Nevertheless the Lenzdorffs have not left the hotel; but Erika is ill, stricken down by malarial fever, and the old Countess does not leave her bedside.
The attack was sudden,--sudden so far as could be seen by those in daily intercourse with her, but pronounced very gradual by the physician, who maintained that the disease had long been latent in the girl's system.
In the afternoon of the day after that upon which Erika had, as by a miracle, escaped the most terrible peril of her life, she had, by her grandmother's desire, donned a charming gown and had gone with the old Countess to pay a round of farewell visits. She had gone patiently in the gondola from one palazzo to another, and with a pale, calm face had answered question after question as to the terrible catastrophe which her timely presence had been the means of preventing.
There were various versions concerning the reasons for Frau Lozoncyi's attempt at suicide: thanks to the jealousy of Lozoncyi's numerous feminine adorers, none of these versions approached even distantly the truth, for none of his adorers would have admitted that the artist had ever bestowed a serious thought upon Erika.
In the evening she had dressed for dinner, and then, overcome by fatigue, she had lain down upon her bed to rest for a quarter of an hour. She did not rise from it for weeks.
Now the disease has left her. The physician has not only allowed but advised her to leave her bed. Every forenoon at eleven o'clock Marianne and the old Countess dress her,--ah, how tenderly and carefully!--and then, leaning heavily upon her grandmother's arm, she walks slowly about the room.
It is nearly six o'clock. The intense heat has somewhat abated, and Erika is sitting in the most comfortable arm-chair to be had in the hotel, her head resting upon a pillow, her hands in her lap. And what hands they are!--so slender, so white and helpless! To please her grandmother, she has swallowed a few spoonfuls of soup,--without the slightest desire to eat,--as if it had been medicine.
"Are you comfortable, my darling? Shall I not get you another pillow?" her grandmother asks. The old Countess is hardly to be recognized, her treatment of her grand-daughter is so humbly tender, so pathetically anxious. Her force and rigour have vanished: she can only pet and spoil Erika; she cannot incite her to any interest in life.
"Ah, grandmother dear, everything is most comfortable," Erika replies. As if a pillow more or less could procure her ease!
"Shall I read aloud to you, my child?"