“She is pretty, but the sculptor should give her some colour.”
On which the statue smiled in a manner which would have been charming if her lips had but been red.
“Her pallor,” said Righelini, “will not astonish you when I tell you she has just been blooded for the hundred and fourth time.”
I gave a very natural gesture of surprise.
This fine girl had attained the age of eighteen years without experiencing the monthly relief afforded by nature, the result being that she felt a deathly faintness three or four times a week, and the only relief was to open the vein.
“I want to send her to the country,” said the doctor, “where pure and wholesome air, and, above all, more exercise, will do her more good than all the drugs in the world.”
After I had been told that my bed should be made ready by the evening, I went away with Righelini, who told me that the only cure for the girl would be a good strong lover.
“But my dear doctor,” said I, “can’t you make your own prescription?”
“That would be too risky a game, for I might find myself compelled to marry her, and I hate marriage like the devil.”
Though I was no better inclined towards marriage than the doctor, I was too near the fire not to get burnt, and the reader will see in the next chapter how I performed the miraculous cure of bringing the colours of health into the cheeks of this pallid beauty.