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.In January, Louisa became ill, suffering a sharp pain inthe side, cough, fever, and dizzyness. She was diagnosedas having pneumonia typhoid and ordered to stay in herroom.For as long as she could, she wrote letters, sewed for her boys and refused to be sent home.But when shebecame much worse and her mind became confused, herfamily was notified.One day she woke out of a mixed-updream to see her father s face looking down at her.For fivemore days she resisted leaving the hospital, hoping torecover and return to her duties.But finally she felt so ill sheagreed to let Bronson take her home.Several of the staff, as well as a number of her patientswho could walk, saw her off.Miss Dix, the nursing super-visor, brought a basket filled with wine, tea, medicine,cologne, a blanket, pillow, fan, and a New Testament for thejourney.Louisa arrived home in a delirium imagining thatthe house had no roof.Shocked by her appearance and con-dition, Abba and May took turns with Bronson in nurs- CH.WT.LMA.C05.q.Final 4/30/09 2:36 PM Page 59NURSE 59ing her.She suffered terrible nightmares and had strangevisions.At times she imagined she was being burnt as awitch or that she was taking care of millions of sick men who never died or got well. The family tried to keep Anna, who was seven monthspregnant, from knowing how sick Louisa was, but Annainsisted on seeing her.She was appalled by Louisa s brown-ish skin, her bloodshot eyes with great hollows under them,her swollen tongue, uncontrollable cough, and herdemented stare.Louisa had been liberally treated with calomel, a mercurycompound.It was a favorite medicine with many doctors inthe nineteenth century and had gained a bad reputation forbeing overused.A popular poem about calomel (whichconsisted of about twelve verses and existed in manyversions) asked this question about doctors:How many patients have they lostHow many thousands they make illOf poison, with their Calomel?She had the symptoms of mercury poisoning, andalthough she stopped having delusions after three weeks andslowly regained her strength, she never recovered the robusthealth she had enjoyed before her hospital experience.Herbeautiful hair, a yard and a half in length, was all cut off,and she wore lace caps to cover her baldness.She felt sad atlosing her one beauty. But, never mind, she wrote in herjournal, a wig outside is better than a loss of wits inside. CH.WT.LMA.C06.q.Final 4/30/09 2:39 PM Page 60Louisa s writing career was starting to become successful, and she used themoney earned from her stories to help her family in repairing Orchard House. CH.WT.LMA.C06.q.Final 4/30/09 2:39 PM Page 616Celebrity People begin to come and stare at the Alcotts.Reportershaunt the place to look at the authoress, who dodges into thewoods.and won t be even a very small lion. Louisa May AlcottON MARCH 28, 1863, Bronson came rushing home fromBoston to announce that Anna and John had a fine boy. Abbacried, May laughed, and Louisa said, I knew it wouldn t be agirl! With the coming of spring Louisa felt born again; every-thing seemed beautiful and new.She enjoyed drives and little61 CH.WT.LMA.C06.q.Final 4/30/09 2:39 PM Page 6262 LOUISA MAY ALCOTTwalks and set to work sewing shirts and gowns for her blessed nephew. When she visited him in Boston later thatmonth, she found him ugly but promising. There was also another piece of good news.A story of hers, Pauline s Passion and Punishment, won a hundred-dollarprize in a contest.It was one of her thriller stories, andalthough she told a friend it wasn t worth reprinting, the moneywas most welcome.The periodical in which it was published,Frank Leslie s Illustrated Newspaper, specialized in murders,bizarre crimes, and gory catastrophes.Louisa instructed Leslieto publish her story under the pen name A.M.Barnard.Andfor the next five years she wrote sensational stories underthat name for Leslie s and other similar periodicals.Bronson had shown Frank Sanborn, the editor of theBoston abolitionist paper The Commonwealth, extracts fromthe letters Louisa had written home, describing her experi-ences in the Union Hospital in Washington.As soon as shewas able to do a little work again, Sanborn urged her toarrange them for publication.Needing money as always forfamily debts, she agreed.Calling herself Nurse Periwinkle,she described the tragedies and the heroism she hadwitnessed, the patience and fortitude of the most seriouslywounded, the jokes and funny happenings that made the daysendurable.She told the stories of her boys : John Sulie, thebig, brave mortally-wounded blacksmith; Sergeant Bain, whowrote love letters to his sweetheart with his left hand becausehis right arm was disabled; the cheerful Irishman who calledher darlin, blessed her for her care, and wished her an aisybed above ; and Billy, the twelve-year-old drummer boy, whomourned for his friend, Kit, who had carried him from thebattlefield to safety and then dropped dead from his wounds.The sketches, which were published in four installmentsin May and June of 1863 in the The Commonwealth,were received with an enthusiasm that overwhelmed Louisa. CH.WT.LMA.C06.q.Final 4/30/09 2:39 PM Page 63CELEBRITY 63People were hungry for war news and eager to know whatmight happen to their fighting sons, brothers, fathers, hus-bands, and sweethearts if they were sent to hospitals.Her sim-ple, frank retelling of life in the hospital satisfied a need toknow, and copies of the paper sold so quickly the publishercouldn t print them fast enough to meet the demand.Requests poured in for more of the same, and Louisaagreed to enlarge the sketches and have them published as abook.Hospital Sketches appeared in August and receivedhigh praise from critics and friends for its vivid writing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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