by Dino Buzzati
His own state seemed unchanged; though after three days on the fifth floor a patch of eczema appeared on his right leg and showed no signs of clearing up during the following days. The doctor assured him that this was something absolutely independent of the main disease; it could have happened to the healthiest person in the world. Intensive treatment with gamma rays would clear it up in a few days.
“And can’t one have that here?” asked Giovanni Corte.
“Certainly,” replied the doctor, delighted; “we have everything here. There’s only one slight inconvenience . . .”
“What?” asked Giovanni Corte with vague foreboding.
“Inconvenience in a manner of speaking,” the doctor corrected himself. “The fourth floor is the only one with the relevant apparatus and I wouldn’t advise you to go up and down three times a day.”
“So it’s out of the question?”
“It would really be better if you would be good enough to go down to the fourth floor until the eczema has cleared up.”
“That’s enough,” shrieked Giovanni Corte, exasperated. “I’ve had enough of going down! I’d rather die than go down to the fourth floor!”
“As you wish,” said the doctor soothingly, so as not to annoy him, “but as the doctor responsible, I must point out that I forbid you to go up and down three times a day.”
The unfortunate thing was that the eczema, rather than clearing up, began to spread gradually. Giovanni Corte couldn’t rest, he tossed and turned in bed. His anger held out for three days but finally he gave in. Of his own accord, he asked the doctor to arrange for the ray treatment to be carried out, and to move to the floor below.
Here Corte noticed, with private delight, that he really was an exception. The other patients on the floor were certainly much more seriously affected and unable to move from their beds at all. He, on the other hand, could afford the luxury of walking from his bedroom to the room where the rays were, amid the compliments and amazement of the nurses themselves.
He made a point of stressing the extremely special nature of his position to the new doctor. A patient who, basically, should have been on the seventh floor was in fact on the fourth. As soon as his eczema was better, he would be going up again. This time there could be absolutely no excuse. He who could still legitimately have been on the seventh floor!
“On the seventh?” exclaimed the doctor who had just finished examining him, with a smile. “You sick people do exaggerate so! I’d be the first to agree that you should be pleased with your condition; from what I see from your medical chart, it hasn’t changed much for the worse. But—forgive my rather brutal honesty—there’s quite a difference between that and the seventh floor. You’re one of the least worrying cases, I quite agree, but you’re definitely ill.”
“Well, then,” said Giovanni Corte, scarlet in the face, “what floor would you personally put me on?”
“Well, really, it’s not easy to say, I’ve only examined you briefly, for any final judgment I’d have to observe you for at least a week.”
“All right,” insisted Corte, “but you must have some idea.”
To calm him, the doctor pretended to concentrate on the matter for a moment and then, nodding to himself, said slowly, “Oh, dear! Look, to please you, I think after all one might say the sixth. Yes,” he added as if to persuade himself of the rightness of what he was saying, “the sixth would probably be all right.”
The doctor thought that this would please his patient. But an expression of terror spread over Giovanni Corte’s face: he realized that the doctors of the upper floors had deceived him; here was this new doctor, plainly more expert and honest, who in his heart of hearts—it was quite obvious—would place him not on the seventh but on the sixth floor, possibly even the lower fifth! The unexpected disappointment prostrated Corte. That evening his temperature rose appreciably.
His stay on the fourth floor was the most peaceful period he had had since coming to the hospital. The doctor was a delightful person, attentive and pleasant; he often stayed for whole hours to talk about all kinds of things. Giovanni Corte too was delighted to have an opportunity to talk, and drew the conversation around to his normal past life as a lawyer and man of the world. He tried to convince himself that he still belonged to the society of healthy men, that he was still connected with the world of business, that he was really still interested in matters of public import. He tried, but unsuccessfully. The conversation invariably came around, in the end, to the subject of his illness.
The desire for any sign of improvement had become an obsession. Unfortunately, the gamma rays had succeeded in preventing the spread of the eczema but they had not cured it altogether. Giovanni Corte talked about this at length with the doctor every day and tried to appear philosophical, even ironic about it, without ever succeeding.
“Tell me, doctor,” he said one day, “how is the destructive process of the cells coming along?”
“What a frightful expression,” said the doctor reprovingly, “wherever did you come across that? That’s not at all right, particularly for a patient. I never want to hear anything like that again.”
“All right,” objected Corte, “but you still haven’t answered.”
“I’ll answer right away,” replied the doctor pleasantly. “The destructive process of your cells, to use your own horrible expression, is, in your very minor case, absolutely negligible. But obstinate, I must say.”
“Obstinate, you mean chronic?”
“Now, don’t credit me with things I haven’t said. I only said obstinate. Anyhow that’s how it is in minor cases. Even the mildest infections often need long and intensive treatment.”
“But tell me, doctor, when can I expect to see some improvement?”
“When? It’s difficult to say in these cases. . . . But listen,” he added after pausing for thought, “I can see that you’re positively obsessed with the idea of recovery . . . if I weren’t afraid of angering you, do you know what I’d suggest?”
