Towards the middle of November the Pope opened the Vatican. But in face
of the enormous conflux of people, it was not easy to get a _permesso_
from the consul, and that could not be dispensed with. I had just made
use of one for the Vatican sculpture collection, one day, when I felt
very unwell. I ascribed my sensations at first to the insufferable
weather of that month, alternately sirocco and cold sleet, or both at
once; then I was seized with a dread of the climate, of Rome, of all
these strange surroundings, and I made up my mind to go home as quickly
as possible. The illness that was upon me was, without my knowing it,
the cause of my fear. The next day I was carried downstairs by two
vile-smelling labourers and taken by Vilhelm Rosenstand the painter,
who was one of the few who had made friends with me and shown me
kindness, to the Prussian hospital on the Tarpeian Rock, near the
Capitol.
Here a bad attack of typhoid fever held me prisoner in my bed for some
few months, after a compatriot, who had no connection whatever with me,
had been so inconsiderate as to inform my parents by telegraph how ill
I was, and that there was little hope for me.
The first month I was not fully conscious; I suffered from a delusion
of coercion. Thus it seemed to me that the left side of my bed did not
belong to me, but to another man, who sometimes took the place; and
that I myself was divided into several persons, of which one, for
instance, asked my legs to turn a little to the one side or the other.
One of these persons was Imperialist, and for that reason disliked by
the others, who were Republicans; nevertheless, he performed great
kindnesses for them, making them more comfortable, when it was in his
power. Another strangely fantastic idea that held sway for a long time
was that on my head, the hair of which had been shorn by the hospital
attendant rather less artistically than one cuts a dog's, there was a
clasp of pearls and precious stones, which I felt but could not see.
Afterwards, all my delusions centred on food.
I was very much neglected at the hospital. The attendance was wretched.
The highly respected German doctor, who was appointed to the place, had
himself an immense practice, and moreover was absolutely taken up by
the Franco-Prussian war. Consequently, he hardly ever came, sometimes
stayed away as long as thirteen days at a stretch, during all which
time a patient who might happen to be suffering, say, from
constipation, must lie there without any means of relief. My bed was as
hard as a stone, and I was waked in the night by pains in my body and
limbs; the pillow was so hard that the skin of my right ear was rubbed
off from the pressure. There were no nurses. There was only one
custodian for the whole hospital, a Russian fellow who spoke German,
and who sometimes had as many as fourteen patients at a time to look
after, but frequently went out to buy stores, or visit his sweetheart,
and then all the patients could ring at once without any one coming.
After I had passed the crisis of my illness, and consequently began to
suffer terribly from hunger, I was ordered an egg for my breakfast; I
sometimes had to lie for an hour and a half, pining for this egg. Once,
for three days in succession, there were no fresh eggs to be had. So he
would bring for my breakfast nothing but a small piece of dry bread.
One day that I was positively ill with hunger, I begged repeatedly for
another piece of bread, but he refused it me. It was not malice on his
part, but pure stupidity, for he was absolutely incapable of
understanding how I felt. And to save fuel, he let me suffer from cold,
as well as from hunger; would never put more than one wretched little
stick at a time into the stove. Everything was pinched to an incredible
extent. Thus it was impossible for me to get a candle in the evening
before it was absolutely dark, and then never more than one, although
it made my eyes water to try to read. Candles and firing, it appears,
were not put down in the bill. And yet this hospital is kept up on
subscriptions from all the great Powers, so there must be someone into
whose pockets the money goes. Most of us survived it; a few died who
possibly might have been kept alive; one was preserved for whom the
Danish newspapers have beautiful obituaries ready.
Over my head, in the same building, there lived a well-known German
archaeologist, who was married to a Russian princess of such colossal
physical proportions that Roman popular wits asserted that when she
wished to go for a drive she had to divide herself between two cabs.
This lady had a great talent for music. I never saw her, but I became
aware of her in more ways than one: whenever she crossed the floor on
the third story, the ceiling shook, and the boards creaked, in a manner
unbearable to an invalid. And just when I had settled myself off, and
badly wanted to sleep, towards eleven o'clock at night, the heavy lady
above would sit down at her grand piano, and make music that would have
filled a concert hall resound through the place.
After a month had passed, the doctor declared that I had "turned the
corner," and might begin to take a little food besides the broth that
up till then had been my only nourishment. A little later, I was
allowed to try to get up. I was so weak that I had to begin to learn to
walk again; I could not support myself on my legs, but dragged myself,
with the help of the custodian, the four or five steps from the bed to
a sofa.
Just at this time I received two letters from Copenhagen, containing
literary enquiries and offers. The first was from the editor of the
_Illustrated Times_, and enquired whether on my return home I would
resume the theatrical criticisms in the paper; in that case they would
keep the position open for me. I gave a negative reply, as I was tired
of giving my opinion on a Danish drama. The second letter, which
surprised me more, was from the editor of the, at that time, powerful
_Daily Paper_, Steen Bille, offering me the entire management of the
paper after the retirement of Molbech, except so far as politics were
concerned, the editor naturally himself retaining the latter. As Danish
things go, it was a very important offer to a young man. It promised
both influence and income, and it was only my profound and
ever-increasing determination not to give myself up to journalism that
made me without hesitation dictate a polite refusal. I was still to
weak to write. My motive was simply and solely that I wished to devote
my life to knowledge. But Bille, who knew what power in a little
country like Denmark his offer would have placed in my hands, hardly
understood it in this way, and was exceedingly annoyed at my refusal.
It gave the first impulse to his altered feeling toward me. I have
sometimes wondered since whether my fate in Denmark might not have been
different had I accepted the charge. It is true that the divergence
between what the paper and I, in the course of the great year 1871,
came to represent, would soon have brought about a split. The Commune
in Paris caused a complete _volte face_ of the liberal bourgeoisie in
Denmark, as elsewhere.