CHAPTER XVIII
Giovanni opened his eyes at last, looked at the ceiling for a few moments, and then closed them again. Plain white ceilings are very much alike, and for all he could see as he looked up he was at home in his own bed, at dawn, and there was plenty of time for another nap. He felt unaccountably heavy, too, though not exactly sleepy, and it would be pleasant to feel himself going off into unconsciousness again for a while, knowing that there was no hurry.
But his eyes had not been shut long before he became aware that he was in a strange place. He could not sleep again because an unfamiliar odour of iodoform irritated his nostrils; he missed something, too, either some noise outside to which he was used or some step near him. In the little house at Monteverde he could always hear his orderly cleaning the stable early in the morning; he grew suddenly uneasy and tried to turn in his bed, and instead of the noise of broom and bucket and sousing, he heard the indescribably soft sound of felt shoes on tiles as the Mother Superior came to his side.
Then, in a flash, he remembered everything, up to the time when he had been hurt, and after the moment when he had at first come to himself in the room where he now was. His eyes opened again, and he saw and recognised the Mother Superior, whom he had often seen and spoken with during his brother's stay in the hospital. Suddenly he was quite himself, for his hurt was altogether local and he had lost little blood; he only felt half paralysed on that side.
'Were there many killed?' he asked quietly.
'We do not know,' the Mother answered. 'When it is a little later I will telephone for news. It is barely five o'clock yet.'
'Thank you, Mother.' He shut his eyes again and said no more.
The Mother Superior opened the window and let in the fresh morning air, full of the glow of the rising sun, for the room looked to the eastward, across the broad bend of the Tiber and towards the Palatine. She turned out the electric light in the corner, then went to the window again and refreshed herself by drawing long breaths at regular intervals, as she had been taught to do when she was a beginner at nursing. Presently the injured man called her and she went to the bedside again.