But the recovery was very slow, with many relapses and with periods of mental disorder. The original purpose was held to as long as it seemed possible, but at last, as summer passed into autumn and autumn into winter, it was plain that all plans of travel must be abandoned. Mr. Field made them a flying visit, then both Mr. and Mrs. Field came to Madrid to be with them and give them help and comfort. Their friends Señor and Señora de Riaño were most attentive, and Mr. Dwight Reed, Lowell’s secretary, had been almost indispensable. “I should have gone quite desperate without him,” Lowell writes; and again, 18 October: “Reed has been a great help. He comes every day to dinner and distracts me a little with rumors from the outer world. He is a thoroughly kind-hearted and affectionate fellow. But I can’t tell you what the loneliness of my night has sometimes been, when I have heard the clock strike every hour and every quarter till daylight came again to bring the certainty that she was no better.”
It was not till the end of December that Lowell could speak and write of his wife with anything like relief from the burden of anxiety. During this time he took long walks with his friend Mr. Field, and attended to his necessary work at the legation. His spirits began to rise, but the strain he had been undergoing had been intense. Later, when the critical condition was over, though relapses still occurred, he could rehearse something of his experience: “I have had a very long and very terrible trial, which the strange country and alien tongue have made worse, and these ups and downs almost desperate. And yet without the intervals of reason and hopeful convalescence from time to time, I know not how I could have endured it. Indeed I cannot now comprehend how I pulled through. Friendship has helped us, it is true. During the first weeks Doña Emilia de Riaño (Gayangos’s daughter) came every night to watch with Fanny, and her husband, Don Juan, came to see me every day. And my secretary, a most true-hearted, affectionate fellow, sat up with me night after night when I could not sleep, and kept me from eating into myself all the time. Otherwise I was without even an acquaintance, for everybody leaves Madrid during the summer. Lately the dear Fields have been a great prop.