VIII + 

Piqûre du cœur + 

I + 

Twilight was spreading her cloak as we passed from the lodge into the flagged yard. Several windows of the tall red building were already alight, and on the sill outside the largest window of all, which was not alight, stood a pineapple and some grapes on a plate. + 

Within, the feet fell chill on the chequered flags of the hall; and this, by its size, should have been a spacious-seeming hall, but that was not the way it impressed one. There was one of those bamboo hatstands with a strip of looking-glass running up the middle of it, but I followed my companion’s example in not leaving more than my hat, for that was a chilly place. Through a great oaken double-door on our right came murmurings of a religious nature and every now and then a woman’s manlike voice raised, no doubt, in exhortation. Conrad Masters explained that some of the nuns would be at their devotions whenever they could manage, their religious observances being so deranged by night-duty and this and the other. “But why,” I thought to ask, “is Mrs. Storm here, for don’t you as a rule immure your patients in the Avenue Malakoff?” + 

“She wished it,” said Conrad Masters sharply. “She has a God.” + 

And thereupon he left me, to see another patient he had there, but I had not waited more than a few minutes in the waiting-room, which had that intangible odour of old cloth and illness, when I was called upstairs by an old stern nun, hard and silent as a rock, and I remember wondering: “Good my God, if this should be Iris’s day-nurse. Oh, poor Iris!” + 

The stairway we ascended was handsome and wide, of polished oak, the most dignified stairway you could well imagine in a nursing-home. It swept in a noble curve to a broad passage, also of oak, as, no doubt, was only fit and proper in a nursing-home patronised by une clientèle européenne la plus chic. But maybe it was a little too dignified, I thought, it was sombre; and the old stern nun who was my guide did not seek to relieve the atmosphere, giving me a massive black shoulder and to my question no more than a stern whisper which was no more and no less than a shout of disapproval: “Assez bien, monsieur, assez bien. Nous nous confions en Dieu.” + 

The chill, the gloom, the nun, the air of religious prostration, to which I am lamentably ill-accustomed, had quite killed my spirit, else, as I did my best quietly to follow her up the long, dark, uncarpeted passage, I had put it to her that to trust in God is very well but must He be trusted at such little expense, for in these oaken passages they had no more than a jet or two of gaslight, and wasn’t it also reasonable to suppose that the patients behind the doors, each inscribed with a Saint’s name, would lie the more comfortably for a strip of carpet along the passages? From below, as though from the bowels of the earth in labour, one might still faintly hear the murmurings of a religious nature and the woman’s manlike voice raised, no doubt, in exhortation; but I supposed the patients would not be minding that for they would be Catholics, and I wondered if Iris was a Catholic, but nowadays that is the last thing one ever learns about anybody, whether they are Catholic, Anglican, Jew, or what they are.⁠ ⁠… + 

As we came by a certain door, not far from which a gas-jet flamed an ailing yellow, it was opened from within and I saw before me the sweetest face that I ever saw in my life, and I knew that her God had been good to Iris. + 

“Sœur Virginie,” said the stern old nun, and I am glad to say I never saw her again. Sister Virginie, looking up at me with a grave smile, for she was very little, greeted me by my name, and do you know that I said: “Sister Virginie, had I only met you last night I would have slept much better than I did.” + 

She had altogether such a neat and tidy look, an inner look as well as an outer look, that you must be sceptical indeed not to believe at once that if ever there was a nurse to soothe away death here she was before you, her hands folded over her wooden crucifix, smiling up at you as though you were a gentle friend. Her face was oval and so white, but white in a different way, a soft clear way, and it was only when I came to think back on this sweet lady that I realised that of course this would be so because Sister Virginie never had used powder and such things, and that must also be why she had the lips of a girl, although what I could see of the dark brown eyes under the nun’s coif showed the understanding of more than forty years. + 

“You see, I know your name,” she said. She did not need to whisper. “Madame has a great regard for you, I must tell you. Now, you must not talk when you go in. She will look, look. But you must not say one word. She will see you are there, and it will make her content that her friend has thought of her.” + 

