“Let us have no nonsense! What is the use of sacraments, if she neither hears, nor understands, nor feels? It is necessary to put on another caustic, perhaps to cup her. These are the only sort of sacraments that are of any avail here.”
But Donna Felicidade was shocked, and began to cry.
“You forget God, and there is no hope for her but in him,” she said, blowing her nose noisily.
“And what does God do for me?” exclaimed Jorge, roused from his stupor and throwing out his hands as if in protest against an injustice. “What have I ever done that this should happen to me? What have I ever done?”
Julião ordered another blister. Confusion reigned in the house. Joanna came into the room, when no one looked for her, with some broth that no one had asked for, her eyes red with weeping. Marianna sobbed in corners. Donna Felicidade came and went, shut herself up in the parlor to pray, made vows to the saints, and considered whether it might not be well to call in Dr. Barbosa or Dr. Barral.
Luiza meantime remained motionless; the livid hue of her features imparted to them a rigid and swollen appearance.
Julião, faint with hunger, asked for a glass of wine and a piece of bread. Then they remembered that they had not eaten anything since the previous day, and they went to the dining-room. Joanna, her eyes swimming in tears, placed some soup and eggs on the table, but she gave them neither plates nor spoons; she alternately murmured a prayer and asked them to excuse her. Jorge, meantime, his swollen eyes fixed on the edge of the table, with contracted features, nervously twisted his napkin in his hands. After a little he left the table and went downstairs to the bedroom. Marianna was seated at the foot of the bed. Jorge sent her upstairs, telling her to go wait on the table; and as soon as she was gone, falling upon his knees by the bedside, he took one of Luiza’s hands in his and began to speak to her, first in a low voice and then more loudly,—
“Listen, hear me, for the love of God. Do not remain thus; try to get better. Don’t leave me alone in this world, for I believe in no other. Forgive me, tell me that you forgive me; give me some sign that you do. She does not hear me, my God!”
And he looked at her with an expression of anguish on his countenance. Then raising his arms wildly,—
“Thou knowest that I believe in thee, my God,” he cried. “Save her! save her!” And lifting up his soul to Heaven, he continued: “Hear me, my God! Listen to me. Be merciful!”