This position of affairs, which Thaddeus had led up to naturally, did not end without further cruel trials; his sufferings were fated not to be as sweet and tender as he was trying to make them. The poor lover forgot to reckon on the hazard of events. Adam fell seriously ill, and Thaddeus, instead of leaving the house, stayed to nurse his friend. His devotion was unwearied. A woman who had any interest in employing her perspicacity might have seen in this devotion a sort of punishment imposed by a noble soul to repress an involuntary evil thought; but women see all, or see nothing, according to the condition of their souls—love is their sole illuminator.
During forty-five days Paz watched and tended Adam without appearing to think of Malaga, for the very good reason that he never did think of her. Clementine, feeling that Adam was at the point of death though he did not die, sent for all the leading doctors of Paris in consultation.
“If he comes safely out of this,” said the most distinguished of them all, “it will only be by an effort of nature. It is for those who nurse him to watch for the moment when they must second nature. The count’s life is in the hands of his nurses.”
Thaddeus went to find Clementine and tell her this result of the consultation. He found her sitting in the Chinese pavilion, as much for a little rest as to leave the field to the doctors and not embarrass them. As he walked along the winding gravelled path which led to the pavilion, Thaddeus seemed to himself in the depths of an abyss described by Dante. The unfortunate man had never dreamed that the possibility might arise of becoming Clementine’s husband, and now he had drowned himself in a ditch of mud. His face was convulsed, when he reached the kiosk, with an agony of grief; his head, like Medusa’s, conveyed despair.
“Is he dead?” said Clementine.
“They have given him up; that is, they leave him to nature. Do not go in; they are still there, and Bianchon is changing the dressings.”
“Poor Adam! I ask myself if I have not sometimes pained him,” she said.
“You have made him very happy,” said Thaddeus; “you ought to be easy on that score, for you have shown every indulgence for him.”
“My loss would be irreparable.”
“But, dear, you judged him justly.”