The oak door behind her was just ajar, and within I could see a faint pink glow, as it might be of a deeply-shaded light far in the room. Across the door, just above Sister Virginie’s coif, for she was very little, was painted in faded black lettering the name of a Saint, but what the Saint was I could not make out, and the only other time I called there I forgot to look. + 

“Now, remember,” Sister Virginie was saying, “you must not say one word in there. She will look, that is all. But how she looks, as though she is listening to the choir of angels!” + 

“Sister Virginie,” I said, “do you promise me that she will not die?” + 

And Sister Virginie smiled up at me with a gaiety that I have only seen on the still faces of women in old French books. + 

“Today we have thought she will not die,” she said, “for last night we gave her a piqûre du cœur.⁠ ⁠…” + 

II + 

I wish I could describe that room in which I saw Iris lying, for it was such a strange room to find in a nursing-home, and you would not have been surprised to find the like in one of the hotels in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. But the truth is that I never yet was sure of the appointments of any room I might find myself in, except maybe that it was large or small, that it was panelled or papered or distempered, and whether or not you walked on a carpet, a strip of oilcloth or a parquet floor. + 

It seemed to me that I must walk a long way to the bed near the window. It was a great four-poster bed, and it had a very tall head, of carved oak. There seemed to be but dark wood in that strange sickroom, and the perfume of wood. Beneath my careful feet was a narrow strip of drugget slanting from the door across to the bed, but on all sides of this strip the floor shone vast and brown in the dim light of a shaded lamp that stood on the heavy oak mantelpiece. + 

Never was one so little conscious of the odours of a sickroom, but, although I wouldn’t swear to it, there might have been the faint tang of furniture-polish, and maybe, as I stole nearby the great wide bed by the large window, that was the scent of Napier’s roses, which spread their heads from a carafe on a small table near the foot of the bed. Sitting against the carafe was a large white doll with her head asleep among Napier’s roses and a red silk handkerchief tied around her wrist. Ah, Mio Mi Marianne, unrepentant Magdalen, even the toys of your sisters heed your dominion! It was dark by the bed, for the light from the lamp did not reach nearly so far. The blind was not more than half-lowered down the large window, and across the courtyard I could just see the light within the lodge and, on the sill outside, the shape of a pineapple and some grapes on a plate. + 

The tall oak panel at the head cast a black shadow over the darkness of the bed, and at first I could no more than make out the shape of Iris’s head. I could hear the faint hush of her breathing. Boy’s head, curly head, white and tiger-tawny. But gone now the tawny pride of the tiger, gone the curls. Very tidily brushed her hair was, tidily swept back from the forehead, tidily lying on each cheek. It would be damp, I thought, to lie so flat. Her head lay like a dark flower on the pillow. + 

She was asleep, I thought, and I was going away, very well content to have heard the faint but regular hush of her breathing. She had fallen asleep, I thought, even as Sister Virginie had left her, and could there be better news than that she was asleep, breathing like a child? Then how frightened I was, just as I was about to steal away, to see her eyes wide open, staring up at me. Dark as her hair were her eyes, and almost as big as her head. I was in terror, real damp terror, lest she should be taking me for Napier. I did not know what to do, and her great dark eyes staring up at me. It would be like a stab from the mists about her to be thinking it was her lover who had come and to realise that it was me. Then I was happy to see that there was understanding in the dark, still eyes, she was not taking me for Napier, she was not dreaming. She was hurt, her eyes said. And, because I might not speak, I just touched her cheek with my hand, and the hair on her cheek was chill and damp. But her eyes seemed to wish to be saying something. She was hurt, her eyes said, but more than that I could not understand, and so I bent down nearer to her face. The skin was like thin grey paper over her shoulder-blades, her lips were chapped, and they drooped. + 

