DOI article:
Harland, Henry: The bohemian girl
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21805#0027
By Henry Harland 23
He was feverish, and Nina had insisted that he should stop at
home. He would be all right to-morrow. He scoffed at our
Suggestion that he should see a doctor ; he was one of those men
who affect to despise the medical profession. But early on the
following morning a commissionnaire brought me a note from
Nina. “ My father is very much worse. Can you come at
once ? ” He was delirious. Poor Nina, white, with frightened
eyes, moved about like one distracted. We sent off for Dr.
Renoult, we had in a Sister of Charity. Everything that could
be done was done. Till the very end, none of us for a moment
doubted he would recover. It was impossible to conceive that
that strong, affirmative life could be extinguished. And even
after the end had come, the end with its ugly suite of material
circumstances, I don’t think any of us realised what it meant. It
was as if we had been told that one of the forces of Nature had
become inoperative. And Nina, through it all, was like some
pale thing in marble, that breathed and moved : white, dazed,
helpless, with aching, incredulous eyes, suffering everything,
understanding nothing.
When it came to the worst of the dreadful necessary businesses
that followed, some of us, somehow, managed to draw her from
the death-chamber into another room, and to keep her there,
while others of us got it over. It was snowing that afternoon, I
remember, a melancholy, hesitating snowstorm, with large moist
flakes, that fluttered down irresolutely, and presently disintegrated
into rain ; but we had not far to go. Then we returned to Nina,
and for many days and nights we never dared to leave her. You
will guess whether the question of her future, especially of her
immediate future, weighed heavily upon our minds. In the end,
however, it appeared to have solved itself—though I can’t pretend
that the solution was exactly all we could have wished.
Her
He was feverish, and Nina had insisted that he should stop at
home. He would be all right to-morrow. He scoffed at our
Suggestion that he should see a doctor ; he was one of those men
who affect to despise the medical profession. But early on the
following morning a commissionnaire brought me a note from
Nina. “ My father is very much worse. Can you come at
once ? ” He was delirious. Poor Nina, white, with frightened
eyes, moved about like one distracted. We sent off for Dr.
Renoult, we had in a Sister of Charity. Everything that could
be done was done. Till the very end, none of us for a moment
doubted he would recover. It was impossible to conceive that
that strong, affirmative life could be extinguished. And even
after the end had come, the end with its ugly suite of material
circumstances, I don’t think any of us realised what it meant. It
was as if we had been told that one of the forces of Nature had
become inoperative. And Nina, through it all, was like some
pale thing in marble, that breathed and moved : white, dazed,
helpless, with aching, incredulous eyes, suffering everything,
understanding nothing.
When it came to the worst of the dreadful necessary businesses
that followed, some of us, somehow, managed to draw her from
the death-chamber into another room, and to keep her there,
while others of us got it over. It was snowing that afternoon, I
remember, a melancholy, hesitating snowstorm, with large moist
flakes, that fluttered down irresolutely, and presently disintegrated
into rain ; but we had not far to go. Then we returned to Nina,
and for many days and nights we never dared to leave her. You
will guess whether the question of her future, especially of her
immediate future, weighed heavily upon our minds. In the end,
however, it appeared to have solved itself—though I can’t pretend
that the solution was exactly all we could have wished.
Her