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A BIOGRAPHY
289
the mild and fragrant air she had left behind in Italy.
The contrast between the Mediterranean and the
northern cold had now become symbolic to her. She began
to hate the cold and darkness as intensely as she loved
sunshine and flowers.
Her journey was also physically more than usually
disagreeable to her. A strange contrariety of fate made
her fail to take the shortest and most convenient route
from Berlin, where she had spent a few days. An
epidemic of smallpox had broken out at Copenhagen, and
as she was mortally afraid of this disease, she would
not risk a single night in that town.
She therefore took the long and troublesome route
across the Danish islands. The never-ending change
of trains in bad weather was very likely one of the
causes of the severe chill which she caught.
At Frederigia, where she arrived låte at night in
pelting rain and storm, she had no Danish coin by her,
and therefore could not hire a porter; so she carried
her luggage herself, dead-tired and frozen as she was,
and so dispirited that she was ready to faint. When
she arrived at Stockholm on the morning of February
4th she felt very ill. Nevertheless she worked the
whole of the next day (Thursday), and gave her
lecture on Friday, February 6th. She was always very
plucky, and never missed a lecture if it were possible
for her to stand. That evening she went to a party
at the Observatoiy. There she began to feel feverish
and went away alone, but could not get a cab.
Unpractical as she always was in such matters, and never
knowing her way about Stockholm, she got into the
wrong omnibus, and in consequence had to go a long
way about on that cold, raw evening. When she
reached home—alone, helpless, trembling with fever,
with mortal sorrow in her heart—she sat down in the
19
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