“Dying.⁠ ⁠…” + 

I shook my head sternly. Her lips were so dry and rough, and now I saw through a mist what I had not seen before, that her eyes were stricken with fear. That is what her eyes had wished me to understand, that now she was terrified of dying. That was what her dream had done, that was what last night’s piqûre du cœur had done. I turned to go away. But her eyes, dark and stricken, seemed to flutter, then they seemed to look at the roses on the small table. What is it, I thought, what is it she wants, and her eyes fluttering like that? Besides the white skirts of the doll whose head was asleep among Napier’s roses lay the great emerald and a small tortoiseshell comb. I thought of the tawny formal curls trembling like voiceless bells before the looking-glass in my flat above the mean lane, and when I took up the small comb there might have been a smile on the tiny grey face, like the shadow of a candle’s flicker. I passed the small comb through her hair, and it passed so easily through the straight damp hair, and then at last her eyes were closed and I went away as quickly as I could. Sister Virginie stood a little way up the passage, but for reasons of my own I did not wait for her to approach where I stood under the ailing yellow flame of the gas-jet, but went towards the darkness where she was. + 

“Were you good?” she asked me, and I think I said that I had tried to be good. “But, Sister Virginie, she is afraid! She is terrified!” + 

“Then she is being good, too,” the nun smiled. “She has been too little afraid of dying, and then it was we who were afraid.” She looked at me very seriously and seemed to purse her lips. I knew what she was going to ask, and I did not know where to look. “Do you know, monsieur, if we will be allowed to give her another piqûre du cœur? Madame has been very unhappy, and it is good to have happy dreams.⁠ ⁠…” + 

I do not remember what I said, but Sister Virginie said magnificently: “Then I will lie to her for the time being,” and when she had gone I stood at the head of the oaken stairway, thinking how I would like to be very alone for a minute or two. Now and then a nun would pass softly but quickly along the passage behind me, she would seem to be sliding along, and then there came a firmer step, and out of the tail of my eye I saw that man’s great brown coat ballooning towards me. + 

“Well as can be expected,” he muttered gloomily. I looked at him. “Better, really,” he muttered gloomily. “Ready?” + 

We went down the oaken stairway, treading on our toes. There was a sickly whisper of incense in the air, and I found that I had a headache. + 

“But I wish to blazes,” growled that man, “that you hadn’t let that boy go. You could have stopped him.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“No,” I said, “I couldn’t. Besides, I didn’t want to.” + 

“Mm. Well, how did you find her? Wasted, isn’t she?” + 

“Masters,” I said, “she is lying there terrified!” For that was all I could think about, that and the feel on my fingers of the damp, chill hair that had no waves in it now. + 

Masters said: “And a very good thing for her she is terrified. Keep her bucked up, that will. But I wish to blazes.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Yes, I heard you,” I said, fumbling with the latch of the great doors. + 

“Women!” snapped Masters. “Here, let me.” + 

“I don’t suppose,” I said, “that there are many worse sights than a helpless woman afraid.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“You get used to it,” said Masters gloomily, but I was thinking that Napier would not have been at all used to it, and that he had been very wise in his goodbye, for as sure as anything I was that Venice could not have afforded to let Iris have even one more piqûre du cœur.⁠ ⁠… + 

“You don’t look so well yourself,” said Masters. + 

“Growing-pains, Masters. One is always growing up, at other people’s expense.⁠ ⁠…” + 

III + 

I was not to see her again for a while. That man said: “You did her no good the other day. The reverse. She has something on her mind she wants to say to you, and she can’t, and it worries her. Naturally.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Your instructions,” I said. “She will be angry with you, Masters.” + 

“When she is well,” snapped that captain of men, “she may burst, if I may say so. And so I’ll tell her. But in the meanwhile you will have to wait ten days. Or more.” + 

It was more, quite a while more, and when I went again into the oak-room of the Saint whose name I forgot to look at Iris met me with accusing eyes. She did not turn her head, she just gave me a sideways, accusing look. Turnings of head were discouraged, she must lie very still, oh for a long time, for that, it seems, is the way of sceptic poisoning. And Masters had said to me in the passage outside: “If she as much as moves a finger, God help you!” + 

“You should not be in Paris,” she whispered, not without vehemence. “And why are you laughing, please?” + 

“Why, at your voice! I do believe, Iris, that it’s stronger than you at last.” + 

“Yes, but you should not be in Paris, that I’m sure of. You have waited to see me,” she complained bitterly, but I protested that never was such nonsense, for why in the name of common sense would I wait to see her? “But, Iris, the very night I arrived in Paris I had an idea for a tale, and I thought I would stay in Paris to write it.” + 

