"Then he will live!" cried the girl, and knelt down before the doctor, snatching his hands, and kissing them repeatedly.
"Don't kiss my hand," said he, "it is all over mustard plaster, and will make your mouth swell."
So she kissed his feet, and when he forbade that, also his footprints. Down on the brick floor she went and kissed the muddy footprints with her pretty, rosy lips.
"Now, stand up and talk sense," said the doctor. "Have you brought the coffee? ground and roasted? Right—for that is what he must drink till the doctor comes. It is well you told me what poison the lad took, for now I know the antidote. But as for you, child, make up your mind to vanish from these parts as soon as you like, for what you have done is a crime, which the town doctor will report, and the matter will come before the court and judge. So fly away, where there are no tongues to tell on you."
"I won't fly," said the girl, drying her tears with her apron. "Here is my neck, more I can't offer. If I have done wrong, it is only just that I should suffer for it, but from this spot I won't stir! The groaning I hear through the door binds me faster than if my feet were in fetters. Doctor! sir! for God's sake let me be near to nurse him, to foment his head, smooth his pillows, and wipe the sweat from his brow."
"Indeed! Is that your idea? Why, they would clap me into the madhouse, if I entrusted the nursing of the victim to the poisoner."
A look of unspeakable pain came over the girl's face.
"Does the doctor believe that I am really bad then?" she asked. Glancing round she caught sight of the damnatory root lying on the window-sill, and before he could stop her, had grasped it, and was putting it into her mouth.
"No, no, Klárika," said the doctor, "do not play with that poison. Don't bite it, take it out of your mouth instantly. I would rather allow you to go to the patient, though it is no sight for you, as I tell you beforehand. No tender-hearted person should see such suffering."
"I know; your assistant told me everything. How one cannot recognise him, his face is so changed. Dark blotches instead of healthy red colour, death-like shadow on his forehead, and cold perspiration shining on his cheeks. His eyes are wide open with a glassy stare, his lips seem gummed together, and if he opens them they foam. How he groans, struggles, gnashes his teeth, tosses his arms about, and contorts his back! An agonising sight! But let this be my punishment, to feel his moans and sufferings, like so many sharp knives stabbing my heart. And if I do not actually witness them with my own eyes and ears, I shall still seem to see and hear them as acutely as if I was really present."