Fortunately,
I found him at home, and in three words I confessed to him the
object of my visit.
He smiled, and said I might make myself easy; he had told us the
worst.
"And that worst," I said, to make certain, "is, that for the next
six months my husband must allow his eyes to have the most
perfect repose?"
"Exactly," the doctor answered. "Mind, I don't say that he may
not dispense with his green shade, indoors, for an hour or two at
a time, as the inflammation gets subdued. But I do most
positively repeat that he must not _employ_ his eyes. He must not
touch a brush or pencil; he must not think of taking another
likeness, on any consideration whatever, for the next six months.
His persisting in finishing those two portraits, at the time when
his eyes first began to fail, was the real cause of all the bad
symptoms that we have had to combat ever since. I warned him (if
you remember, Mrs. Kerby?) when he first came to practice in our
neighborhood."
"I know you did, sir," I replied. "But what was a poor traveling
portrait-painter like my husband, who lives by taking likenesses
first in one place and then in another, to do? Our bread depended
on his using his eyes, at the very time when you warned him to
let them have a rest."
"Have you no other resources? No money but the money Mr. Kerby
can get by portrait-painting?" asked the doctor.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25