They ascended two flights of stairs, walked to the end of a long
corridor, and found themselves facing the open door of a large hall,
wherein two rows of beds were arranged. "Come," repeated the nurse,
entering. The boy plucked up his courage, and followed him, casting
terrified glances to right and left, on the pale, emaciated faces of the
sick people, some of whom had their eyes closed, and seemed to be dead,
while others were staring into the air, with their eyes wide open and
fixed, as though frightened. Some were moaning like children. The big
room was dark, the air was impregnated with an acute odor of medicines.
Two sisters of charity were going about with phials in their hands.
Arrived at the extremity of the great room, the nurse halted at the head
of a bed, drew aside the curtains, and said, "Here is your father."
The boy burst into tears, and letting fall his bundle, he dropped his
head on the sick man's shoulder, clasping with one hand the arm which
was lying motionless on the coverlet. The sick man did not move.
The boy rose to his feet, and looked at his father, and broke into a
fresh fit of weeping. Then the sick man gave a long look at him, and
seemed to recognize him; but his lips did not move. Poor daddy, how he
was changed! The son would never have recognized him. His hair had
turned white, his beard had grown, his face was swollen, of a dull red
hue, with the skin tightly drawn and shining; his eyes were diminished
in size, his lips very thick, his whole countenance altered. There was
no longer anything natural about him but his forehead and the arch of
his eyebrows. He breathed with difficulty.
"Daddy! daddy!" said the boy, "it is I; don't you know me? I am Cicillo,
your own Cicillo, who has come from the country: mamma has sent me. Take
a good look at me; don't you know me? Say one word to me."
But the sick man, after having looked attentively at him, closed his
eyes.
"Daddy! daddy! What is the matter with you? I am your little son--your
own Cicillo."
The sick man made no movement, and continued to breathe painfully.
Then the lad, still weeping, took a chair, seated himself and waited,
without taking his eyes from his father's face. "A doctor will surely
come to pay him a visit," he thought; "he will tell me something." And
he became immersed in sad thoughts, recalling many things about his kind
father, the day of parting, when he said the last good by to him on
board the ship, the hopes which his family had founded on his journey,
the desolation of his mother on the arrival of the letter; and he
thought of death: he beheld his father dead, his mother dressed in
black, the family in misery. And he remained a long time thus. A light
hand touched him on the shoulder, and he started up: it was a nun.
"What is the matter with my father?" he asked her quickly.
"Is he your father?" said the sister gently.
"Yes, he is my father; I have come. What ails him?"
"Courage, my boy," replied the sister; "the doctor will be here soon
now." And she went away without saying anything more.
Half an hour later he heard the sound of a bell, and he saw the doctor
enter at the further end of the hall, accompanied by an assistant; the
sister and a nurse followed him. They began the visit, pausing at every
bed. This time of waiting seemed an eternity to the lad, and his anxiety
increased at every step of the doctor. At length they arrived at the
next bed. The doctor was an old man, tall and stooping, with a grave
face. Before he left the next bed the boy rose to his feet, and when he
approached he began to cry.
The doctor looked at him.
"He is the sick man's son," said the sister; "he arrived this morning
from the country."
The doctor placed one hand on his shoulder; then bent over the sick man,
felt his pulse, touched his forehead, and asked a few questions of the
sister, who replied, "There is nothing new." Then he thought for a while
and said, "Continue the present treatment."
Then the boy plucked up courage, and asked in a tearful voice, "What is
the matter with my father?"
"Take courage, my boy," replied the doctor, laying his hand on his
shoulder once more; "he has erysipelas in his face. It is a serious
case, but there is still hope. Help him. Your presence may do him a
great deal of good."
"But he does not know me!" exclaimed the boy in a tone of affliction.
"He will recognize you--to-morrow perhaps. Let us hope for the best and
keep up our courage."
The boy would have liked to ask some more questions, but he did not
dare. The doctor passed on. And then he began his life of nurse. As he
could do nothing else, he arranged the coverlets of the sick man,
touched his hand every now and then, drove away the flies, bent over him
at every groan, and when the sister brought him something to drink, he
took the glass or the spoon from her hand, and administered it in her
stead. The sick man looked at him occasionally, but he gave no sign of
recognition. However, his glance rested longer on the lad each time,
especially when the latter put his handkerchief to his eyes.
Thus passed the first day. At night the boy slept on two chairs, in a
corner of the ward, and in the morning he resumed his work of mercy.