“Please do say . . .”
“Well, I’ll put the situation very clearly. If I had this disease even slightly and were to come to this sanatorium, which is probably the best there is, I would arrange of my own accord, and from the first day—I repeat from the first day—to go down to one of the lower floors. In fact I’d even go to the . . .”
“To the first?” suggested Corte with a forced smile.
“Oh, dear, no!” replied the doctor with a deprecating smile, “oh, dear, no! But to the third or even the second. On the lower floors the treatment is far better, you know, the equipment is more complete, more powerful, the staff are more expert. And then you know who is the real soul of this hospital?”
“Isn’t it Professor Dati?”
“Exactly. It was he who invented the treatment carried out here, he really planned the whole place. Well, Dati, the mastermind, operates, so to speak, between the first and second floors. His driving force radiates from there. But I assure you that it never goes beyond the third floor: further up than that the details of his orders are glossed over, interpreted more slackly; the heart of the hospital is on the lowest floors, and that’s where you must be to have the best treatment.”
“So in short,” said Giovanni Corte, his voice shaking, “so you would advise me . . .”
“And there’s something else,” continued the doctor unperturbed, “and that is that in your case there’s also the eczema to be considered. I agree that it’s quite unimportant, but it is rather irritating, and in the long run it might lower your morale; and you know how important peace of mind is for your recovery. The rays have been only half successful. Now, why? It might have been pure chance, but it might also have been that they weren’t sufficiently intense. Well, on the third floor the apparatus is far more powerful. The chances of curing your eczema would be much greater. And the point is that once the cure is under way, the hardest part is over. Once you really feel better, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t come up
here again, or indeed higher still, according to your ‘deserts,’ to the fifth, the sixth, possibly even the seventh . . .”
“But do you think this will hasten my recovery?”
“I’ve not the slightest doubt it will. I’ve already said what I’d do if I were in your place.”
The doctor talked like this to Giovanni Corte every day. And at last, tired of the inconveniences of the eczema, despite his instinctive reluctance to go down a floor, he decided to take the doctor’s advice and move to the floor below.
He noticed immediately that the third floor was possessed of a special gaiety affecting both doctors and nurses, even though the cases treated on that floor were very serious. He noticed too that this gaiety increased daily; consumed with curiosity, as soon as he got to know the nurse, he asked why on earth they were all so cheerful.
“Oh, didn’t you know?” she replied, “in three days’ time we’re all going on vacation.”
“On vacation?”
“That’s right. The whole floor closes for two weeks and the staff go off and enjoy themselves. Each floor takes it in turn to have a vacation.”
“And what about the patients?”
“There are relatively few of them, so two floors are converted into one.”
“You mean you put the patients of the third and fourth floors together?”
“No, no,” the nurse corrected him, “of the third and second. The patients on this floor will have to go down.”
“Down to the second?” asked Giovanni Corte, suddenly pale as death. “You mean I’ll have to go down to the second?”
“Well, yes. What’s so odd about that? When we come back, in two weeks, you’ll come back here, in this same room. I can’t see anything so terrifying about it.”
But Giovanni Corte—as if forewarned by some strange instinct—was horribly afraid. However, since he could hardly prevent the staff from going on their vacations, and convinced that the new treatment with the stronger rays would do him good—the eczema had almost cleared up—he didn’t dare offer any formal opposition to this new move. But he did insist, despite the nurses’ banter, that the label on the door of his new room should read “Giovanni Corte, third floor, temporary.” Such a thing had never been done before in the whole history of the sanatorium, but the doctors didn’t object, fearing that the prohibition of even such a minor matter might cause a serious shock to a patient as highly strung as Giovanni Corte.
After all, it was simply a question of waiting for fourteen days, neither more nor less. Giovanni Corte began to count them with stubborn eagerness, lying motionless on his bed for hours on end, staring at the furniture, which wasn’t as pleasant and modern here as on the higher floors, but more cumbersome, gloomy and severe. Every now and again he would listen intently, thinking he heard sounds from the floor below, the floor of the dying, the “condemned”—vague sounds of death in action.
Naturally he found all this very dispiriting. His agitation seemed to nourish the disease, his temperature began to rise, the state of continued weakness began to affect him vitally. From the window—which was almost always open, since it was now midsummer—he could no longer see the roofs nor even the houses, but only the green wall of the surrounding trees.
A week later, one afternoon at about two o’clock, his room was suddenly invaded by the head nurse and three nurses, with a trolley. “All ready for the move, then?” asked the head nurse jovially.
“What move?” asked Giovanni Corte weakly. “What’s all this? The third floor staff haven’t come back after a week, have they?”
“Third floor?” repeated the head nurse uncomprehendingly. “My orders are to take you down to the first floor,” and he produced a printed form for removal to the first floor signed by none other than Professor Dati himself.
Giovanni Corte gave vent to his terror, his diabolical rage in long angry shrieks, which resounded throughout the whole floor. “Less noise, please,” begged the nurses, “there are some patients here who are not at all well.” But it would have taken more than that to calm him.
