He felt a distressing, mortal fear of them; still he could not remove his glance from the shining goblets, from the lovely, grave faces bending over them. He strove to close his eyes, and could not; strove to cry out to God, and could not. At last the six dancing-girls inclined the goblets towards him, and six flowing ribbons of liquor streamed through the air. “Just as I did, at Praglia!” the sleeper thought, confusing persons in his clouded, mind. Then everything disappeared, and he saw Jeanne before him. Holding herself erect, wrapped in her green cloak lined with fur, her face shadowed by the great black hat, she gazed at him as she had done at Praglia, at the moment of their first meeting. But this time the sleeper perceived a resemblance between the gravity of that look and the gravity of the dancing-girls’ faces. In his spirit he read the silent word of the seven souls: Unhappy man, you now recognise your grievous error; you now know that God is not! The gravity of the glances was only the sadness of pity. The goblets of life, of health, of pleasure, were offered him discreetly, and without joy, as to one in mourning, who has lost all he held dearest; offered as the only poor comfort left him. Thus Jeanne offered her love. And the sleeper was filled with what seemed to him fresh evidence that God is not! It was, indeed, a real physical sensation, a chill creeping over all his limbs, moving slowly to the heart. He began to tremble violently, and awoke. Mayda was bending over him, the thermometer in his hand. Benedetto murmured, with straining eyes: “Father!—Father!—Father!” The sister suggested, “Our Father who art in Heaven,” and would have gone on in her unfortunately colourless voice, had not the Professor checked her sharply. He applied the thermometer to Benedetto, who hardly noticed what was being done. He was absorbed in the effort to detach from his innermost self the images of those tempting figures, and of their horrible words; in the effort to cast himself, soul and conscience, upon the Father’s breast, to cling to Him with his whole being, to lose himself in the Father. Slowly the images began to give way, their assaults becoming each time more brief, less violent. His face was so transfigured in this mystic tension of the soul, that Mayda, watching him, was as one turned to stone, and forgot to look at his watch, until the features, which had been contracted in that anxious prayer, finally began to relax into a peaceful composure. Then he remembered, and removed the thermometer. The sister, standing behind him, held up the electric lamp, trying to see also. He could not at first distinguish the points, and during those few seconds of fixed attention neither of them noticed that the invalid had turned upon his side, and was looking at the Professor. At last Mayda gave the instrument a shake. How many points had it marked? The sister did not dare to inquire, and the Professor’s face was impenetrable. Without his noticing the motion, the sick man stretched out his hand and touched him gently on the arm, Mayda turned towards him, and read in his smiling eyes the question, “Well?” He did not speak, but answered with that undulating movement of open hands which meant neither good, nor bad. Then he sat down beside the bed, still silent, impenetrable, looking at Benedetto, who had sunk upon his back once more, and no longer looked at him, but was gazing at the specks of light in the immense expanse of blue.
“Professor,” he said, “what time is it?”
“Three o’clock.”
“At five you must send for the priest from Bocca della Verità.”
“Very well.”
“Will it be too late?”
This last question the Professor answered with a loud and ringing “No.” After a moment of silence he added, in a lower tone, another “no” as if in answer to his own thoughts. The thermometer had gone up to thirty-seven point five; more than one degree since the evening before. Should the fever increase, should there be danger of delirium, he would send at once, to Bocca della Verità, even before five o’clock. It did not seem probable the fever would increase rapidly, although that thirty-seven point five had a black look.
He asked the invalid if the electric light troubled him. Benedetto replied that materially it did not trouble him, but that spiritually it did, because it prevented his seeing the sky, the starry night. “Illuminatio mea,” said he, softly.
The Professor did not understand, and made him repeat the words. Then he asked him what his light was, and the feeble voice murmured,
“Nox.”