Читать книгу The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus - David Price Williams - Страница 48

an attempt to warm him up and our maid Irene called for a doctor who gave my father a sleeping draught. After that he fell into a fitful sleep and we took it in turns to sit with him through the night. At first his breathing was fairly regular but as dawn broke it became laboured.

When he eventually opened his eyes he looked so piteous in the winter light slanting through the window and he clearly had a fever. He was racked with spasmodic bouts of coughing which caused him to convulse with pain and these fits had worsened by the afternoon. The doctor looked in again in the early evening and stayed with him for some time. When he came out to Irene and me waiting in the next room his face looked grave.

“I’m afraid your father is not at all well Nicholas,” he intoned. “He’s quite a grand age and his constitution has been getting steadily weaker as the years have gone by. He took a very nasty knock yesterday; I fear he’s broken some ribs. He has blood in his spittle from what I suspect is internal bleeding. There’s not much I can do except alleviate the pain and I’ve given him another strong sleeping draught. I think you should prepare yourself for the worst.”

Alas he was all too right. Irene and I watched my father go downhill over the next couple of days, slowly losing consciousness in what was a spreading infection. So it was on

THE JOURNEY