And all the silver-blue visions would steal over him again, to be pierced briefly by the arrival of the wizened doctor.
“It is he who keeps me here!” Fernet would say to himself. “If it were not for him I could fly away—forever. Well, presently even he will lose his power.”
One day a strange man stood at his bedside. Minetti was there also, and the old fraud of a doctor. The strange man drew back the covers and put his ear to Fernet’s fluttering heart and went through other tiresome matters.... Finally he smoothed back the covers again, and as he did so he shook his head. He spoke softly, but Fernet heard him distinctly.
“It is too late.... You should have called me sooner. He wishes to die.... There is nothing to be done.”
“Yes, yes—it happens this way very often in nervous cases.”
“I have done my best. I have given him food and drink. I have even starved him. But nothing seemed to do any good.”
“No,” said the stranger; “it is his mind. He has made up his mind that.... You can do nothing with a man when....”
Fernet closed his eyes.
“A man! They think I am a man. What stupidity! Can they not see that I am a bird?... They have gone out. He is locking the door again.... I can hear the keys jingle.... Well, let him lock the door if it gives him any pleasure. The window is open and to-night....”
The footsteps of the departing visitors died away. A chuckling sound came to André Fernet and the thump of ecstatic fists brought down upon a bare table-top. The voice of Flavio Minetti was quivering triumphantly like the hot whisper of a desert wind through the room: