"Look out, Lelio, you'll catch the fever. That woman in the box will give you the _jettatura_."[6] I had been a firm believer in the _jettatura_ during the greater part of my life. I no longer believed in it; but the love of the marvellous, which is not easily dislodged from an Italian head, especially that of a child of the people, had led me to indulge in most extravagant reflections on the subject of animal magnetism. It was the period when charming fancies of that sort were blooming luxuriantly all over the world; Hoffmann was writing his _Tales_, and magnetism was the mysterious pivot upon which all the hopes of the _illuminati_ turned. Whether because that foible had taken such complete possession of me that it controlled my actions, or because it took me by surprise at a moment when I was not in the best of health, I began to shiver from head to foot, and I nearly fainted when I returned to the stage. That wretched weakness finally gave place to wrath, and as I walked toward the box in question with La Checchina--the _seconda donna_ who had mentioned the evil eye--I said to her, indicating my fair enemy, but in a tone too low to be overheard by the audience, these words paraphrased from one of our finest tragedies: "_Bella e stupida._" The signora flushed to the roots of her hair with anger. She started to rouse Prince Grimani, who was sleeping with all his heart; but she suddenly stopped, as if she had changed her mind, and kept her eyes fixed upon me as before, but with a vindictive, threatening expression which seemed to say: "You shall repent of that." Count Nasi accosted me as I left the theatre after the performance. "Lelio," said he, "you are in love with the Grimani." "Am I bewitched, in God's name," I cried, "and why is it that I cannot rid myself of that apparition?" "You won't rid yourself of it for a long time either, poor boy," said Checchina, with a half-artless, half-mocking air; "that Grimani is the devil. Wait a moment," she added, taking my arm, "I know something about fever, and I will wager--_Corpo della Madonna_!"--she cried, turning pale, "you have a terrible attack of fever, my poor Lelio!" "One always has the fever when one acts and sings in a way to give it to others," said the count; "come to supper with me, Lelio." I declined; I was ill, in very truth. During the night I had a violent fever, and the next day I could not leave my bed. Checchina installed herself at my bedside and did not leave me all the time that I was ill.