Chapter 29: I Don't Know You, But I Know Your Wife
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At six in the morning, Lionel watched the carriage bearing the emblem of the Necker Children's Hospital recede into the distance. Only when it had vanished completely into the faint dawn light and dense morning mist did he finally look away.
He took a five-franc silver coin from his pocket and handed it to the assistant of Adolphe Pinal, the pediatrician who was still standing beside him at the doorway.
Dr. Adolphe Pinal comforted Lionel. “Do not worry. I have written a note for them to deliver to the director of Necker. I am sure Petty will receive the best possible care.”
Lionel nodded. “Let us hope so.”
Dr. Adolphe Pinal felt a deep regard for this young man, who was willing to spend so generously on behalf of a maid.
He had been practicing medicine for more than ten years, and had never seen an employer willing to pay the exorbitant sum of three francs a day to place a little girl with no blood relation to him in a private room at the earliest, most professional, and most expensive children's hospital in Paris.
On the contrary, he had grown accustomed to seeing parents abandon their own children because they did not wish to shoulder the cost of treatment. Of the patients who died in Paris each winter, roughly half were children.
And yet this impoverished university student, who lived in a slum apartment in the Eleventh Arrondissement, had immediately produced one hundred francs to prepay the cost of the room. His character could no longer be described merely as generous or kind.
The doctor could scarcely imagine how straitened Lionel's days ahead would be.
Dr. Adolphe Pinal patted Lionel on the shoulder. “Dr. Jacques-Joseph Grancher of the Necker Children's Hospital is a good friend of mine. He is highly skilled in treating childhood pneumonia and tuberculosis.
“Besides, Petty has not been diagnosed with tuberculosis. She may simply have ordinary pneumonia, which is more common in winter.”
There was nothing Lionel could do. Though he possessed some medical knowledge far beyond that of this era, without the medicines, equipment, and concepts of later generations, almost none of it could be put into practice.
He could hardly tell the doctor before him that penicillin could be extracted from a kind of mold, purified, and injected into Petty to cure her…
At last, Lionel asked one more question. “When will I be able to visit Petty?”
Dr. Adolphe Pinal thought for a moment. “The Necker Children's Hospital disinfects and isolates every child who may pose a risk of infection, then begins treatment only after a diagnosis has been confirmed.
“So you will have to wait a few days before seeing her. But no later than this weekend, I believe.”
After exchanging a few more words, Dr. Adolphe Pinal concluded this unusual house call, climbed into his carriage, and departed from the neighborhood, which had left him feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
A brazier burned inside the carriage, making it as warm as spring. The assistant offered a compliment. “Sir, you were extraordinarily generous. You made a house call at midnight and waited all this time for the Necker carriage to arrive and collect the child… We really ought to have charged an additional five francs!”
Dr. Adolphe Pinal cast him a sidelong glance. Realizing he had said the wrong thing, the assistant hurriedly fell silent.
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Only after quite some time did Dr. Adolphe Pinal speak again. “This Lionel Sorel is a true humanitarian. In his eyes, a maid from the slums is no different from a young lady of noble birth.
“Did you notice the way he tried to bring down that poor child's fever when we arrived?”
The assistant was taken aback. After a moment, he stammered, “You mean the towels…”
Dr. Adolphe Pinal sighed in exasperation. “You did not notice where he placed the cold towels? He already possesses more common sense than half the students at medical school!”
The assistant fell silent under the reprimand, as frightened as a mouse before a cat.
Dr. Adolphe Pinal turned his gaze toward the scenery outside the carriage window. By chance, he saw a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child, looking down with compassion upon the pedestrians and carriages passing along the road.
………………
Lionel watched Dr. Adolphe Pinal depart, then turned back toward the apartment with complicated feelings.
Waiting for him were the nearly obsequious smiles of Petty's parents, the presence of Mrs. Martin, and the curious eyes of a crowd of apartment residents who had come to watch the spectacle.
Petty's mother asked hesitantly, “Thank you for your generosity… Petty can be saved! But, but…”
Lionel knew exactly what the woman was thinking and spoke bluntly. “As long as Petty remains alive, you will receive your fifteen francs a month without fail.”
Those words allowed Petty's parents to breathe again.
After all, if Petty truly had tuberculosis, she would not only be unable to work as a maid but would also become a burden. What they feared most was that Lionel would “return” her.
The concern they had shown when Petty first developed a fever had already turned into calculation.
It could not be said that Petty's parents felt no love for her at all, but there was certainly not much of it. Of course, the emotion they had displayed when knocking on Lionel's door had already been the most extravagant expenditure of feeling in their entire lives.
But Lionel had not finished speaking. “However, the three francs a day for her hospital stay will be deducted from her future wages. So you had better pray that Petty gets well soon.”
The moment he finished, Petty's mother's face stiffened. If Petty really remained in the hospital for a month, would that mean she would receive none of that money for half a year?
At that moment, Petty's father, who seldom showed his face and was perpetually drunk, suddenly sidled up with a fawning smile. “Actually, you needn't spend a hundred francs on her. You only have to give the money to us, and we can take good care of her. If only… if only…”
Lionel stepped away from him in disgust without saying a word and went straight upstairs. Petty's parents did not dare say anything more. All they could do was watch Lionel's back disappear around the bend in the staircase.
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Petty's sudden illness struck him like a heavy blow.
What he had worried about all along had ultimately been “confirmed” in Petty's case, filling Lionel with an even more urgent sense that time was slipping away.
On the writing desk lay the little more than one page Petty had copied. Her handwriting was childish, yet each stroke had been written with utmost care, without the slightest trace of carelessness or perfunctory effort.
He took out fresh manuscript paper and, with more than an hour remaining before he had to leave for school, continued writing the rest of The Old Veteran.
This time, however, he suddenly found himself able to empathize with the characters in the story—especially the final line of Kong Yiji:
“I have never seen him since. He must, I suppose, truly have died.”
The words seemed to transform into a mass of dark, oppressive clouds, hanging over Lionel's heart.
………………
Another day's classes came to an end. Lionel, who had continued working diligently on his writing even during lessons, finally finished The Old Veteran, though he still needed to make a clean copy.
After all, this was a submission for the Sorbonne Journal, not for a small newspaper like The Clamor. He had to take the old professors' reading experience fully into account.
Once that was done, Lionel neither returned to the apartment nor went to find a public dining hall. Instead, he went straight to the Faculty of Science building at the University of Paris, located at 12 Saint-Jacques Street.
By then, most of the professors in the building had already left for the day or gone to dinner. Only a few students and teaching assistants remained in the laboratories, working like beasts of burden.
Following a piece of gossip he had heard that day, Lionel wound his way through the Faculty of Science building until he finally found a room bearing a sign that read “Physics Laboratory.”
He knocked on the door. A thin-faced young man with deeply sunken eyes opened it. He appeared even younger than Lionel, yet wore a badge identifying him as a teaching assistant, which meant he must have earned at least a master's degree.
Lionel put on an utterly harmless smile. “Pardon me, are you Mr. Pierre Curie? I am Lionel Sorel, a student in the Faculty of Letters.”
Pierre Curie looked bewildered. “Lionel Sorel? Do we know each other?”
Lionel thought to himself: I cannot say that I know you particularly well—but I do know your future wife!
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