Cuore (Heart): An Italian Schoolboy's Journal

by Edmondo De Amicis

“He will recognize you—to-morrow perhaps. Let us hope for the best and keep up our courage.”

The boy would have liked to ask some more questions, but he did not dare. The doctor passed on. And then he began his life of nurse. As he could do nothing else, he arranged the coverlets of the sick man, touched his hand every now and then, drove away the flies, bent over him at every groan, and when the sister brought him something to drink, he took the glass or the spoon from her hand, and administered it in her stead. The sick man looked at him occasionally, but he gave no sign of recognition. However, his glance rested longer on the lad each time, especially when the latter put his handkerchief to his eyes.

Thus passed the first day. At night the boy slept on two chairs, in a corner of the ward, and in the morning he resumed his work of mercy. That day it seemed as though the eyes of the sick man revealed a dawning of consciousness. At the sound of the boy’s caressing voice a vague expression of gratitude seemed to gleam for an instant in his pupils, and once he moved his lips a little, as though he wanted to say something. After each brief nap he seemed, on opening his eyes, to seek his little nurse. The doctor, who had passed twice, thought he noted a slight improvement. Towards evening, on putting the cup to his lips, the lad fancied that he perceived a very faint smile glide across the swollen lips. Then he began to take comfort and to hope; and with the hope of being understood, confusedly at least, he talked to him—talked to him at great length—of his mother, of his little sisters, of his own return home, and he exhorted him to courage with warm and loving words. And although he often doubted whether he was heard, he still talked; for it seemed to him that even if he did not understand him, the sick man listened with a certain pleasure to his voice,—to that unaccustomed intonation of affection and sorrow. And in this manner passed the second day, and the third, and the fourth, with vicissitudes of slight improvements and unexpected changes for the worse; and the boy was so absorbed in all his cares, that he hardly nibbled a bit of bread and cheese twice a day, when the sister brought it to him, and hardly saw what was going on around him,—the dying patients, the sudden running up of the sisters at night, the moans and despairing gestures of visitors,—all those doleful and lugubrious scenes of hospital life, which on any other occasion would have disconcerted and alarmed him. Hours, days, passed, and still he was there with his daddy; watchful, wistful, trembling at every sigh and at every look, agitated incessantly between a hope which relieved his mind and a discouragement which froze his heart.

On the fifth day the sick man suddenly grew worse. The doctor, on being interrogated, shook his head, as much as to say that all was over, and the boy flung himself on a chair and burst out sobbing. But one thing comforted him. In spite of the fact that he was worse, the sick man seemed to be slowly regaining a little intelligence. He stared at the lad with increasing intentness, and, with an expression which grew in sweetness, would take his drink and medicine from no one but him, and made strenuous efforts with his lips with greater frequency, as though he were trying to pronounce some word; and he did it so plainly sometimes that his son grasped his arm violently, inspired by a sudden hope, and said to him in a tone which was almost that of joy, “Courage, courage, daddy; you will get well, we will go away from here, we will return home with mamma; courage, for a little while longer!”

It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and just when the boy had abandoned himself to one of these outbursts of tenderness and hope, when a sound of footsteps became audible outside the nearest door in the ward, and then a strong voice uttering two words only,—“Farewell, sister!”—which made him spring to his feet, with a cry repressed in his throat.

At that moment there entered the ward a man with a thick bandage on his hand, followed by a sister.

The boy uttered a sharp cry, and stood rooted to the spot.

The man turned round, looked at him for a moment, and uttered a cry in his turn,—“Cicillo!”—and darted towards him.

The boy fell into his father’s arms, choking with emotion.

The sister, the nurse, and the assistant ran up, and stood there in amazement.