However, in a few minutes peace was restored, and the Doctor prescribed anew.  After he had talked about quinine and cataplasms, he asked me whether I had any appetite.  A vision of the dining-room came before me, and I shook my head.  “Still,” he urged, “it would be well to eat something.”  And, turning to the hostess, “He had better have a beefsteak and a glass of Marsala.”  The look of amazement with which I heard this caught the Doctor’s eye.  “Don’t you like bistecca?” he inquired.  I suggested that, for one in a very high fever, with a good deal of lung congestion, beefsteak seemed a trifle solid, and Marsala somewhat heating.  “Oh!” cried he, “but we must keep the machine going.”  And thereupon he took his genial leave.

I had some fear that my hostess might visit upon me her resentment of the Doctor’s reproaches; but nothing of the kind.  When we were alone, she sat down by me, and asked what I should really like to eat.  If I did not care for a beefsteak of veal, could I eat a beefsteak of mutton?  It was not the first time that such a choice had been offered me, for, in the South, bistecca commonly means a slice of meat done on the grill or in the oven.  Never have I sat down to a bistecca which was fit for man’s consumption, and, of course, at the Concordia it would be rather worse than anywhere else.  I persuaded the good woman to supply me with a little broth.  Then I lay looking at the patch of cloudy sky which showed above the houses opposite, and wondering whether I should have a second fearsome night.  I wondered, too, how long it would be before I could quit Cotrone.  The delay here was particularly unfortunate, as my letters were addressed to Catanzaro, the next stopping-place, and among them I expected papers which would need prompt attention.  The thought of trying to get my correspondence forwarded to Cotrone was too disturbing; it would have involved an enormous amount of trouble, and I could not have felt the least assurance that things would arrive safely.  So I worried through the hours of daylight, and worried still more when, at nightfall, the fever returned upon me as badly as ever.

Dr. Sculco had paid his evening visit, and the first horror of ineffectual drowsing had passed over me, when my door was flung violently open, and in rushed a man (plainly of the commercial species), hat on head and bag in hand.  I perceived that the diligenza had just arrived, and that travellers were seizing upon their bedrooms.  The invader, aware of his mistake, discharged a volley of apologies, and rushed out again.  Five minutes later the door again banged open, and there entered a tall lad with an armful of newspapers; after regarding me curiously, he asked whether I wanted a paper.  I took one with the hope of reading it next morning.  Then he began conversation.  I had the fever?  Ah! everybody had fever at Cotrone.  He himself would be laid up with it in a day or two.  If I liked, he would look in with a paper each evening—­till fever prevented him.  When I accepted this suggestion, he smiled encouragingly, cried “Speriamo!” and clumped out of the room.