save my father for me, save my
father!"[80] Then she fell back upon the sofa and shed a torrent of
tears.

What though I needed comfort myself, I strove to comfort her affliction,
by promising to go upon the spot to Padua, and by reminding her that my
brother's case might not be so desperate as was supposed.

I shall not describe my hurried journey. At Fusina I ran up against
Count Carlo di Coloredo, who asked me with much sweetness of manner
whether there was anything astir in Venice. I believe that I brutally
said "Nothing," as I jumped into a carriage and departed. The gloomy
anticipation of finding my poor brother a corpse grew upon me with
increasing strength as I approached the walls of Padua, shutting out the
sense of water, earth, trees, animals, and men upon that doleful
journey.

When I arrived, I alighted at my friend Innocenzio Massimo's hospitable
dwelling, and was received, as always, with open arms. Sadness was
written on the faces of all his family. I hardly dared to inquire after
my brother; and when I summoned courage to do so, I was told that he was
yet alive, but in a state which left too little hope.

I repaired at once to his lodgings in the Prato della Valle. There I
found Mme. Jeanne Sarah Cenet, a Frenchwoman of some five-and-fifty
years, mere skin and bones, who was attending unremittingly to the
invalid, half-mad herself with grief and tears and watching. She gave me
a detailed account of my brother's condition. He lay there, a scarcely
breathing corpse, afflicted with continuous fever, incapable of speech,
taking no nourishment, and barely swallowing a few drops of water. The
haemoptysis had ceased, and the expectoration was only tinged with blood.

I asked what doctor was attending him. She replied that there were four.
Without questioning their ability, I was terrified at the number of
them. Then she added that a fifth physician, the celebrated Professor
della Bona, had been called into one consultation. He had suggested
certain remedies, which the other four doctors rejected as frivolities,
and none of them had been employed. "Very well!" said I.

At this point they came to tell me that the invalid, on hearing my
voice from his bedroom, had opened his eyes and spoken these words very
faintly: "My brother Charles!" I went to him and tried to rouse him.
Drowned in his lethargy, he made no answer; but I thought I could detect
upon his face some spark of relief.

One of the four doctor