'The Sacramentistes are cloistered; they can't call men into the convent,' said the servant, pursing her lips. 'It is someone who got ill in the convent parlour, not belonging to the convent....'
'I will come,' Amati said quickly.
He pushed the servant into the carriage, got in and shut the door. The carriage rolled along the Anticaglia road, which is so dark, muddy, and wretched from old age; and they did not say a word to each other in the short drive. The carriage stopped before the convent gate; instead of ringing the bell, the servant opened the door with a key. The doctor and she first crossed an icy court overlooked by a number of windows with green jalousies, then a corridor with pillars along the court; complete solitude and silence was everywhere. They went into a vast room on the ground-floor. Along the white-washed walls were straw chairs, nothing else; at the end a big table, with a seat for the porter lay Sister. A crucifix was nailed on one wall. Along the other were two narrow gratings with a wheel in the middle, to speak through and pass things to the nuns. Near this wall, on three chairs, a woman's form was stretched out; another woman was kneeling and bending over her face. Before the doctor got as far as the woman lying down, the servant went up to the grating and spoke: 'Praise to the Holy Sacrament——'
'Now and for ever,' a very feeble voice answered from inside, as if it came out of a deep cave.
'Is the doctor here?'
'Yes, Sister Maria.'
'That is well;' and a long, feverish sigh was heard.
In the meantime Dr. Amati had gone up to the fainting girl. Margherita was bathing her forehead with a handkerchief steeped in vinegar, and whispering: 'My darling! my darling!'
The doctor put his hat on the ground, and knelt down too, to examine the fainting girl. He felt her pulse, and gently raised one eyelid; the eye was glassy.
'How long has she been like this?' he asked in a whisper, rubbing her icy hands.