第77章 AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION(1)
The illness from which Maurice had suffered left him in a state of profound prostration.The doctor,who remembered the extreme danger of any overexertion in such cases,hardly allowed him to lift his head from the pillow.But his mind was gradually recovering its balance,and he was able to hold some conversation with those about him.His faithful Paolo had grown so thin in waiting upon him and watching with him that the village children had to take a second look at his face when they passed him to make sure that it was indeed their old friend and no other.But as his master advanced towards convalescence and the doctor assured him that he was going in all probability to get well,Paolo's face began to recover something of its old look and expression,and once more his pockets filled themselves with comfits for his little circle of worshipping three and four year old followers.
How is Mr.Kirkwood?"was the question with which he was always greeted.In the worst periods of the fever be rarely left his master.When he did,and the question was put to him,he would shake his head sadly,sometimes without a word,sometimes with tears and sobs and faltering words,--more like a brokenhearted child than a stalwart man as he was,such a man as soldiers are made of in the great Continental armies.
"He very bad,--he no eat nothing,--he--no say nothing,--he never be no better,"and all his Southern nature betrayed itself in a passionate burst of lamentation.But now that he began to feel easy about his master,his ready optimism declared itself no less transparently.
"He better every day now.He get well in few weeks,sure.You see him on hoss in little while."The kind-hearted creature's life was bound up in that of his "master,"as he loved to call him,in sovereign disregard of the comments of the natives,who held themselves too high for any such recognition of another as their better.They could not understand how he,so much their superior in bodily presence,in air and manner,could speak of the man who employed him in any other way than as "Kirkwood,"without even demeaning himself so far as to prefix a "Mr."to it.But "my master"Maurice remained for Paolo in spite of the fact that all men are born free and equal.And never was a servant more devoted to a master than was Paolo to Maurice during the days of doubt and danger.
Since his improvement Maurice insisted upon his leaving his chamber and getting out of the house,so as to breathe the fresh air of which he was in so much need.It worried him to see his servant returning after too short an absence.The attendant who had helped him in the care of the patient was within call,and Paolo was almost driven out of the house by the urgency of his master's command that he should take plenty of exercise in the open air.
Notwithstanding the fact of Maurice's improved condition,although the force of the disease had spent itself,the state of weakness to which he had been reduced was a cause of some anxiety,and required great precautions to be taken.He lay in bed,wasted,enfeebled to such a degree that he had to be cared for very much as a child is tended.Gradually his voice was coming back to him,so that he could hold some conversation,as was before mentioned,with those about him.The doctor waited for the right moment to make mention of the manuscript which Maurice had submitted to him.Up to this time,although it had been alluded to and the doctor had told him of the intense interest with which he had read it,he had never ventured to make it the subject of any long talk,such as would be liable to fatigue his patient.But now he thought the time had come.