Again the dream-scene changes. "A whole fleet floats on the sea. What are the ships laden with? With flour. Now comes a whirlwind, a tornado seizes the ships, carries them into the clouds and tears them into splinters. The flour is all spilled: the whole world is white with it, white is the sea, white the heavens, and white the air. The moon peeps from the clouds, and only look how the wind covers its face with flour!
It looks like some red-nosed old toper who has powdered his face. Laugh then, Noemi!" But she wrung her hands and shuddered. The poor creature was by his bed day and night. By day she sat on a chair at his side; by night she pulled her bed close to his and slept beside him: careless of the infection, she laid her head on Michael"s pillow, pressed his perspiring brow to her cheek, and kissed away the burning fever-breaths from his parched lips.
Frau Therese tried by harmless remedies to reduce the fever, and took out the gla.s.s cas.e.m.e.nts that the fresh air--the best medicine in fever cases--might freely penetrate the little room. She said to Noemi, that by her calculation the crisis would set in on the thirteenth day, when the illness would either take a turn for the better or terminate fatally.
How long Noemi knelt during these days by the sick man"s bed and prayed to G.o.d, who had tried her so heavily, to have mercy on her poor heart!
If only He would give Michael back to life--and then if the grave must have a sacrifice, there was she ready to die in his stead.
Providence delights in what one might call the irony of fate--Noemi offered to cruel death the whole world and her own self, in exchange for Michael"s life. She fancied she had to do with a good fellow who might be bargained with. The destroying angel accepted her challenge.
On the thirteenth day the fever and delirium ceased: the previous nervous excitement gave place to intense exhaustion, which is a symptom of improvement, and permits a hope that with the greatest care the patient may be given back to life, if his mind is kept calm and he is preserved from anxiety or emotion: sick people are so easily excited at this stage of convalescence. His recovery hung on perfect tranquillity; any violent excitement would kill him. Noemi stayed all night by Timar"s sick-bed: she never even went out once to see little Dodi; he slept in the outer room with Frau Therese. On the morning of the fourteenth day, while Michael lay sound asleep, Therese whispered in Noemi"s car, "Little Dodi is very ill." The child now! Poor Noemi! Her little Dodi had the croup, the most dangerous of all childish maladies, against which all the skill of the physician is often powerless.
Mortally terrified, Noemi rushed to her child. The face of the innocent creature was quite changed. It was not crying--this disease has no characteristic cry, but so much the more dreadful is the suffering. How terrible, a child who can not complain, whom men can not help! Noemi looked blankly at her mother as if to ask, "And have you no cure for this?" Therese could hardly bear this look. "So many miserable sick and dying people have been helped by you, and for this one you know of no remedy!"
"None!" Noemi knelt down beside the child"s little bed, pressed her lips on his, and murmured softly, "What is it, my darling, my little one, my angel? Look at me with thy pretty eyes."
But the little one would not lift up the pretty eyes, and when at last, after many kisses and entreaties, it opened the heavy lids, its expression was terrible--the look of a child which has already learned to fear death. "Oh, don"t look so! not so!" The child never cried, but only gave utterance to a hoa.r.s.e cough.
If only the other invalid in there does not hear it! Noemi held her child trembling in her arms, and listened to hear if the sleeper close by was yet awake. When she heard his voice she left the child and went to Michael. He was suffering from great exhaustion, irritable and peevish.
"Where had you gone?" he questioned Noemi. "The window is open; a rat might get in while I was asleep. Don"t you see a rat about?" It is a constant delusion of typhus patients to see rats everywhere.
"They can"t get in, my darling; there is a grating over the window."
"Ah! and where is the cold water?" Noemi gave him some to drink. But he was very angry with it. "That is not fresh cold water, it is quite warm.
Do you want me to die of thirst?"
Noemi bore his crossness patiently. And when Michael fell asleep again, she ran out to Dodi. The two women replaced each other, so that as long as Michael slept, Therese sat by him, and when he awoke she gave Noemi a sign to leave her sick child and take her place by Michael"s bed. And this went on through the long night. Noemi pa.s.sed constantly from one sick-bed to the other, and she had to keep excuses always ready for her husband if he should ask where she had been.
The child grew worse. Therese could do nothing, and Noemi dared not weep for fear of Michael seeing her tearful eyes and asking the reason. The next morning Timar felt easier, and wished for some soup. Noemi hastened out to fetch it, as it was kept ready. The invalid swallowed it, and said he felt the better for it. Noemi seemed delighted at the good news.
"Well, and what is Dodi doing?" asked Michael.
Noemi trembled lest he should see the throbs of her heart at the question.
"He is asleep," she replied, gently.
"Asleep? But why asleep now? He is not ill?"
"Oh, no; he is all right."
"And why do you not bring him to me when he is awake?"
"Because then you are asleep."
"That is true; but when we are both awake together, you must bring him in and let me see him."
"I will do so, Michael."
The child sunk gradually. Noemi had to conceal from Timar that Dodi was ill, and constantly to invent stories about him, for his father constantly asked for him. "Does Dodi play with his little man?"
"Oh, yes, he is always playing with him" ( . . . with that fearful skeleton!).
"Does he talk of me?"
"He loves to talk of you" ( . . . he will do so soon when he is with the good G.o.d).
"Take him this kiss from me;" and Noemi bore to her child the parting kiss of his father.
Another day dawned. The awakening invalid found himself alone in the room. Noemi had watched all night by her child: she had looked on his death-struggle, and pressed her tears back into her heart; why had it not burst? When she went in to Michael she smiled again.
"Were you with Dodi?" asked the sick man.
"Yes, I have been with him."
"Is he asleep now?"
"Yes, he is asleep."
"Not really?"
"Truly, he sleeps well."
Noemi has just closed his eyes--for his last sleep. And she dared not betray her agony. She must show a smiling face. In the afternoon Michael was much excited again: as the day drew on, his nervous irritation increased. He called to Noemi, who was in the next room; she hastened in and looked lovingly at him. The invalid was peevish and suspicious. He noticed that a needle was sticking in Noemi"s dress, with a thread of silk in it.
"Ah, you are beginning to work again! Have you time for that? What finery are you making?"
Noemi looked at him silently, and thought, "I am making Dodi"s shroud;"
and then aloud, "I am making myself a collar."
"Vanity, thy name is woman!" sighed Michael.
Noemi found a smile for him, and answered, "You are quite right."
Again the morning broke. Michael now suffered from sleeplessness; he could not close his eyes. And the thought troubled him as to what Dodi was doing. He sent Noemi out often to see if he wanted anything. And whenever she did so she kissed the little dead child on the bier, and spoke caressing words for Michael to hear: "My little Dodi! my darling sweet, asleep again! Tell mother you love her;" and then she came back to say that Dodi wanted for nothing.
"The boy sleeps too much," said Michael; "why don"t you wake him?"
"I must wake him soon," said Noemi, gently.
Michael dozed a little, only a few minutes, and woke with a start. He did not know he had been asleep. "Noemi," he cried, "Dodi was singing; I heard him: how sweetly he sings!"
Noemi pressed both her hands to her heart, and drove back the outward expression of her agony with superhuman courage. Yes, he is already singing in heaven, amidst the angelic choir--among the innumerable seraphim! that was the song he joined in.
Toward evening Michael sent Noemi out. "Go and put Dodi to bed, and give him a kiss for me."
She did so. "What did Dodi say?" he asked her. Noemi could not speak; she bent over Michael and pressed a kiss on his lips.
"That was his message, the treasure!" cried Michael, and the kiss sent him to sleep. The child sent it to him from his own slumber.