“NON é possibile!” said Boy, turning his flushed face to the pillow, and away from me.
“But it is arrow-root jelly, dear! Try to eat a little!”
“Non é possibile!” murmured the little fellow, dreamily, and fell into a feverish doze.
We were detained ten days in Milan, waiting for letters and to collect luggage. Coolness was not to be had in the city except in the Cathedral, and among the streams, fountains and trees of the Public Gardens. The older members of the party haunted the former place, exploring every part from the private crypt where Carlo Borromeo lies, like a shriveled black walnut, in his casket of rock crystal, enwrapped in cloth-of-gold; a jeweled mitre upon his head, a cross of emerald and diamonds over his breast;—four million francs represented in sarcophagus and ornaments, while beggars swarm upon the church-steps;—to the ascent “from glory to glory,” of the hundred-pinnacled roof. Boy and his devoted attendant frequented the Gardens—“the Publics,” as he called them, as they had what he had named the “Bobbolos” in Florence. We believed him as safe as happy there.
Yet, when he drooped and sickened within a few days after our arrival at Cadenabbia on Lake Como, we feared lest malaria, the pest of Milan, had lurked in the shaded glens, and on the brink of the ponds where he used to feed the swans. The malady proved to be measles, contracted in Lombardy or from some Cadenabbian playmate. It was an easy matter to quarantine our apartments in the quiet hotel we had chosen because we could be better accommodated, as a family, there, than at the larger one lower down the lake. Three of our rooms on the second-floor were en suite. We removed the patient into the farthest of these, a cool, corner bed-room fronting the water, and the Invaluable had entire charge of it. Happily, the only other children in the house were two baby-girls whose parents were Americans, but now resident in Florence. I went immediately to the mother, with the truth, when the eruption appeared. She was a sensible woman, and a thorough lady.
“My girls must have the disease at some time,” she said. “As well now as later. Do not distress yourself.”
Her husband, as considerate of us and as philosophical for their little ones, added some valuable advice to his reassurances,—counsel I am glad to transmit to others who may require the warning.
“Say nothing to the Padrone of the nature of Boy’s ailment. He will, probably, demand a large sum for the damage done his hotel by the rumor of the infectious disease. That is a favorite ‘dodge.’ Travelers must pay for the luxury of illness in a country where there are fewer appliances for the comfort of invalids than anywhere else in Christendom.”
We thanked him for his friendly caution, and followed his directions so faithfully that, to this day, neither landlord nor domestic suspects the harm they sustained through our residence with them. Boy had the measles, as he does everything, with all his might. He could neither taste nor smell, and the sight of food was odious. The room was shaded to densest twilight while the sun was above the horizon, to spare the weak eyes. The gentlest talk and softest songs were required to calm the unrest of fever. When his mind wandered, as it often did, he would speak nothing but Italian, fancying, generally, that he was talking with the padrone and his wife who had petted him abundantly before his illness. Hence, the “non é possible” that had refused his supper.
Seeing him sink into more quiet sleep than he had enjoyed for several days, I set down the rejected cup; stole to the window and unbolted a shutter. The sunny day was passing away, but the lake was a-glow with its farewell. In the garden, separating the hotel from the shore, was a group of American friends who had arrived from Milan two days before. Three or four girls, looking delightfully cool and home-like in their muslin dresses, sat upon low chairs with their fancy-work. The gentlemen wore loose coats and straw hats. The coziness of content,—the reposefulness expressed in attitude and demeanor, were in just harmony with hour and scene. One was reading aloud, and while I looked, the words formed themselves clearly upon my ear. They had talked at dinner, of “Kismet,” then a new sensation in literary circles. But the tuneful measures delivered by the fine voice of the reader were from no modern novel or other ephemeral page:—