Her good husband never left her side, and not a halfhour passed but he asked her a hundred times if she didn`t feel a little better? My good fellow, what use is that? Will your talk not make her worse?
She spoke in gasps. It was easy to see by her speech that the pain was increasing. Alas, poor woman! Death seemed at hand. It would be a blessed release from her agony.
But hark! Who knocks? It must be the Doctor? No.
It was a tailor, bringing a dress. Ha, he comes in good time!
“Is it,” asks the wife with great difficulty, “my funeral dress? Alas,
I will look quite as pale. Had Heaven permitted me to live, I would have ordered a dress like that, of the same kind of material. The tailor would know just how to make it. He made one for my friend. It`s the loveliest dress in the whole world. Last time I called on her she wore it. Ah, how short is life. All is vanity!”
Take courage, grief stricken husband! You hear, do you not, that your wife can at last speak with considerable ease? Don`t lose hope. The breath has not yet left her body.
The tailor left the room, and the husband went out with him, and the two spoke secretly together behind the closed door. The tailor swore mighty oaths, and went off to do what he promised. He returned before evening, and went in to Sulpicia who, still in bed, thanked him heartily for coming.
What did the tailor bring with him?
Selfsame Cloth
He proceeded at once to unroll something that was wrapped in cloth. What a wonderful sight to behold! The selfsame cloth, the rich and marvelous dress! But what was it doing there? Surely the young wife could not hope to wear it?
“My dearest angel,” said her husband, “I would give everything I possess to see you well again and wearing this dress!”
“Oh, I am so ill,” began the wife, “I am not even strong enough to deny you anything. I will get up from this bed, so that you may see this very day how the dress becomes me.”
The screen was brought, and the poor woman, as weak as though she had lain in bed a whole year, got up. After she was completely dressed out in her finery, she sat down and drank coffee. Well at last! There was no trace of any illness.
A dress was what had ailed her, and a dress was the only effective remedy. A tailor had cured what no physician could so much as diagnose.
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