Military life in Italy : sketches - Societa italiana di storia militare

43 MILITARY LIFE.
days when the cholera was raging most fiercely at Terrasini,
where he entered the houses of the poor to offer them assistance
and comfort, and improvised hospitals, gathered nurses
together, and inspired so much confidence by word, deed, and
his perfect serenity, that he left the place entirely changed.
He was always diligent, provident, and charitable, but at the
pillow of the sick, full of divine compassion ! He went every
week to the two military hospitals of Palermo, Sesta Casa, and
Sant 'Agata, visited them thoroughly, asking about and examining
every thing, advising and encouraging the physicians,
nurses, and sick, with the solicitude of a father. The visit of the
fifteenth of August, at the height of the epidemic, is a memorable
one. He went to the hospital with several officers of his
staff. He was waited for at the door of the first ward by the
physicians. At his appearance, the nurses formed two lines
along the beds. Some of the sick, the majority dangerously ill,
turned their face toward the door. The general approached
the first bed ;
all the others formed a semicircle around him ;
at his side was the medical director. The patient was very ill,
his face was cadaverous, his eyes sunken and bloodshot, his lips
black, and his breathing labored and interrupted by heavy
sobs. He was quite out of his head. At the approach
of all
these people, he raised his eyes to the general's face, and kept
them there fixed and motionless without any expression. The
doctor went up to him and asked, as he pointed out Medici :
" Do you know this gentleman "
?
The soldier looked at the doctor without making any sign.
" Do you know him'?" the latter repeated.
Then he seemed to understand the question.
The physician
said in loud tones :