The curse of gold

by Ann S. Stephens

Late in the evening, the hospital nurse, who had been an evil actor in the scene we have just described, stood, with a smoking lamp in her hand, in a closet or store-room where the patient’s garments were kept. From one of the shelves she took a bundle tied up in a coarse woollen shawl, and drew forth a long merino cloak that had evidently found its origin in old Ireland. She folded the cloak cautiously around her, and selecting a bonnet from a score or two that filled a side press, she tied a green veil closely over it. Then she extinguished her lamp, finding her way out by the glow of its smouldering wick, and leaving a cloud of offensive smoke to deepen the already unpleasant atmosphere of the room.

The woman had evidently intended to disguise herself, and she stole like a thief down the dark passages of the building, avoiding the officers and keeping close to the shadow whenever she came within the range of a light, like one who feared to be seen.

At last she came out into the grounds in front of the hospital. The moon was up, but hidden occasionally by masses of clouds that cumbered the sky with a darkness that threatened snow. The woman waited under the shadow of the steps till a heap of these clouds had completely obscured the moon, and then darted out, taking a central walk that led from the principal entrance to Bellevue down to the water.

A grape-arbor, at the time of our story, ran half-way down this walk, covering it, even in winter, with a thousand gnarled and twisted vines, that kept, the light away and afforded the obscurity of which she seemed so desirous.

Here she paused, and heaving a deep breath, walked more leisurely forward, drawing her veil closer, and folding the cloak over her garments more resolutely as she approached the open grounds again.

As she came forth, the moon had waded half through the bank of clouds, that had overwhelmed it for a moment, and began to pour its faint silver along their edges, a sight beautiful to look upon, but very repulsive to the woman, who wanted no radiance and could expect no beauty on the dark path she had begun to tread.

Resolved to be in advance of the threatened illumination, she darted in a slanting direction across a range of garden beds, that lay, a mass of trodden mud and decaying vegetable stumps, between her and the southern wall.

Again she was in safety, though the moon had rolled forth into the clear of the sky once more, and all around was dimly illuminated. She stood in the shadow cast by a low, stone building, half buried behind heaps of coal, empty barrels, and all sorts of refuse lumber that had been allowed to accumulate in that portion of the grounds.

Another might have trembled and shrunk back appalled from the position in which this woman found herself. It was late at night, and she stood in the very presence of death. The atmosphere was heavy and so oppressive, that even in the clear cold of the night, a faintness crept over her, not from fear, not from any over-excitement of the nerves, but purely from the unwholesome air that she breathed.

She knew that the low stone building was heaped with the dead, prepared for burial with such scant care as the pauper receives. She knew, also, that there was an epidemic in the hospital, and that this store-house of mortality was unusually crowded; but this gave her no uneasiness, and she shook off the sickness that oppressed her, with a sort of scorn, as if she and death had become too familiar for him to take such liberties with her.