XXX.
For a long time her life was despaired of. A burning fever consumed her. Her sufferings were such as belonged to her thirsty nature. She experienced the most terrible of earthly tortures; and prayed in her delirium for a stream of water to flow into her parched lips.
Her moral sufferings were still greater. Every evening she became the prey to a terrible hallucination, that she regarded as the punishment of her wish for popularity; she saw herself raised far above an immense crowd, and this crowd becoming by turns insulting and mocking. Its waves of fury flowed and reflowed at the feet of their victim, and covered her with their froth. Paganina, in despair, would have thrown herself into this shoreless tide; but in vain; she felt herself enchained to her height, and obliged to wait for the rays of morning to dissipate her phantoms.
These two features suffice to characterize her malady, which was moral as well as physical. Its intensity lasted during the winter months. In the spring only she appeared to be restored to health, but the blow had been a severe one, and the rest of her life was merely a prolonged convalescence.