d by me all the previous night, and for aught
I knew, for many before, and had worked hard, been run off her legs, as
English servants would say, all day long, should come and take up her
care of me again; and it was with a feeling of relief that I saw her
head bend forwards, and finally rest on her arms, which had fallen on
the white piece of sewing spread before her on the table. She slept; and
I slept. When I wakened dawn was stealing into the room, and making pale
the lamplight. Thekla was standing by the stove, where she had been
preparing the bouillon I should require on wakening. But she did not
notice my half-open eyes, although her face was turned towards the bed.
She was reading a letter slowly, as if its words were familiar to her,
yet as though she were trying afresh to extract some fuller or some
different meaning from their construction. She folded it up softly and
slowly, and replaced it in her pocket with the quiet movement habitual
to her. Then she looked before her, not at me, but at vacancy filled up
by memories; and as the enchanter brought up the scenes and people
which she saw, but I could not, her eyes filled with tears--tears that
gathered almost imperceptibly to herself as it would seem--for when one
large drop fell on her hands (held slightly together before her as she
stood) she started a little, and brushed her eyes with the back of her
hand, and then came towards the bed to see if I was awake. If I had not
witnessed her previous emotion, I could never have guessed that she had
any hidden sorrow or pain from her manner; tranquil, self-restrained as
usual. The thought of this letter haunted me, especially as more than
once I, wakeful or watchful during the ensuing nights, either saw it in
her hands, or suspected that she had been recurring to it from noticing
the same sorrowful, dreamy look upon her face when she thought herself
unobserved. Most likely every one has noticed how inconsistently out of
proportion some ideas become when one is shut up in any place without
change of scene or thought. I really grew quite irritated about this
letter. If I did not see it, I suspected it lay _perdu_ in her pocket.
What was in it? Of course it was a love-letter; but if so, what was
going wrong in the course of her love? I became like a spoilt child in
my recovery; every one whom I saw for the time being was thinking only of
me, so it was perhaps no wonder that I became my sole object of thought;
and at la