But the real invalid, just like the man who enjoys real health, never talks about such matters. It is only to the amateur in disease that they are of the smallest interest. The man who is well never thinks about his health, and certainly never mentions it; to the man who is really ill some divine sense of irresponsibility is given. He brushes it aside, just as one brushes aside any innate inability; with common courage—how lavishly is beautiful gift given to whomever really needs it—he makes the best of other things.
These poignant though obvious reflections are the outcome of what occurred this evening. I sat between two friends at dinner, both of them people in whom one’s heart rejoices. But one of them is obsessed just now with this devil of health-seeking. The other has long ago given up the notion of seeking for health at all, for it is not for her. She faces incurable with gaiety. So I have to record two conversations, the worse first.
‘Oh, I always have ten minutes’ deep-breathing every morning. It is the only way I can get enough air. You have to lie on your back, you know, and stop one nostril with your finger, while you breathe in slowly through the other; and you should do it near an open window. There is no fear of catching cold, or if you do I can send you a wonderful prescription.... Then you breathe out through the other nostril. I wish you would try it; it makes the whole difference. No, thanks, caviare is poison to me!’
‘Well, so is arsenic to me,’ I said. ‘But why say so?’
(It did not sound quite so brusque as it looks when written down, and native modesty prevents my explaining how abjectly patient I had been up till then.)
Then there came the reshifting of conversation, and we started again, with change of partners.
‘I do hope you will come to see us again in August,’ said the quiet, pleasant voice. ‘I shall go up to Scotland at the end of the month. Your beloved river should be in order: there has been heaps of rain.’
But I could not help asking another question.
‘Ah, then they let you go there?’ I said.
She laughed gently.