Section 40

"How did this happen, sir?" I asked.
"He's a crazy young dog! A servant of the lowest class! He forced my brother into a fight, and he has fallen by my brother's sword, like a man."
There was no touch of kindness, sadness, or feeling as from one person to another in this answer. The speaker seemed to feel bad that this animal was dying there and in that way, and he believed it would have been better if he had died more in the way that others of his low class died; but he could not feel anything kind for the boy or for his death.
The boy's eyes had slowly moved to the brother and they now slowly moved to me.
"Doctor, they are very proud, these rich men; but we dogs are proud too at times. They take from us; they use us; they hit us, and kill us; but we have a little pride left, at times. She... Have you seen her, Doctor?"
The shouts and crying could be heard there, but not as loudly, because of the distance. He talked about the cries as if she was there with him in the room.
I said, "I have seen her."
"She is my sister, Doctor. They have done for years the awful things they are free to do, these rich men, to the good and holy spirit of our sisters. But our women are good girls. I know it, and I have heard my father say so. She was a good girl. She was to marry a good young man too, another one of his workers. We are all his workers... for that man who stands there. The other one is his brother. They are the worst of a bad class."
It was very difficult for the boy to speak, but his spirit was very strong, and helped him to go on.
"We were robbed by that man who stands there, as all we poor dogs are by those who think they are better than us: taxed without mercy, forced to work without pay, forced to use his windmill if we want to make flour, forced to feed dozens of his birds from what little food we can grow (but never free to have birds of our own), robbed from in every way until even if we were lucky enough to have a little meat, we had to eat it in fear, with the door locked and the windows closed, so his people would not see it and take it from us. We were so robbed and hunted, and were made so poor that our father told us it was an awful thing to bring a child into the world, and that we should most pray that our women might not be able to have children, so that our class could die out!"
I had never before seen a poor person opening up with all that they felt, like this. It was like a fire exploding from inside him. I knew that the poor must not be happy with things, but I had never seen it come out so into the open until I saw it in that dying boy.
"Still, Doctor, my sister married. The poor man was sick when she married him, but she married him so that he could come and live in our little house... our dog house, as that man would call it. She had not been married many weeks when that man's brother saw her and wanted her. He asked that man there to let him use her for a while, for her husband was nothing in their eyes. He was happy to help his brother, but my sister was a good and clean woman, and she hated his brother as much as I do. So what do you think they did to make her husband agree to their plan?"
The boy's eyes, which were looking into mine, slowly turned to the one looking at us, and I saw in the two faces that everything he said was true. I can see those opposite kinds of pride facing each other, even now, here in this prison: the rich man's pride, without feeling or interest; and the poor man's deep emotion, in wanting to punish those who had walked on him and his family.
"You know, Doctor, these high class people can, by law, tie us dogs to wagons and force us to pull them. They did that to him. You know they can keep us in their yards all night, quieting the frogs, so their high class sleep will not be troubled by the noise. They kept him out in the cold at night, and forced him back into the wagon ropes in the day. But he did not give in. No! Taken out of the wagon ropes one day at noon, to eat — if he could find food — he sobbed twelve times, once for every hit of the bell, and he died on her breast."
The only thing keeping the boy alive was how much he wanted to tell his story. He forced back the shadows of death, and he squeezed his right hand tighter over the hole in his chest.
"Then with agreement, and even help, from that man, his brother took her away to be used for his cruel games. They agreed to it even after learning what I know she must have told his brother, and what you will soon learn if you have not already learned it. I saw her pass me on the road. When I took the news home, our father's heart broke before he had time to speak even one of the words that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place where this man could not reach her, and where she will, at least, never be his slave. Then I followed the brother here. Last night I climbed in. I may be a poor dog, but I had a sword in my hand. Where is the window? It was somewhere here."
The room was growing dark in his eyes; the world was closing in around him. I looked around and could see from the hat on the floor that there had been a fight.
"She heard me and ran in. I told her not to come near us until he was dead. He came in and first threw some pieces of money to me; then he hit me with a whip. I may be a poor dog, but I hit at him well enough to make him pull out his sword. Let him break into as many pieces as he likes, the sword that he dirtied with my low class blood. He pulled out his sword, and used it to the best of his ability to keep from being killed by me."
A short time before I had seen the broken pieces of a sword, lying in the straw. It was the weapon of a rich man. In another place was an old sword that seemed to have been a soldier's.
"Now, lift me up, Doctor. Lift me up. Where is he?"
"He is not here," I said, holding the boy up and thinking that he was talking about the brother.
"He! Proud as these rich people are, he is afraid to see me. Where is the man who was here? Turn my face toward him."
I did so, lifting the boy's head against my knee. But filled, for a while, with surprising strength, he lifted himself all the way up, forcing me to stand up too, if I was to still help him.
"Marquis," said the boy, who was turned toward him, with his eyes opened wide and his right hand lifted, "in the days when all these things are to be answered for, I call on you and your family, to the last of your bad class, to answer for them. I mark this cross of blood on you, as a sign that I do it. In the days when all these things are to be answered for, I call your brother, the worst of the bad class, to answer for them apart from you. I mark this cross of blood on him, as a sign that I do it."
Twice he put his hand to the hole in his chest. With a finger he made a cross in the air, then stopped for a second, his finger still lifted. As it dropped he dropped with it, and I put him down, dead.
***
When I returned to the young woman, I found her acting crazily in the same pattern of cries that she had been following before. I knew that this could go on for many hours, and that it could easily end in her dying.