At last the second floor doctor appeared—a most attentive person. After being given the relevant information, he looked at the form and listened to Giovanni Corte’s side of the story. He then turned angrily to the head nurse and told him there had been a mistake, he himself had had no such orders, for some time now the place had been an impossible muddle, he himself knew nothing about what was going on . . . at last, when he had had his say with his inferior, he turned politely to his patient, highly apologetic.
“Unfortunately, however,” he added, “unfortunately Professor Dati left the hospital about an hour ago—he’ll be away for a couple of days. I’m most awfully sorry, but his orders can’t be overlooked. He would be the first to regret it, I assure you . . . an absurd mistake! I fail to understand how it could have happened!”
Giovanni Corte had begun to tremble piteously. He was now completely unable to control himself, overcome with fear like a small child. His slow, desperate sobbing echoed throughout the room.
It was as a result of this execrable mistake, then, that he was removed to his last resting place: he who basically, according to the most stringent medical opinion, was fit for the sixth, if not the seventh floor as far as his illness was concerned! The situation was so grotesque that from time to time Giovanni Corte felt inclined simply to roar with laughter.
Stretched out on his bed, while the afternoon warmth flowed calmly over the city, he would stare at the green of the trees through the window and feel that he had come to a completely unreal world, walled in with sterilized tiles, full of deathly arctic passages and soulless white figures. It even occurred to him that the trees he thought he saw through the window were not real; finally, when he noticed that the leaves never moved, he was certain of it.
Corte was so upset by this idea that he called the nurse and asked for his spectacles, which he didn’t use in bed, being shortsighted; only then was he a little reassured: the lenses proved that they were real leaves and that they were shaken, though very slightly, by the wind.
When the nurse had gone out, he spent half an hour in complete silence. Six floors, six solid barriers, even if only because of a bureaucratic mistake, weighed implacably upon Giovanni Corte. How many years (for obviously it was now a question of years) would it be before he could climb back to the top of that precipice?
But why was the room suddenly going so dark? It was still midafternoon. With a supreme effort, for he felt himself paralyzed by a strange lethargy, Giovanni Corte turned to look at his watch on the locker by his bed. Three thirty. He turned his head the other way and saw that the venetian blinds, in obedience to some mysterious command, were dropping slowly, shutting out the light.
The March of Time
ANTONIO HAD INVITED ME TO DINNER. HARDLY VERY cheerful, the two of us in the great bleak house, in that sumptuous shadowy room, on either side of the long table. But he was so very much alone, and probably hated it.
I could see his kindly, aristocratic face framed between the flickering lights from two silver candlesticks: an absurd affectation, of course, the candlesticks, but certainly very elegant. Calmly, he told me that she was coming back; he was expecting her tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest. Knowing the whole story as I did, I looked at him, relieved; other people’s happiness is always pleasant. A silent waiter removed our soup plates unobtrusively. Another, before I’d noticed, poured out the wine.
“I’ve been working the whole day getting her rooms in order,” said Antonio, “they’ve been empty for two years. I’ll show you afterward . . . you can’t imagine what a difference a woman’s voice makes to this house. . . .” Usually so proud and reserved, he was obviously feeling the need to confide in someone, like a child.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a valet holding a large fish, decorated with mayonnaise, pistachios, herbs and even a sort of trophy of silver and other colored paper which was placed in its mouth. It would have been
enough for ten people. The valet set it on a side table, then the servants crept out noiselessly. We waited for a few moments, talking. A bell sounded from the other end of the great house; Antonio must have pressed an invisible button placed on the floor or under the table. But no one came.
“They’ve left us,” he said at last, smiling, went to the door and called, “Rosa, Rosa!”
“Coming,” replied a voice, and a few moments later a worn-looking little maid appeared, in a white overall. “I’m awfully sorry,” explained Antonio, “but one must move with the times.”
Rather embarrassed, I looked around me. Where were the tapestries? I’d noticed them in their usual places on coming in, with their gloomy ancient warriors, but they were there no longer. “Where are the tapestries?” I asked him. He waved his right hand mildly, resigned and indifferent, as though to say that they were all gone, gone . . .
Meanwhile the young girl, apparently not new to her task, was proving, if anything, too efficient. As soon as we’d finished the fish (which was exquisite) she removed our plates, banging them unceremoniously one on top of the other, and gave us fruit plates. What about the meat course, I wondered, and the savory? I was well acquainted with Antonio’s habits. But he said nothing. In the interim, without my noticing, the girl had removed the silver candlesticks. I looked for them on the surrounding furniture. There was none. It had all disappeared as though by magic.
Then there appeared a small straw basket containing four apples. “They’re not much good,” said Antonio, taking one, “I think this is the least objectionable.” And he passed it to me across the table (across the immense table, which could seat two dozen people).
“Later I’ll show you the samples of the material for the furniture.” Antonio spoke again. “You must help me to choose. You know how hard she is to please. I’d like her to find her room all ready when she comes.”
