So I Worried Through The Hours Of Daylight, And
Worried Still More When, At Nightfall, The Fever Returned Upon Me As
Badly As Ever.
Dr. Sculco had paid his evening visit, and the first horror of
ineffectual drowsing had passed over me, when my door was flung
violently open, and in rushed a man (plainly of the commercial
species), hat on head and bag in hand.
I perceived that the
diligenza had just arrived, and that travellers were seizing upon
their bedrooms. The invader, aware of his mistake, discharged a
volley of apologies, and rushed out again. Five minutes later the
door again banged open, and there entered a tall lad with an armful
of newspapers; after regarding me curiously, he asked whether I
wanted a paper. I took one with the hope of reading it next morning.
Then he began conversation. I had the fever? Ah! everybody had fever
at Cotrone. He himself would be laid up with it in a day or two. If
I liked, he would look in with a paper each evening - till fever
prevented him. When I accepted this suggestion, he smiled
encouragingly, cried "Speriamo!" and clumped out of the room.
I had as little sleep as on the night before, but my suffering was
mitigated in a very strange way. After I had put out the candle, I
tormented myself for a long time with the thought that I should
never see La Colonna. As soon as I could rise from bed, I must flee
Cotrone, and think myself fortunate in escaping alive; but to turn
my back on the Lacinian promontory, leaving the cape unvisited, the
ruin of the temple unseen, seemed to me a miserable necessity which
I should lament as long as I lived.
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