'Why do you say, in my case?'
'Because,' Pieri answered with a little impatience, 'if it began in your foot, for instance, or in your hand, it would take some little time to reach the vital parts, and the arm or leg could still be amputated; but in your case it will set in so near the heart that no operation will be of any use after it begins. Do you understand?'
'Perfectly. I shall take less time to die, for the same reason.'
Severi was very quiet about it; but the Mother Superior turned on him suddenly from the window, her small face very white.
'It is suicide,' she said—'deliberate, intentional suicide, and no right-thinking man, priest or layman, would call it by any other name, let Doctor Pieri say what he will! You are in full possession of your senses, and even of your health and strength, at this moment, and you are assured that you run no risk if you submit to the doctors, but that if you will not you must die! You are choosing death where you can choose life, and that is suicide if anything is! Doctor Pieri knows well enough what a good priest would say, and so do I, who have been a nurse for a quarter of a century! If the injury were internal, and if there were a real risk to your life in operating, you would have the right, the moral right, to choose between the danger of dying under ether and the comparative certainty of dying of the injury. But this is a specific case. You are young, strong, absolutely healthy, and the chance of your dying from the anæsthetic is not one in thousands, whereas, if nothing is done, death is certain. I ask you, before God and man and on your honour, whether you do not know that you are committing suicide—nothing less than cowardly, dastardly self-murder!'
'If I am, it is my affair,' answered Giovanni coldly; 'but you need not leave out the rest. You believe that if I choose to die I shall go straight to everlasting punishment. I believe that if there is a God—and I do not deny that there may be—I shall not be damned because I would rather not live at all than go on living as half a man. And now, if you will let me have a cup of coffee and a roll, I shall be very grateful, for I have had nothing to eat since yesterday at one o'clock!'
He probably knew well enough what such a request meant just then—the putting off of a possible operation for hours, owing to the impossibility of giving ether to a man who has lately eaten anything. The Mother Superior and the surgeon looked at each other rather blankly.
'Shall I die any sooner if I am starved?' asked Giovanni almost roughly.
Pieri began to explain the danger, but Severi at once grew more impatient.
'I know all that,' he said, 'and I have told you my decision. I refuse to undergo an operation. If you choose to make me suffer from starvation I suppose it is in your power, though I am not sure. I fancy I can still stand and walk, and even my one hand may be of some use! If you do not give me something to eat, I shall get out of bed and fight my way to the larder!'