"She will breathe and see the sunshine," replied the leech; "she will be
grateful to you, and finally she will contribute what she can to the
whole body. She will be alive in short, she will live. For life--feel
it, understand it as I do--life is the best thing we have." Paula gazed
with astonishment in the man's unlovely but enthusiastic face. How
radiantly joyful!

No one could have called it ugly at this moment, or have said that it
lacked charm.

He believed what he had asserted with such fervent feeling, though it was
in contradiction to a view he had held only yesterday and often defended:
that life in itself was misery to all who could not grasp it of their own
strength, and make something of it worth making. At this moment he
really felt that it was the best gift.

Paula went forward, and his eyes followed her, as the gaze of the pious
pilgrim is fixed on the holy image he has travelled to see, over seas and
mountains, with bruised feet.

They went up to the sick girl's bed. The nun drew back, making her own
reflections on the physician's altered mien, and his childlike, beaming
contentment, as he explained to Paula what particular peril threatened
the sufferer, and by what treatment he hoped to save her; how to make the
bandages and give the medicines, and how necessary it was to accept the
poor crazy girl's fancies and treat them as rational ideas so long as the
fever lasted.

At last he was forced to go and attend to other patients. Paula remained
sitting at the head of the bed and gazing at the face of the sufferer.