, his own little person.
"What is the trouble?" he said to the countess in a low voice, as he placed her in a manner to receive his help.
"Do not give him the child--"
"Speak loud!" cried the count in thundering tones which prevented Beauvouloir from hearing the last word uttered by the countess. "If not," added the count who was careful to disguise his voice, "say your 'In manus.'""Complain aloud," said the leech to the lady; "cry! scream! Jarnidieu! that man has a necklace that won't fit you any better than me.
Courage, my little lady!"
"Touch her lightly!" cried the count.
"Monsieur is jealous," said the operator in a shrill voice, fortunately drowned by the countess's cries.
For Maitre Beauvouloir's safety Nature was merciful. It was more a miscarriage than a regular birth, and the child was so puny that it caused little suffering to the mother.
"Holy Virgin!" cried the bonesetter, "it isn't a miscarriage, after all!"The count made the floor shake as he stamped with rage. The countess pinched Beauvouloir.
"Ah! I see!" he said to himself. "It ought to be a premature birth, ought it?" he whispered to the countess, who replied with an affirmative sign, as if that gesture were the only language in which to express her thoughts.
"It is not all clear to me yet," thought the bonesetter.
Like all men in constant practice, he recognized at once a woman in her first trouble as he called it. Though the modest inexperience of certain gestures showed him the virgin ignorance of the countess, the mischievous operator exclaimed:--"Madame is delivered as if she knew all about it!"The count then said, with a calmness more terrifying than his anger:--"Give me the child."
"Don't give it him, for the love of God!" cried the mother, whose almost savage cry awoke in the heart of the little man a courageous pity which attached him, more than he knew himself, to the helpless infant rejected by his father.
"The child is not yet born; you are counting your chicken before it is hatched," he said, coldly, hiding the infant.
Surprised to hear no cries, he examined the child, thinking it dead.
The count, seeing the deception, sprang upon him with one bound.
"God of heaven! will you give it to me?" he cried, snatching the hapless victim which uttered feeble cries.
