Celinina was an only child; and when she was taken ill, her father's
uneasiness and anxiety knew no limit. His business called him away
during the day, but he managed to run in every now and then to see
how the little invalid was. The disease pursued its course with
treacherous alternatives, giving and withdrawing hope.
The good man had his misgivings. The picture of Celinina, lying in
her little bed crushed with pain and fever, never left his mind
for a moment. He was heedful of everything that might cheer her
and brighten the gloom of her suffering, so every night he brought
home with him some Christmas present, something different every
time, scrupulously avoiding sweets, however. One day he brought a
flock of turkeys, so cleverly made, so lifelike, that one fairly
expected to hear them gobble. The next night he drew one half of
the Holy Family from his pockets, then again a little Saint Joseph,
the manger and the portico of the Bethlehem stable. Once it was a
superb drove of sheep driven by proud shepherds, and later on he
brought some washerwomen washing their clothes, and a sausage-maker
selling sausages, and two Magi, one black and the other with a
white beard and a golden crown. What did he not bring? He even
brought an old woman very indecorously spanking a small boy for not
knowing his lesson. From what she had heard her cousins say about
the requirements of a Bethlehem manger, Celinina knew that hers was
incomplete, and this for want of two very important figures,--the
Mule and the Ox. Of course she had no idea of the significance of
the Mule or the Ox; but in her thirst for absolute perfection of
composition, she asked her solicitous father again and again for
the two animals, which seemed to be about the only things that
the good man had left in the toy shops. He accordingly promised to
bring them, and took a firm resolution not to come home without both
beasts; but it happened that on that day, which was the 23d, he had
an accumulation of things to do. Besides, as luck would have it,
the drawing of the lottery took place just then, he was notified of
having won a lawsuit, not to speak of the arrival of two affectionate
friends who managed to keep in his way all the morning; so he came
home without the Mule or the Ox.
Celinina was greatly disappointed when she found that he had not
brought her the two jewels that were to complete her treasure. The
good man was about to repair his fault immediately, but just then the
doctor came in. Celinina had grown considerably worse during the day;
and as his words were far from comforting, nobody thought of mules or
oxen.
On the 24th the poor father resolved not to leave the house. For
a brief moment, however, Celinina seemed so much better that her
parents were wild with hope, and the father said joyously,--
"I am going right out to get those things."
But it was not a moment before Celinina fell into an intense fever,
just as a bird, wounded in its upward flight through the pure regions
of the air, drops swiftly to the ground. She tossed about, trembling
and suffocating in the hot arms of her disease, that tightened around
her and shook her violently as if to eject her life. In the confusion
of her delirium, on the broken waves of her thoughts, like the one
thing saved from a cataclysm, floated the persistent yearning, the
idea of that longed-for mule and that sighed-for ox.
The father rushed out of the house like a madman, then suddenly,
"This is no time to think of figures for a Bethlehem manger,"
thought he; and running here and there, climbing stairs and ringing
door-bells, he succeeded in getting seven or eight doctors, whom he
took home with him. Celinina should be saved at any cost.