I repeated the medicines that I had given her, and I sat by the side of the bed until well into the night. She never changed the high loud shouts, never changed the pattern of her words or stopped saying them clearly. They were always, "My husband, my father, and my brother! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Quiet!"
This went on for twenty- six hours from the time when I first saw her. I had come and left twice, and was again sitting by her when she started to show signs of stopping. I did what I could to help her, and soon she fainted and lay like she was dead.
It was like the wind and rain had stopped at last, after a long and awful storm. I took the cloths off her arms and called the servant woman to help me make her body comfortable, and to smooth out the dress that she was wearing, for it had a tear in it. It was then that I learned that a baby had started to grow in her, and it was then that I lost what little hope I had had of her pulling through.
"Is she dead?" asked the Marquis whom I will still call the older brother, coming into the room from having been out riding his horse.
"Not dead," said I, "but close to it."
"What strength there is in their low class bodies!" he said, looking down at her with some interest.
"There is strength enough." I answered him, "to make us afraid when one is so very sad and so without hope."
First he laughed at my words, and then he made an angry face. He moved a chair with his foot near to mine, told the servant woman to leave, and said in a quiet voice:
"Doctor, finding my brother in this trouble with the country people, I said that your help should be asked for. Many people think well of you, and, as a young man with a good future ahead of you, you must know what is best for you. The things that you see here are things to be seen, but not spoken of."
I listened to the woman's breathing and tried not to answer.
"Will you be so kind as to answer me, Doctor?"
"Sir," said I, "in my job what people say to me when I am helping them should always be between only me and them." I was careful with my answer, because I was worried about what I had seen and heard.
Her breathing was so difficult to see that I carefully felt for movement in her heart. She was only just alive. Turning around as I returned to my chair, I found both of the brothers looking at me.
****
It is difficult for me to write, because it is so cold and because I'm afraid they'll find me and lock me in a room under the ground where there is no light at all. I must finish this quickly. There is no confusion in what I am saying. I clearly remember every little thing and every word that was spoken between me and those brothers.
She stayed alive for a week. Toward the end, I could understand a few words that she said to me, by putting my ear close to her lips. She asked me where she was, and I told her; who I was, and I told her. It was a waste of time that I asked her for her family name. She weakly shook her head on the pillow, and kept her secret, as the boy had done.
I had not been able to question her before I told the brothers she was dying and would not live another day. Before that, she never saw anyone but the servant woman and myself, and one or the other of them was always sitting behind the curtain at the head of the bed when I was there. But when it was time for her to die, they stopped worrying about me talking to her, as if — as I gave some thought to it at the time — I was going to die with her.
I always knew that it deeply hurt their pride that the younger brother (as I call him) had taken the trouble to fight with a servant, and with one who was little more than a child at that. Their only worry was that it would make them look weak in the eyes of others. Each time the younger brother looked at me, I could see in his eyes that he did not like me at all, because I knew what I had learned from the boy. He was smoother with his words than the older brother; and I could see this too. But I was a problem in the mind of the older brother too.
The young woman died two hours before midnight, at a time (by my watch) almost to the minute, of when I had first seen her. I was alone with her when her sad young head fell slowly to the side, and all the things that had hurt her could hurt her no more.
The brothers were waiting in a room below us, wanting to hurry off on a ride. I had heard them when only I was at the side of the bed, hitting their heavy shoes with their riding whips, and walking up and down.
"Is she dead at last?" asked the older one when I went in.
"She is dead," said I.
"Good for you, my brother," he said as he turned around.
He had earlier tried to give me money, but I had put off taking it. He now gave me a roll of gold coins. I took it from his hand, and put it on the table. I had been thinking about this and planned not to take anything from them.
"Please forgive me," I said. "But, because of what has happened, no."
They looked at each other, but dropped their heads to me as I dropped mine to them, and we separated without another word
****
I am tired, tired, tired from all that I am going through. I cannot even read what I have written with this thin hand.
Early in the morning, the roll of gold coins was left at my door in a little box, with my name on it. From the start I had worried about what I should do. I now planned to write to the government, telling about the two people I had been asked to care for, and where they were found — in effect, telling the whole story. I knew how much control the high class people had with the government, and so I believed no action would be taken; but I wanted to be clear in my own mind that I had done what I could. I told no one, not even my wife, about what had happened. I planned to make this clear in my letter. I was not afraid of the danger that I was facing, but I knew that others could be in danger if they knew what I knew.
I was very busy that day, and did not finish my letter that night. I was up very early the next morning to finish it. It was the last day of the year. The letter was there on the table when I was told that a woman had come to see me.
****
It is getting harder and harder to finish this letter. It is so cold and dark, my mind is so slow, and the dark feelings around me are so awful.
The woman was young, interesting to talk to, and good looking, but she did not have long to live. She was very worried. She told me that she was the wife of the Marquis Evremonde. I put the name the boy used for the older brother and the letter on the expensive scarf together with this, and it was easy to see that she was talking about the same man that I had been with.
I can remember what we said, but I cannot write them here. I think I am being watched more closely now, and I never know when someone may come to the door.
She knew some of the information about the cruel story of the girl and her brother, and some of the information she had worked out for herself. She knew of her
husband's part in it, and about him sending for me. She did not know that the girl was dead. Her hope had been to secretly show her love as one woman to another. Her hope had been to stop God from being angry with a family that had been very cruel to others for a long time.
She believed that the girl had a younger sister who was still alive, and she wanted most to help that sister. I could tell her nothing but that there was such a sister; I knew nothing more than that. Her reason for coming and trusting me had been the hope that I could tell her the name of the girl and where she lives. But to this awful hour I do not know either.