The heart was now where he had placed it — in its jar on the mantel — a reddish-brown lump that seemed but a deep shadow against the. vestal whiteness of wall that rose behind and above.
With one elbow propped on my littered study table, I watched the thing nervously. Had it really moved, or was my imagination flighty?
There! It moved again — I was sure. Yes, it moved; an almost imperceptible flutter in its liquid preservative. I stared. It jerked again… again… The jerks were weak, clumsy, measured.
The thing was coming to life; it was beating.
I shuddered and glanced quickly behind me, all about the room. But I was alone — alone except for a dead man's heart.
Leon was away on one of his nightly amours, and François Bourlin, a fellow student who was specializing in diseases of the lungs, my own major, had spent the earlier part of the night with me. We had little of the brilliance of Leon, who at a glance could grasp the meaning of an entire page and retain it, who could hear more with a stethescope than we could see with our eyes, whose skill with the knife had aroused admiration from the greatest surgeons of the faculty. No, we were grubs. We worked for what knowledge we got. But when we got it we did not boast of it as Leon boasted of his accomplishments.
François had left at nine-thirty, and it was after ten when I noticed the first movement from the heart.
Its beats were now growing stronger. I could see the alcohol ripple in tiny waves with each rhythmic beat. I listened — and heard a gentle splash, splash, splash, as regular yet not so metallic as the ticking of a watch.
Suddenly the heart flopped convulsively and drifted with the gentlest movement to the top of the jar. It was beating steadily now. It circled slowly about the jar, like an exhausted bird not sure of its direction.
"It's impossible," I muttered to myself. "It can't be. It's my nerves, my mind. I've worked too hard. I must be careful."
By a supreme effort I forced my eyes from the devilish thing. I rummaged wildly in my desk till I found my syringe, my bottle of morphine. I drew up my sleeve and among the many almost indistinguishable pits in my arm I pricked another.
Calm came instantaneously. I laughed at my fruitful imagination.
"It was my nerves," I thought. "I will tell no one."
And, with freshened courage, I turned and gave a bold stare at the jar on the mantel. The heart had stopped beating, was lying silent, inert, in its diaphanous grave.
When Leon came hurrying in a half-hour later I was getting ready for bed. His sallow, carelessly-wrought features were splashed with the high color that is raised by much wine and aroused ardor.
"Henri," he cried, throwing aside his hat and ulster, "it has been a wonderful night! You should have had a girl and been with me, mon ami."
I was surfeited on this kind of talk every night. But I hid my shrug and asked:
"And where was it — the wonderful time?"
"At the Café Noir. Sacré, Fanchette is delightful! A wonderful companion! But you know her, mon Henri."
Yes, I knew her — Fanchette — a mischievous imp of femininity. I had been with Leon to the Café Noir, a modest tavern owned and managed by Fanchette's husband. M. Leblanc, a jolly little fellow so amorous-hearted and so trustful of Fanchette that before his very eyes she had carried on a flirtation with Leon. She was infatuated with him — that I could see; and here of late he had become infatuated with her.
"But," I said to Leon, "what of the little girl back in Bayonne — Nina, the girl who writes to you each day, the girl you are to marry? What of her? Have you written to her this week?"
He eyed me for a moment of hostility. "Certes. I have written to her."
But I knew he lied; lying was a habit with him.
"Quel diable!" he burst out angrily, after a moment. "Why do you ask me that? How does it concern you? Am I an old owl like you, to sit around poring over books hour after hour, day after day? Non, non! I am no owl, I have life. I love. I enjoy myself. I am happy — till I see your gloomy face. Tiens, I provide for you, I give you room, I give you clothes; yet you correct me!"
I did not argue with him, for I knew that he was partly right: he was rich, I was poor. And, after all, his amours were none of my business.
François came to study with me the next night, for on the day following a final examination yawned before us. We worked hard, nervously. And when François finally took his leave, my head was near bursting with thumpy aches.
But, obsequious to duty, I bent over my study table and began to review some of Rollier's pamphlets — wonderful treatises on heliotherapy and artificial pneumo-thorax. Outside, rain splashed down heavily, as if to crush my night-blackened window panes. The cry of the storm was the mourning cry of wretched, lonely beasts. But I read on and on till the words of Rollier became but dancing specks before my eyes.
Suddenly, as if drawn by some subconscious power, I raised my head, turned slowly and stared — at the mantel.
My eyes found the heart in its tall glass jar, its reddish-brown shape sharply defined against the white background of wall.
It was beating more stanchly than on the night before, as if it had regained a lost vitality.
At the top of the jar the alcohol rocked and lowered in gentle wavelets with each heart-beat.
I listened — intently, fearfully. And above the dull beating of rain and the whistle and howl of the wind, I at last managed to detect a sound of splashing in the jar. The sound came steadily — a gentle, purring splash, splash, splash — with each heart beat, with each wavelet.
I tried to take my eyes away, but I could not; I was held by the thing's devilish charm. As I watched, the beats became thuds; the heart gave a clumsy jerk, then floated slowly to the top of the jar. For a moment it swam about uncertainly, from top to bottom, from one side to the other. Then its movements became rapid, agitated, violent. It dashed about frenziedly, like a frightened bird vainly trying to escape from its cage. The jar rocked with the violent motion — I heard it, I saw.
With a jerky hand I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead.
"My God!" I thought. "Am I going mad?"
I tried to take my eyes away — and failed. I must do something I With all the power of will and muscle I could summon I sent my right hand groping about the table. At last my fingers found the syringe — and later the magic bottle of morphine.
Somehow I managed the injection. Calm came again. My eyes dropped from the gruesome thing… And when, in a spirit of bravado, I raised them again a few moments later, it had stopped its beating and lay motionless at the bottom of the jar.
I looked at my watch; it was 11:30. And fully a half-hour passed before Leon came home.
II
He came stumbling hilariously into the study room, plainly drunk.
"Tiens, mon Henri!" he cried, slapping me on the shoulder. "It was a happy night! There was wine and my Fanchette and I — ah, what happiness!"
And he babbled on foolishly till he had led me through the entire course of his happy night.
While he was talking I was silent, but as he began clumsily to hang up his clothes I could no longer restrain a warning comment.
"One of these nights when you go to the Café Noir, mon Leon, M. Leblanc will tire of your love-making to his wife. You had better watch out for him. He is a man who loves much, and if he discovers your attentions he will be dangerous."