Little Dodi happened that day to be full of spirits. In a mischievous mood he caught hold with his little hand of the pipe Michael had in his mouth, and pulled till he got it out of his hold, when he at once threw it on the ground; as it was made of clay, of course it was broken into atoms. Timar was rather hasty in his exercise of justice, and bestowed a little tap on the child's hand as a punishment for the damage done. The boy looked at him, then hid his head in his mother's breast, and began to cry.
"See now," said Noémi, sadly, "you would give him away for a pipe, and this one was only of clay."
Michael was very sorry to have slapped Dodi's hand. He tried to make it up by coaxing words, and kissed the little hand, but the child was shy of him, and crept under Noémi's shawl. All night he was restless, wakeful, and crying. Timar got angry, and said the child was of a willful nature, his obstinacy must be overcome. Noémi cast a gently reproachful glance on him.
The next day Timar left his bed earlier than usual, and went to his work, but he was never heard to sing all day. He left off early in the afternoon, and when he came home he could see by Noémi's face that she was quite alarmed at his appearance. His complexion was quite altered. "I am not well," he said to Noémi, "my head is so heavy, my feet will hardly carry me, and I have pain in all my limbs. I must lie down."
Noémi hastened to make up a bed for him in the inner room, and helped him to undress. With anxiety she noticed that Michael's hands were cold and his breath burning. Frau Therese felt his forehead, and advised him to cover himself well, for he was going to have ague. But Michael had the sensation that something worse was at hand. In this district typhus was raging, for the spring floods had swelled the Danube in an unusual degree, and left malaria behind them. When he laid his head on the pillow he was still sensible enough to think of what would happen if a serious illness attacked him; no doctor was near to help. He might die here, and no one would know what had become of him. What would become of Timéa, and above all, of Noémi? Who would care for the forsaken one, a widow without being a wife? Who would bring up Dodi, and what fate awaited him when he should be grown up, and Michael underground? Two women's lives would be wrecked by his death!
And then he began to think of the revelations of his delirium before the two women who would be with him day and night—of his stewards, his palaces, and of his pale wife—of how he would see Timéa before him, call her by name, and speak of her as his wife—and Noémi knows that name.
Besides his bodily pain, another thing tormented him—that he had struck Dodi yesterday. This trifle lay heavy as a crime on his soul. After he was in bed he wanted the child brought to him that he might kiss it, and whispered "Noémi," with hot breath.
"What is it?" she answered.
But already he know not what he had asked. Directly he was in bed the fever broke out with full force. He was a strong man, and such are the first to succumb to this "aid-de-camp" of death, and suffer the most from it. Thenceforward he wandered continually; and Noémi heard every word he spoke. The sick man knew no one, not even himself. He who spoke through his lips was a stranger—a man who had no secrets, and told all he knew. The visions are akin to the delusions of madness; they turn on one fixed idea, and however the detail may change, the central figure returns ever and again to the surface.
In Timar's wandering there was one of these dominating figures—a woman. Not Timéa, but Noémi—of her he continually spoke. Timéa's name never passed his lips—she did not fill his soul.