“You must tell it to me. Oh, at once. Oh, please.⁠ ⁠…” And the voice expired. And we waited. “I can’t laugh,” she said bitterly, “because it hurts. Everything hurts.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Iris,” I said, “I am so sorry.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Yes.” She gave me a long sideways look. + 

“Yes,” she said. “But please to tell me your tale. What is it about? What is it called?” + 

“No, Iris, I mustn’t tell it to you. It was indiscreet of me to mention it, and you only just returned from the valley of death. It is a terrible story. Everyone dies. It is about a man who would not dance with his wife.” + 

“Yes, but⁠ ⁠… Oh, why wouldn’t he dance with his wife? What a silly man! You do get some beastly ideas, I do think.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Please, Iris, be still and good! That man said he would fire me out for two pins.” So grey she looked, frail beyond frailty, in the gay afternoon light. It was the fifteenth afternoon of February, as I remember well. + 

Never moving her head, only her eyes vivid with restless insurgent life, she whispered defiantly: “As long as I lie quiet like this no one can do anything to me or⁠ ⁠… fire you out or anything. You just⁠ ⁠… stay where you are. Be brave, child.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Now there were queer, funny things in the great eyes of the still head. They were childish, too, and I laughed at them, but she would not laugh, because it hurt her. + 

We sat in silence, not to tire her. She lay flat on her back, her head on a pillow which was so low as to be only a pillow by courtesy. Her eyes would be fixed on the ceiling, and then she would look sideways at me, and that was when I seemed to see queer, funny things in her eyes. They were as though glistening with bits of things⁠ ⁠… fear, pride, a sort of childish glee, a sort of childish naughtiness, a sort of childish shamefacedness. It was as though she was terrified of her new toy, and very proud of it, too⁠—her returning life. And then the shamefacedness, an almost guilty look, as though she had just cheated someone out of something in a funny way. Not that she hadn’t been very clever either, her look seemed to say. And somehow I was made a fellow-conspirator in all this⁠ ⁠… in the terror, pride, glee, mischief, shamefacedness with which she was deliciously playing with her new toy, returning life. + 

She said suddenly, in an enormous voice which she had obviously been husbanding for the purpose: “No one wants me.⁠ ⁠…” And I think, but I am not sure, that she would have giggled if she could. + 

“Iris, you’ll have Masters in here if you go shouting like that.” + 

“He didn’t want me, even.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Who didn’t? Masters didn’t?” + 

“No. God.” + 

“Oh, I see,” I said. + 

She panted breathlessly, eager to be talking: “I made my application, all⁠ ⁠… all in order. Forms all filled in and everything. But⁠ ⁠… Oh, they weren’t impressed. Not a bit, they weren’t⁠—” + 

“Oi, you’re talking too much, Iris!” + 

“Oi to you. Listen.⁠ ⁠… The old man said to me: ‘Well, young woman, and what do you want?’ I wasn’t afraid, not a bit. Had all my forms ready and everything.⁠ ⁠… ‘What do I want, Father?’ says I. ‘Why, I’m as good as dead, that’s what I am. Doctor’s face all of a blur, nurse’s face all of a blur, temperature 106⁠—why, I am dead, if it comes to that!’ ‘Nonsense,’ says God. ‘Never saw a woman more alive in all my life. Ho, Gabriel! Expel this woman!’ ‘Yes, but!’ I said, ‘I want to die, I do, I do!’ ‘In that case,’ says He, ‘death will be a great disappointment to you. We want none of your sort here, young woman. Ho, Michael, Gabriel! Eject this sinner. She’s still alive.⁠ ⁠…’ ” + 

After a long pause I found those great eyes looking at me very seriously. She whispered: “Owe it to you. I mean, life. Thank you.” + 

“Iris, to me! My dear, what rot!” + 

“Not rot at all. If you hadn’t been kind enough to come round again that night to⁠ ⁠… inquire, he’d have called and found only that old nun there and she would have said⁠ ⁠… assez bien, and away he’d have gone. And me, too.⁠ ⁠… See? + 

“And,” she said, “that ptomaine poisoning. You dear, you dear! Oh, how I like you when you’re not looking! Genius, I call that. And when⁠ ⁠… Masters told me, I laughed so they had to give me morphia. Darling, these piqûres! I got holes all over me.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Piqûre du cœur,” I let slip. + 

