A feeble blush spread over the old man's face as he caught sight of me.
I told him that I happened to be passing by just as he was entering his
house, and that I took the liberty of following him upstairs in order to
bid him good-morning and to give him my new address, in the hope that he
would come and play to me as before. I involuntarily looked round for
the barrel-organ as I spoke, and Don Gaetano, who understood, informed
me that he no longer played the organ--he sang. I glanced at the
precious pile of wood beside the fire-place, at the new blanket that
hung before the window to keep out the draught, at the delicacies on the
newspaper--and I also understood.

The monkey had been ill three weeks--"la febbre," [Footnote: La febbre:
the fever.] explained the old man. We knelt one on each side of the bed,
and the sick animal looked at me with her mute prayer for help. Her nose
was hot, as it is with sick children and dogs, her face wrinkled like
that of an old, old woman, and her eyes had got quite a human
expression. Her breathing was so short, and we could hear how it rattled
in her throat. The diagnosis was not difficult--she had consumption. Now
and again she stretched out her thin arms as if she implored us to help
her, and Don Gaetano thought that she did so because she wished to be
bled. I would willingly have given in in this case, although opposed in
principle to this treatment, if I had thought it possible that any
benefit could have been derived from it; but I knew only too well how
unlikely this was, and I tried my best to make Don Gaetano understand
it. Unhappily I did not know myself what there was to be done. I had at
that time a friend amongst the keepers of the monkey-house in the Jardin
des Plantes, and the same night he came with me to have a look at her;
he said that there was nothing to be done, and that there was no hope.
And he was right. For one week more the fire blazed in Don Gaetano's