“Child, I am not going to him. I have heard of one in the city who has been tender to the poor, and who, they say, has cured the sick when physicians failed. I will go and say to him, ‘Signor, we are beggars in all else, but yesterday we were rich in love. We are at the close of life, but we lived in our grandchild’s childhood. Give us back our wealth,—give us back our youth. Let us die blessing God that the thing we love survives us.’”
She was gone. Why did thy heart beat, Viola? The infant’s sharp cry of pain called her back to the couch; and there still sat the old man, unconscious of his wife’s movements, not stirring, his eyes glazing fast as they watched the agonies of that slight frame. By degrees the wail of pain died into a low moan,—the convulsions grew feebler, but more frequent; the glow of fever faded into the blue, pale tinge that settles into the last bloodless marble.
The daylight came broader and clearer through the casement; steps were heard on the stairs,—the old woman entered hastily; she rushed to the bed, cast a glance on the patient, “She lives yet, signor, she lives!”
Viola raised her eyes,—the child’s head was pillowed on her bosom,—and she beheld Zanoni. He smiled on her with a tender and soft approval, and took the infant from her arms. Yet even then, as she saw him bending silently over that pale face, a superstitious fear mingled with her hopes. “Was it by lawful—by holy art that—” her self-questioning ceased abruptly; for his dark eye turned to her as if he read her soul, and his aspect accused her conscience for its suspicion, for it spoke reproach not unmingled with disdain.
“Be comforted,” he said, gently turning to the old man, “the danger is not beyond the reach of human skill;” and, taking from his bosom a small crystal vase, he mingled a few drops with water. No sooner did this medicine moisten the infant’s lips, than it seemed to produce an astonishing effect. The colour revived rapidly on the lips and cheeks; in a few moments the sufferer slept calmly, and with the regular breathing of painless sleep. And then the old man rose, rigidly, as a corpse might rise,—looked down, listened, and creeping gently away, stole to the corner of the room, and wept, and thanked Heaven!
Now, old Bernardi had been, hitherto, but a cold believer; sorrow had never before led him aloft from earth. Old as he was, he had never before thought as the old should think of death,—that endangered life of the young had wakened up the careless soul of age. Zanoni whispered to the wife, and she drew the old man quietly from the room.
“Dost thou fear to leave me an hour with thy charge, Viola? Thinkest thou still that this knowledge is of the Fiend?”
“Ah,” said Viola, humbled and yet rejoiced, “forgive me, forgive me, signor. Thou biddest the young live and the old pray. My thoughts never shall wrong thee more!”
Before the sun rose, Beatrice was out of danger; at noon Zanoni escaped from the blessings of the aged pair, and as he closed the door of the house, he found Viola awaiting him without.
She stood before him timidly, her hands crossed meekly on her bosom, her downcast eyes swimming with tears.