The Pobratim Part 75

"Anyhow, it is a good sign when the patient asks if he can get up, except in consumption," added the physician, taking his leave. "If you keep very quiet, and lie perfectly still, without tossing about and fretting, you'll be able to get up in a few days."

Milena pressed her lips, but did not say anything in reply; only, after a little time:

"Do I look very ill?"

"No, not so very ill, either."

"Give me that looking-gla.s.s," she added.

The midwife hesitated.

"Is that the way you are going to lie still and get well; you must know that yesterday you were very ill."

"I know; but please hand me the looking-gla.s.s."

The midwife did as she was bid. Milena took up the gla.s.s and looked at herself scrutinisingly, just like an actor who has made up his face.

"I am very much altered, am I not?"

"Oh, but it'll be all over in one or two days! Wait till to-morrow, and----"

"But to-day I think people would hardly recognise me?"

"Oh, it is not quite as bad as that! besides----"

Milena opened her eyes questioningly, and looked at the midwife.

"I care very little whether I am good-looking or not; whom have I to live for now?"

"Come, you must not give up in that way. You are but a child, and have seen but little happiness up to now; you are rich, free, handsome; you'll soon find a husband, only don't talk, take a cup of this good broth, and try to go to sleep."

"Very well, but I know you are busy, so go home and send me your daughter; she can attend upon me; besides, _gospa_ Markovic will soon be here."

The midwife hesitated.

"Go," said Milena; "I'll feel quieter if you go."

"But you must promise me to keep very quiet, and not to attempt, on any account, to get up."

"Certainly," said Milena; "the doctor said I was not to rise; why should I disobey him? Besides, where have I to go?"

The midwife, after having tucked her patient carefully in bed and made her as cosy as she could, went off, saying that her daughter would soon come to her.

Milena, with anxious eyes and a beating heart, watched the midwife, and, at last, saw her go away and close the door after her. She waited for some time to see that she did not return; then she gathered up all her strength, and tried to rise.

It was, however, a far more difficult task than she had expected, for she fancied that she had fallen from the top of a high mountain into a chasm beneath, and that every bone in her body had been broken to splinters. If she had been crushed under horses' hoofs, she could not have felt a greater soreness all over her body. Still, rise she would, and she managed to crawl slowly out of her bed.

Her legs, at first, could hardly hold her up; the nerves and muscles had lost all their strength, she fancied the bones had got limp; her back, especially, seemed to be gnawed by hungry dogs.

Having managed to get over her first fit of faintness, she, holding on to the bed and against the wall, succeeded in dragging herself towards the table and dropped into a chair.

She sat there for a while, making every effort to overcome her faintness, but she felt so sick, so giddy, and in such pain, that her head sank down on the table of its own weight, and she burst out crying from sheer exhaustion.

When she had somewhat recovered, she slowly undid her long tresses, and her luxuriant hair fell in waves down to the ground. She shook her head slightly, as if to disentangle the wavy ma.s.s, plunged her fingers through the locks to separate them, and felt them lovingly, uttering a deep sigh of regret as she did so; then after a moment's pause, she shrugged her shoulders, took up a pair of scissors, and, without more ado, she clipped the long tresses as close to her head as she possibly could, carefully placing each one on the table as she cut it off. Then she felt her head, which seemed so small, so cold, and so naked; she took up a mirror with a trembling hand and quivering lips pulled down at each corner. After she had seen her own reflection in the gla.s.s, she burst into tears. She had hardly put down the mirror, when Frana, the midwife's daughter, came in.

The young girl, seeing Milena, whom she had expected to find in bed, sitting on the chair with all her hair clipped off, remained rooted to the spot where she was standing.

"Milena, dear, is it you?"

"Yes," replied Milena, mournfully.

"But why did you get up? and why have you cut off your beautiful hair?" asked the midwife's daughter, scared.

"My hair burdened my head; I could not bear the weight any more; besides----"

The young girl looked at Milena, wondering whether she were in her right senses, or if the grief of having lost her husband and her child had not driven her to distraction.

"Besides what, Milena?"

"Well, I am not for long in this world, you know!"

"Do not say such foolish things; and let me help you back to bed."

Milena shook her head, and fixing her large and luminous deep blue eyes on the young girl, she said, wistfully:

"Listen, Frana. Uros is dying, perhaps he is dead! I must see him once more. I must go to him, even if I have to die on the way thither!"

"What! go to the Convent of St. George?"

Milena nodded a.s.sent.

"But what are you thinking about? How can you, in your state, think of going there?"

"I must, even if I should have to crawl on all-fours!"

"But if you got there, if I carried you there, they would never let you go in; you know women----"

"Yes, they will; that's why I've cut off my hair."

"I don't understand."

"I'll dress up as a boy; you'll come with me; you'll say I'm your brother, and Uros' friend. You'll do that for me, Frana?"

And Milena lifted up her pleading eyes, which now seemed larger than ever and lighted up with an inward ethereal fire.

The young girl seemed to be hypnotised by those entreating eyes.

"But where will you find the clothes you want?"