A cry of anguish escaped the emperor.
"Yes, you're always so good to me," continued the little prince in his sing-song. "You always give me such nice things. You know, those lovely guns on my last birthday? And that pistol? But mamma's afraid of that!... Are you dying, Othomar? Look, there's blood on your ear.... But when people bleed they die! Are you dying, Othomar? Look, blood on your coat...."
The empress remained sitting straight upright; she glared from Berengar at the bleeding wound of her eldest son....
"Blood, blood, blood!" sang Berengar. "Othomar is dying! Yes, he always gives me so many nice things, does Othomar. I have so many already, many more than all the other children of Liparia put together! And what am I to have now?... Still more?... That nice thing: what is it? I can feel it: it's so heavy; but I can't see it...."
The doctor had come from the anteroom and approached with the poultices.
"I can't see it!... I can't see it!..." the boy sang out, painfully and faintly.
When the doctor applied the poultices, Berengar struggled, began to cry, as though a great sorrow was springing up in his little heart:
"I can't see it!" he sobbed. "I shall never see it!..."
A violent paroxysm succeeded the sobbing: he struck out wildly with his arms, pulled off the poultices, threw the ice off his head, stood up mad-eyed in his bed, flung away the sheets.... Othomar rose, the empress also. The emperor sat in a chair, his face covered with his hands, and sobbed by Princess Thera's side. The doctors approached the bed, endeavoured to calm Berengar, but he struck them: the fever mounted into his little brain in madness.
At this moment Professor Barzia entered: he was not staying in the palace; he had been sent for at his hotel.