Perhaps Sebastian had that most fatal of maladies—to which nearly all men come at last—weariness of life.
“Why don't you fortify yourself, and laugh at fortune?” asked Barlasch, twenty years his senior, as he stood sturdily on his stocking-feet at the sick man's bedside.
“I take what my daughter gives me,” protested Sebastian, half peevishly.
“But that does not suffice,” answered the materialist. “It does not suffice to swallow evil fortune—one must digest it.”
Sebastian made no answer. He was a quiet patient, and lay all day with wide-open, dreaming eyes. He seemed to be waiting for something. This, indeed, was his mental attitude as presented to his neighbours, and perhaps to the few friends he possessed in Dantzig. He had waited through the years during which Desiree had grown to womanhood. He waited on doggedly through the first month of the siege, without enthusiasm, without comment—without hope, perhaps. He seemed to be waiting now to get better.
“He has made little or no progress,” said the doctor, who could only give a passing glance at his patients, for he was working day and night. He had not time to beat about the bush, as his kind heart would have liked, for he had known Desiree all her life.
It was Shrove Tuesday, and the streets were full of revellers. The Neapolitans and other Southerners had made great preparations for the carnival, and the Governor had not denied them their annual licence. They had built a high car in one of the entrance yards to the Marienkirche; and finding that the ancient arch would not allow the erection to pass out into the street, they had pulled down the pious handiwork of a bygone generation.
The shouts of these merrymakers could be dimly heard through the double windows, but Sebastian made no inquiry as to the meaning of the cry. A sort of lassitude—the result of confinement within doors, of insufficient food, of waning hope—had come over Desiree. She listened heedlessly to the sounds in the streets through which the dead were passing to the Oliva Gate, while the living danced by in their hideous travesty of rejoicing.
It was dusk when Barlasch came in.
“The streets,” he said, “are full of fools, dressed as such.” Receiving no answer, he crossed the room to where Desiree sat, treading noiselessly, and stood in front of her, trying to see her averted face. He stooped down and peered at her until she could no longer hide her tear-stained eyes.