Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/233

Rh to cast him into his grave, he yet contended desperately with the malady in order to accomplish something for his country. “It is strange,” he said sadly on his death-bed, “I no longer know how to read; I cannot read.”

While they were bleeding him, and the fever was increasing, he was thinking of his country, and he said imperiously: “Cure me; my mind is clouding over; I have need of all my faculties to manage important affairs.” During his last moments, when the whole city was in a tumult, and the king stood at his bedside, he said anxiously, “I have many things to say to you, Sire, many things to show you; but I am ill; I cannot, I cannot;” and he was in despair.

His feverish thoughts hovered ever round the State, round the new Italian provinces which had been united with us, round the many things which still remained to be done. While the delirium seized him, “Educate the children!” he exclaimed, between his gasps for breath,—educate the children and the young people—govern with liberty!

His delirium increased; death hovered over him. And with burning words he invoked General Garibaldi, with whom he had had disagreements, and Venice and Rome, which were not yet free: he had vast visions of the future of Italy and of Europe; he dreamed of a foreign invasion; he inquired where the corps of the army were, and the generals; he still trembled for us, for his people. His great sorrow was not, you understand, that he felt that his life was going, but to see himself fleeing his country, which still had need of him, and for which he had, in a few years, worn out the measureless forces of his wonderful constitution. He died with the battle-cry in his throat, and his death was as great as his life.

Now reflect a little, Enrico, what sort of a thing is our