Then it was, either from too hard work or on account of the dampness of the room in which I worked, or both together, I took so tiresome and obstinate a cough, that it gave me no peace night or day. I tried many things to get rid of it, and all in vain—decoctions, ass's milk, care, all were useless. La Signora Letizia having urged me a thousand times to take care of myself and to get rid of that cough, said to me so seriously that it made me laugh—
"It is absolutely necessary for you to get well."
"Bravo!" I said; "that is what I have been thinking of for the past month, and I have done everything for that purpose—the advice and prescriptions of the physicians have not been neglected; but now seriously I must get well—Go away, cough!"
"No, don't joke; you must get well, and I mean to cure you. Listen," she said, "what you ought to do: you should buy a quantity of pine-wood, and with this line all the walls of your studio from top to bottom, leaving space between the wood and the wall; and you must do the same for the floor. Have the window open some hour of the day when you are not in the studio, that the current of air may not do you harm."
SHE LINES THE STUDIO WALLS.
It seemed an odd thing to me. I could not understand what all this wood had to do with my cough; but to content her, I said that I would do as she advised. In the meantime I continued to cough in spite of the pot of lichen which I kept hot in my studio; and every day when this poor lady came to see me and saw that her advice was not followed, she appeared serious and disappointed, and finally said—
"Do you think, Signor Duprè, that my advice could do you harm?"
"Certainly not," I said.
"Then why don't you follow it?"
"I must wait a few days; just at present I cannot. But I will do it—of this you may be sure; and I am very grateful to you: it seems to me that it will be more comfortable and warmer."