They ascended two flights of stairs, walked to the end of a long corridor, and found themselves facing the open door of a large hall, wherein two rows of beds were arranged. “Come,” repeated the nurse, entering. The boy plucked up his courage, and followed him, casting terrified glances to right and left, on the pale, emaciated faces of the sick people, some of whom had their eyes closed, and seemed to be dead, while others were staring into the air, with their eyes wide open and fixed, as though frightened. Some were moaning like children. The big room was dark, the air was impregnated with an acute odor of medicines. Two sisters of charity were going about with phials in their hands.
Arrived at the extremity of the great room, the nurse halted at the head of a bed, drew aside the curtains, and said, “Here is your father.”
The boy burst into tears, and letting fall his bundle, he dropped his head on the sick man’s shoulder, clasping with one hand the arm which was lying motionless on the coverlet. The sick man did not move.
The boy rose to his feet, and looked at his father, and broke into a fresh fit of weeping. Then the sick man gave a long look at him, and seemed to recognize him; but his lips did not move. Poor daddy, how he was changed! The son would never have recognized him. His hair had turned white, his beard had grown, his face was swollen, of a dull red hue, with the skin tightly drawn and shining; his eyes were diminished in size, his lips very thick, his whole countenance altered. There was no longer anything natural about him but his forehead and the arch of his eyebrows. He breathed with difficulty.
“Daddy! daddy!” said the boy, “it is I; don’t you know me? I am Cicillo, your own Cicillo, who has come from the country: mamma has sent me. Take a good look at me; don’t you know me? Say one word to me.”
But the sick man, after having looked attentively at him, closed his eyes.
“Daddy! daddy! What is the matter with you? I am your little son—your own Cicillo.”
The sick man made no movement, and continued to breathe painfully.
Then the lad, still weeping, took a chair, seated himself and waited, without taking his eyes from his father’s face. “A doctor will surely come to pay him a visit,” he thought; “he will tell me something.” And he became immersed in sad thoughts, recalling many things about his kind father, the day of parting, when he said the last good by to him on board the ship, the hopes which his family had founded on his journey, the desolation of his mother on the arrival of the letter; and he thought of death: he beheld his father dead, his mother dressed in black, the family in misery. And he remained a long time thus. A light hand touched him on the shoulder, and he started up: it was a nun.
“What is the matter with my father?” he asked her quickly.