“Piqûre du what?” + 

“Nothing,” I said. + 

“You’re laughing at me,” she whispered, “that’s what you’re doing. I’m going to close my eyes now for five minutes. But don’t go. Don’t go.⁠ ⁠…” + 

It was the fifteenth afternoon of February, as I remember well, and Mademoiselle Printemps was dancing in the sunlight that fell in a shower of gold on the windowsill, on which now stood three nectarines and a large pear on a plate. But the blind was drawn so that she could dance only in a bright splash across the little mountain which, I ventured to suppose, was made by Iris’s toes. In the shade of the room stood the small table, and on the small table the doll with the red silk handkerchief round her wrist sat sleeping beneath tall sprays of mimosa, sprays of bright yellow powdered with fresh gold.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Yes,” I heard her voice, faint, faint, and when I looked round from the mimosa to her I saw that her eyes had followed mine to a garden in the South. + 

“Iris, I was to say goodbye.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“I know,” she said gravely; and she smiled. “I heard him.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“You heard him, Iris?” + 

“Dreams, clouds, mists. Faces, phantoms, fates, words. Yes, I heard him.⁠ ⁠…” And she smiled, with every bit of her eyes, as though to reassure me. “That’s quite all right,” she said. + 

“Iris, I’m so sorry,” I said. “Do you⁠ ⁠… promise that that’s quite all right?” + 

She was looking at me with a smile.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Promise,” she suddenly sobbed, and her eyes were streaming with tears. I was terrified. + 

“Lie here,” she sobbed, “like a mummy⁠ ⁠… no inside left, nothing left⁠ ⁠… thinking and thinking and thinking⁠ ⁠… trying to lie to myself right and left, north and south⁠ ⁠… can’t have what I want, so must make up stories⁠ ⁠… and you sit there stiff as a pole saying ‘Promise’⁠ ⁠… call yourself a friend.⁠ ⁠… You don’t know how ill I’ve been!” + 

“I do, I do, Iris! For pity’s sake! If that man comes in and finds you like th⁠—” + 

“And you think I’m awful,” she whispered helplessly. She stared at me. “You think I’m awful,” she said quite calmly. + 

“Iris,” I said, “I like you. Of course, if I didn’t.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Of course,” she said, “he doesn’t know.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Of course,” I said. + 

“And he’ll never know.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Good,” I said. + 

“As for me,” she whispered⁠ ⁠… + 

On her forehead there were little beads of wet. I wiped them off with my handkerchief, and she said: “My nose, too, please. Had my hair waved⁠ ⁠… but it never stays when you’re not well. Got to be well to have curly hair.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“And, Iris, if you don’t have it cut soon it will be as long as a woman’s hair.” + 

“As for me,” she whispered, “all this effort wasted⁠ ⁠… no playmate, no nothing. Masters warned me, too.⁠ ⁠… Dead as dead, the poor darling was.⁠ ⁠…” Slowly, slowly, tears were crawling down the tiny grey cheeks. Hastily I wiped them away, hearing a step outside. “Nothing, nothing⁠ ⁠…” she kept on whispering with closed eyes, and I barely had time to whisk away a tear from her eyelash as the door opened. + 

“Well?” that man muttered. “Killed her yet?” + 

“I think she’s asleep,” I whispered. “Ssh.” + 

“Stuff!” snapped Masters. “She’s been crying. Out you go.” + 

Suddenly Iris said in that enormous, preserved voice: “I have not been crying.” + 

Masters, whose great brown coat filled the whole side of the bed, so that I was nowhere, looked down at her like a worried bird.⁠ ⁠… + 

“I’d like,” she pleaded, “to say goodbye⁠ ⁠… to this gentleman, if you would kindly⁠ ⁠… get out of the way for a minute.⁠ ⁠…” And when I bent over the wasted hand, from which the emerald ring now hung like a hoop, she said: “Ah, that defiant courtesy! Thank you, my dear. And goodbye forever as ever is, for I don’t suppose I shall ever come back to England again⁠ ⁠… nevermore, nevermore. And,” she whispered, “I will keep my promise.⁠ ⁠…” + 