76. At once he embarked on the imperial trireme and put in at Blachernae. Back in the palace, he felt easier and revelled in the change. He talked in a rather provincial dialect,**218 cracking jokes**219 more than was his wont, and kept us until evening with stories of the old times, recalling all the witty sayings of Romanus’s son, the emperor Basil the Great.
77. At sunset he dismissed us and prepared for sleep. For my part, I left the palace full of confidence and buoyed up with fond hopes of the emperor’s recovery. I returned rather early the next morning. Just before I reached the doors someone gave me the most alarming news: the emperor was suffering from a stabbing pain in his side, his respiration was difficult, and the breathing was not very strong. I was astonished at this information.
Quietly entering the bedroom where he lay, I stood there in silence, filled with instant dismay. He looked at me as if he were asking whether he was past hope and on the point of dying, and at once stretched out his hand to me from under the coverlet. Before I put my fingers on his wrist, the chief physician — there is no need to mention his name — interrupted, ‘Don’t test the artery. I have already taken his pulse. It’s irregular. I could detect only half the pulsations. Each alternate beat is very weak. Like the teeth of an iron saw.’
Reminiscent of the movements
78. I myself paid little attention to the fellow, but at every break in the pulsation I carefully watched the movement of the artery. I did not recognize the ‘saw’ pulse, but it was beating rather faintly, not so much reminiscent of the movements of a palsied foot, but rather of one held by chains and trying hard to move. The illness afflicting the emperor had now reached its crisis. Actually most of the others were unaware of this and all of them, or nearly all, were in doubt whether he would survive.
79. From that moment confusion reigned in the palace. The empress**220 — a most remarkable woman, descended from a very noble family, foremost in works of piety — and her daughter**221 by Isaac, herself a beautiful girl, not only at the time when her hair was cut early in her life but even after tonsuration, her simple robes showing off to advantage the warmth of her complexion and the gold-red of her hair, these two women, and the emperor’s brother,**222 and his nephew,**223 formed a circle round his bed, giving him their last messages and shedding tears of farewell.
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