Maschenka had not quite understood the words, but Nikolas sought by a glance the eyes of his mother, and raised her hand to his lips.
It was evening of the same day, in Natalie's pretty apartment on the Piazza di Spagna, opposite the church of Trinità dei Monti, and the sick woman, relieved of her constricting and heavy street-clothes, lay, in a white, lace-trimmed wrapper, on a lounge. Mother and son were alone. He had read her a couple of verses from Musset, which she particularly loved--les souvenirs--but it had become dark during the reading; he laid the book away. For a while they were both quiet, silently happy in each other's presence, as very nearly related people when they are together after a long separation; but then Nikolas laid his hand on that of his mother and said, softly: "Little mother--do you know that it was really papa who sent me to you?"
The hand of the mother trembles, and softly draws itself out from under the son's. Nikolas is silent. But what was that? After a while his mother's hand voluntarily stole back into his, and the young man continued: "Yes, papa sent me here, so that I might accurately report to him how you are. You really cannot imagine how he always asks after you, worries about you."
The hand of the poor woman trembles in that of her son, like an aspen leaf. After a pause, quite as if he had waited so that his words might sink warmly and deeply into her heart, he continues: "Father commissioned me to bring before you a request from him--namely, whether you would not permit him to visit you?"
Again Natalie drew her hand away from her son, but more hastily than the first time. Her breath comes quickly and pantingly, for a few moments she remains silent, then she says slowly, wearily: "No! it must not be; tell him all love and kindness from me, and that I think only with emotion of the great consideration which he always shows me, but it must not be--it is better so!"
After she had made this decision, which had a sad and intimidating effect upon the inexperienced boy, she remained for the rest of the evening taciturn and with that, out of temper and irritable, as one had never formerly seen her.
In the night she had one of her fearful attacks; the doctor must be sent for. When the horrible oppression of breath and shuddering had subsided, as usual, she fell into a condition of pale, cold numbness, which resembled a deep swoon.
Nikolas, who had watched by the sick one, accompanied the physician without. He begged him, in the name of his father, to tell him the truth about the condition of the sufferer. The physician told him that her condition was very serious, and a recovery absolutely out of the question. It might last a few weeks still, perhaps only a few days.
When Nikolas, with difficulty restraining his tears, came up to his mother's bed, she lay exactly in the same position as when he left the room; still, something about her had changed. Her eyes were closed, but around her beautiful mouth trembled a smile whose happy loveliness he never forgot.
After a while she looked up and said in a quite weak voice: "Perhaps only a few days"--she had heard the doctor's speech. After a pause, she added: "Write your father--write--he must hurry--only a few more days!"