He gazed and gazed, waiting for a movement, a voice, a miracle. But everything seemed to him more still than before. The livid countenance began to sink in. He placed his hand with cowardly vacillation upon her head, from which the wet cloth had partly fallen; it was cold. He smothered a cry, ran out of the room, and stumbled against Dr. Caminha, who was entering, taking off his gloves with deliberation.
“Doctor, she is dead! She does not speak; she is cold!” he cried.
“Let us see, let us see,” responded the doctor. “Softly, softly!”
He took Luiza’s hand, and felt her pulse escaping under his fingers like the expiring vibration of a chord.
Julião arrived shortly afterwards, and he agreed with Dr. Caminha that the cupping was useless.
“She would not feel it,” added the doctor, shaking the snuff from his fingers.
“What if we were to give her a little brandy?” said Julião suddenly. And he added, on seeing the look of astonishment on the doctor’s face, “At times these symptoms of coma do not signify that the brain is disorganized; it may be inaction of the nervous force. If death is inevitable nothing is lost; and if it is only a depression of the nervous system, she may be saved.”
Dr. Caminha shook his head incredulously.
“Theories,” he murmured.
“In the English hospitals—” began Julião.