That day it seemed as though the eyes of the sick man revealed a dawning
of consciousness. At the sound of the boy's caressing voice a vague
expression of gratitude seemed to gleam for an instant in his pupils,
and once he moved his lips a little, as though he wanted to say
something. After each brief nap he seemed, on opening his eyes, to seek
his little nurse. The doctor, who had passed twice, thought he noted a
slight improvement. Towards evening, on putting the cup to his lips, the
lad fancied that he perceived a very faint smile glide across the
swollen lips. Then he began to take comfort and to hope; and with the
hope of being understood, confusedly at least, he talked to him--talked
to him at great length--of his mother, of his little sisters, of his own
return home, and he exhorted him to courage with warm and loving words.
And although he often doubted whether he was heard, he still talked; for
it seemed to him that even if he did not understand him, the sick man
listened with a certain pleasure to his voice,--to that unaccustomed
intonation of affection and sorrow. And in this manner passed the second
day, and the third, and the fourth, with vicissitudes of slight
improvements and unexpected changes for the worse; and the boy was so
absorbed in all his cares, that he hardly nibbled a bit of bread and
cheese twice a day, when the sister brought it to him, and hardly saw
what was going on around him,--the dying patients, the sudden running up
of the sisters at night, the moans and despairing gestures of
visitors,--all those doleful and lugubrious scenes of hospital life,
which on any other occasion would have disconcerted and alarmed him.
Hours, days, passed, and still he was there with his daddy; watchful,
wistful, trembling at every sigh and at every look, agitated incessantly
between a hope which relieved his mind and a discouragement which froze
his heart.
On the fifth day the sick man suddenly grew worse. The doctor, on being
interrogated, shook his head, as much as to say that all was over, and
the boy flung himself on a chair and burst out sobbing. But one thing
comforted him. In spite of the fact that he was worse, the sick man
seemed to be slowly regaining a little intelligence. He stared at the
lad with increasing intentness, and, with an expression which grew in
sweetness, would take his drink and medicine from no one but him, and
made strenuous efforts with his lips with greater frequency, as though
he were trying to pronounce some word; and he did it so plainly
sometimes that his son grasped his arm violently, inspired by a sudden
hope, and said to him in a tone which was almost that of joy, "Courage,
courage, daddy; you will get well, we will go away from here, we will
return home with mamma; courage, for a little while longer!"
It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and just when the boy had
abandoned himself to one of these outbursts of tenderness and hope, when
a sound of footsteps became audible outside the nearest door in the
ward, and then a strong voice uttering two words only,--"Farewell,
sister!"--which made him spring to his feet, with a cry repressed in his
throat.
At that moment there entered the ward a man with a thick bandage on his
hand, followed by a sister.
The boy uttered a sharp cry, and stood rooted to the spot.
The man turned round, looked at him for a moment, and uttered a cry in
his turn,--"Cicillo!"--and darted towards him.
The boy fell into his father's arms, choking with emotion.
The sister, the nurse, and the assistant ran up, and stood there in
amazement.
The boy could not recover his voice.
"Oh, my Cicillo!" exclaimed the father, after bestowing an attentive
look on the sick man, as he kissed the boy repeatedly. "Cicillo, my son,
how is this? They took you to the bedside of another man. And there was
I, in despair at not seeing you after mamma had written, 'I have sent
him.' Poor Cicillo! How many days have you been here? How did this
mistake occur? I have come out of it easily! I have a good constitution,
you know! And how is mamma? And Concettella? And the little baby--how
are they all? I am leaving the hospital now. Come, then. Oh, Lord God!
Who would have thought it!"
The boy tried to interpolate a few words, to tell the news of the
family. "Oh how happy I am!" he stammered. "How happy I am! What
terrible days I have passed!" And he could not finish kissing his
father.
But he did not stir.
"Come," said his father; "we can get home this evening." And he drew the
lad towards him. The boy turned to look at his patient.
"Well, are you coming or not?" his father demanded, in amazement.
The boy cast yet another glance at the sick man, who opened his eyes at
that moment and gazed intently at him.
Then a flood of words poured from his very soul. "No, daddy;
wait--here--I can't. Here is this old man. I have been here for five
days. He gazes at me incessantly. I thought he was you. I love him
dearly. He looks at me; I give him his drink; he wants me always beside
him; he is very ill now. Have patience; I have not the courage--I don't
know--it pains me too much; I will return home to-morrow; let me stay
here a little longer; I don't at all like to leave him. See how he looks
at me! I don't know who he is, but he wants me; he will die alone: let
me stay here, dear daddy!"
"Bravo, little fellow!" exclaimed the attendant.
The father stood in perplexity, staring at the boy; then he looked at
the sick man. "Who is he?" he inquired.
"A countryman, like yourself," replied the attendant, "just arrived from
abroad, and who entered the hospital on the very day that you entered
it. He was out of his senses when they brought him here, and could not
speak. Perhaps he has a family far away, and sons. He probably thinks
that your son is one of his."
The sick man was still looking at the boy.