The second visit I but dimly recollect.  There was a colloquy between the Doctor and my hostess, and the word cataplasma sounded repeatedly; also I heard again “dosi forti.”  The night that followed was perhaps the most horrible I ever passed.  Crushed with a sense of uttermost fatigue, I could get no rest.  From time to time a sort of doze crept upon me, and I said to myself, “Now I shall sleep”; but on the very edge of slumber, at the moment when I was falling into oblivion, a hand seemed to pluck me back into consciousness.  In the same instant there gleamed before my eyes a little circle of fire, which blazed and expanded into immensity, until its many-coloured glare beat upon my brain and thrilled me with torture.  No sooner was the intolerable light extinguished than I burst into a cold sweat; an icy river poured about me; I shook, and my teeth chattered, and so for some minutes I lay in anguish, until the heat of fever re-asserted itself, and I began once more to toss and roll.  A score of times was this torment repeated.  The sense of personal agency forbidding me to sleep grew so strong that I waited in angry dread for that shock which aroused me; I felt myself haunted by a malevolent power, and rebelled against its cruelty.

Through the night no one visited me.  At eight in the morning a knock sounded at the door, and there entered the waiter, carrying a tray with my ordinary breakfast.  “The Signore is not well?” he remarked, standing to gaze at me.  I replied that I was not quite well; would he give me the milk, and remove from my sight as quickly as possible all the other things on the tray.  A glimpse of butter in its cheese-rind had given me an unpleasant sensation.  The goat’s milk I swallowed thankfully, and, glad of the daylight, lay somewhat more at my ease awaiting Dr. Sculco.

He arrived about half-past nine, and was agreeably surprised to find me no worse.  But the way in which his directions had been carried out did not altogether please him.  He called the landlady, and soundly rated her.  This scene was interesting, it had a fine flavour of the Middle Ages.  The Doctor addressed mine hostess of the Concordia as “thou,” and with magnificent disdain refused to hear her excuses; she, the stout, noisy woman, who ruled her own underlings with contemptuous rigour, was all subservience before this social superior, and whined to him for pardon.  “What water is this?” asked Dr. Sculco, sternly, taking up the corked jar that stood on the floor.  The hostess replied that it was drinking water, purchased with good money.  Thereupon he poured out a little, held it up to the light, and remarked in a matter-of-fact tone, “I don’t believe you.”