Matilde Serao - The Land of Cockayne

'Sir—please, sir!' she called out in a crying voice, seeing the doctor was going on without troubling himself about her.

'What do you want? Who are you?' the doctor asked roughly, without looking at her.

'I am Annarella, Carmela's sister—you saved her life,' said Gaetano the glove-cutter's wretched wife.

'Your sister in the morning, and now you!' the doctor impatiently exclaimed.

'Not for me, sir—not for me,' the gambler's wife said in a low tone. 'I can die. I don't signify. I do so little in the world I can't even find bread for my children.'

'Get out of the way—get out of the way.'

'It is for this little creature, for my sick son, sir;' and she bent to kiss the little slumberer's forehead. 'I don't know what is the matter, but he falls off every day, and I don't know what to give him. Cure him for me, sir.'

The doctor leant over the little invalid, with its pretty, delicate, pallid face, purple eyelids, hardly perceptible breathing, and lips slightly apart; he touched its forehead and hands, then looked at the mother.

'You give it milk?' he asked shortly.

'Yes, sir,' said she, with a slight smile of motherly content.

'How many months old is he?'

'Eighteen months.'

'And you still suckle him? You are all the same, you Naples women. Wean him at once.'

'Oh, sir!' she exclaimed, quite alarmed.

'Wean him,' he repeated.

'What am I to give him?' she said, almost sobbing. 'I often want bread for myself and the other two, but never milk. Must this poor little soul die of hunger too?'

'Does your husband not work?' asked the doctor ponderingly.

'Yes, sir, he does work,' she said, shaking her head.

'Does he keep another woman?'

'No, sir.'

'What does he do, then?'

'He plays at the lottery.'

'I understand. Wean the child. He has fever. Your milk poisons him.'

After gazing at the doctor and her child, she just said 'Jesus' in a whisper, and a sob burst out from her motherly breast.

Amati wrote out a prescription in pencil on a leaf of his pocket-book. He went down the stairs, followed by Annarella, whose tears fell over the child's face, her dull sobs following him in lamentation.

'This is the prescription; here are five francs to get it with,' said the doctor, motioning to her not to thank him.

She looked at him with stupefied eyes while he crossed the big cold hospital court to his carriage; she began to cry again when she was alone; gazing on the baby, the prescription in her hand shook—it was so bitter for her to think of having poisoned her son with her milk.

'It must be cholera,' she kept saying to herself, for among Naples common folk stomach disorders are often called cholera.

Dr. Amati shook his head again energetically, as if he had lost confidence altogether in the saving of humanity. As he was opening the carriage door to get in, a woman who had been chattering with the hospital porter came up to speak to him. It was a woman in black, with a nun's shawl, and black silk kerchief on her head, tied under the chin. She had coal-black eyes in a pale face—eyes used to the shade and silence. She spoke very low.

'Sir, would you come with me to do an urgent kindness?'

'I am busy,' the doctor grumbled, getting into his carriage.

'The person is very, very ill.'

'All the people I have to see are ill.'

'She is near here, sir, in the Sacramentiste convent. I was sent to the hospital to find a doctor. I can't go back without one ... she is so very ill....'

'Dr. Caramanna is still up there—ask for him,' Amati retorted. 'Is it a nun that is ill?' he then added.

'The Sacramentistes are cloistered; they can't call men into the convent,' said the servant, pursing her lips. 'It is someone who got ill in the convent parlour, not belonging to the convent....'

'I will come,' Amati said quickly.

He pushed the servant into the carriage, got in and shut the door. The carriage rolled along the Anticaglia road, which is so dark, muddy, and wretched from old age; and they did not say a word to each other in the short drive. The carriage stopped before the convent gate; instead of ringing the bell, the servant opened the door with a key. The doctor and she first crossed an icy court overlooked by a number of windows with green jalousies, then a corridor with pillars along the court; complete solitude and silence was everywhere. They went into a vast room on the ground-floor. Along the white-washed walls were straw chairs, nothing else; at the end a big table, with a seat for the porter lay Sister. A crucifix was nailed on one wall. Along the other were two narrow gratings with a wheel in the middle, to speak through and pass things to the nuns. Near this wall, on three chairs, a woman's form was stretched out; another woman was kneeling and bending over her face. Before the doctor got as far as the woman lying down, the servant went up to the grating and spoke: 'Praise to the Holy Sacrament——'

'Now and for ever,' a very feeble voice answered from inside, as if it came out of a deep cave.

'Is the doctor here?'

'Yes, Sister Maria.'

'That is well;' and a long, feverish sigh was heard.

In the meantime Dr. Amati had gone up to the fainting girl. Margherita was bathing her forehead with a handkerchief steeped in vinegar, and whispering: 'My darling! my darling!'

The doctor put his hat on the ground, and knelt down too, to examine the fainting girl. He felt her pulse, and gently raised one eyelid; the eye was glassy.

'How long has she been like this?' he asked in a whisper, rubbing her icy hands.

'Half an hour,' the old woman replied.

'What have you done for her?'

'Nothing but use the vinegar. They gave it to me through the wheel; they have nothing else; it is a convent under strict rules.'

'Does she often faint?'

'Last night ... she had another swoon. I found her on the ground in her room. I called my master.'

'Did she recover of herself ... last night?'

'Yes.'

'Had she got a fright?'

'I don't know ... I don't think so,' she said in a hesitating way.

They were speaking in a whisper, whilst the servant stood right at the grating, as if mounting guard.

'Is she better?' the feeble voice inside asked.

'Just the same,' replied the servant in a monotonous voice.

'Oh God!' the voice called out in anguish.

Meanwhile the doctor bent down to hear the breathing better. He seemed thoughtful and preoccupied. Margherita looked at him with despairing eyes.

'Did she get a fright, half an hour ago, in here?' he began again to ask, whilst he carefully raised Bianca's head and placed it against his breast.

'No! ... certainly not!' Margherita whispered. 'I was in church. I did not hear what was said; they called to me.'

'Who is that nun?' he asked, pointing to the grating.

'It is Sister Maria degli Angioli—the aunt.'

Then he got up and went to the grating. The serving Sister pursed up her lips to remind him of the cloistral rule, almost as if she wanted to prevent any conversation between him and the nun.

'Sister Maria——' he said very gently.

'Now and for ever,' the feeble voice said hurriedly, hearing a man's voice.

'Has your niece had a fright?'

Silence on the other side.

'Did she tell you of anything disagreeable that had happened to her?'

'Yes, yes!' the voice breathed out, trembling.

'Can you tell me what it was about?'

'No, no!' she went on quickly, still trembling. 'Something very sad ... I can't tell you.'

'Very well—thank you,' he whispered, getting up again.

'How is she? Are you giving her anything?' the Sister's voice asked.

'We are going to take her to the house. Nothing can be done here.'

'We are poor nuns,' the Sister murmured. 'How will you carry her?'