Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-08-09

he had put these together in the breast
pocket of his coat. He looked up at
the Ca Laranigra as he passed it; its
windows were all dark, and the white
:ilies had no light upon them save that
) from the rays of the moon. AS he
entered the lighted hall of the hotel
they handed to him telegram. 1t was
from the Princess Andreis
She had received his dispatch twelve
hours late, as she had been in her sum-
mer palace in the mountains; she had
left Sicily Immediately, and said that
she would travel without pause at the
utmost speed possible. She added:
81 commend my darling to God and
you"
Damer crushed the paper up in his
hand with a nervous gesture and flung
1t out, by the open doorway, into the
water below.
Then he assembled the staircase, and
entered his patients room.
The night was very warm; the win
dows stood wide open; there was n
shaded porcelain lamp on the table.
One nun watched whilst the other slept.
Andreis lay still on the great bed in
the shadow; he was awake, his eyes
were looking upward, his mouth was
open, but his breathing was easier and
less hard. The sister of charity whis-
pered to Damer: Il think he is better
The fungus growth seems loosening.
We have given the wine and the meat
essence. He could swallow"
Damer said nothing He was ab-
sorbed in meditation. The infliction of
death was nothing to him; could be
nothing; he was used to kill as he was
used to torture with profound indiffer-
ence, with no more hesitation than he
ate or drank or fulfilled any natural
function of his body. What was the
man lying sleeping there to him? Only
an organism like those which daily he
broke up and destroyed and threw
aside. Only an organism, filed by mil
lions of other invisible organisms, by q
myriad of parasite animalcul@, numer-
Gus as the star-dust in the skies.
He sat by the window and looked ont
absently at the night.
He knew that the nun was right; he
knew that the disease was passing away
from the sick man; that, if left alone,
sleep and youth would restore him tc
health, to love, and JOY.
Should he leave him alone?
The mother of Andreis could not be
there before another day, travel as
rapidly as she would. HSknew the eff
feet of affection on the nervous system,
and that the sight and sense of a be-
loved person near often gave to en-
feeblcd frames the power of resistance
and recovery. Those emotions were
not in himself, but he recognized their
existence, and he knew that in Andrcis
the emotions and the affections were
very strong in proportion as the mental
powers We're slight
"What thou doest, do quickly" no
murlnurcd in words which he had heard
in his childhood as he had sat in the
old parish church Of his native village,
He rose and walked to the bed.
Andrcis still seemed to sleep, the
breathing was heavy ond forced chiefly
through the nasal passage; but there
was a look of returning serenity on his
! featureS-a look which the man of
science is well aware precedes recovery,
not death. AS surely as anyone can
! gauge the unseen future, he was suro
that If let alone Andreis would re-
cover. He no longer hcsitatcd; he no
! longer doubted. He went to the adj
! iaccnt chamber, where the two nuns.
still dressed, We're sleeping. He
awakened them.
Come" he said gently. "Ac is worse.
/ | nm about to try the cure of BchrinC.
It may succeed. 1t will be necessary
to hold him. l require you both"
| He was well aware that it would be
nnwisc to essay that operation alone
! it would rouse comment in the day to
| come.
''IIold him Inotionless," he said to
| the two women. do not awake him if
/ you can avoid It."
| He filled the inoculnting syringe from
one of the little phials which ne had
brought from the Lattcre. He stood
in the full light of the lamp so that the
two sisters could seo'all that he did.
'Looscn his shirt" he said to them.
4 Andrcis still slept; in his predisposi-
ton to sleep the few drops of choral
had sufficcd to render him almost in
| sensible.
| Damcr bent over him and inserted
the injecting needle into the side of
his throat; the incision disturbed him
without wholly loosening the bonds Of
the soporific; he struggled slightly,
moaned a little, but the nuns sue
cecded in resisting his endeavor to rise.
The face of Damcr in the lannplirht
was not palcr than usual, but his hand
trcmbled as he withdrew the syringe.
What is Behring's curc?" asked the
nun who felt most interest in her pa.
ticnt.
Damer had walked to the window
and stood looking out at the moonlit
water.
"An antitoxin; the serum of an i'm.
rnune beast" he answered, calmly, IS he
turned slightly towards her. The nun
did not understand, but she was afraid
of troubling him with other questions.
He had left ON a table the g..inge
and the phial Of serum which was half
empty. But in the breast pocket of his