"Go ahead," said Dodo, "I hope it's not crashingly difficult."
"Not a bit. Supposing I told you to get up at once and go back to your work, do you feel that you would be able to get through a couple of hours of it? On oath."
Dodo thought over this, trying to imagine herself active. It was difficult to imagine anything, for she seemed incapable of picturing herself otherwise than lying in bed. Even then everything was dream-like; Dr. Ashe did not seem like a real person, and Jack, dream-like also, had merely melted away. She was only conscious, with a sense of reality, of an enormous lassitude and languor unlike anything she had previously experienced. Even the burden of answering a perfectly simple question was heavy. Every limb seemed weighted with lead, but the bulk of the lead had been reserved for her brain. She had to make an effort in order to answer at all.
"I'm not sure," she said, "because I feel so odd. But I think that if you told me to stand up I should fall down. I can't be certain; that's only what I think. What's the matter with me?"
A dream-like voice answered her.
"You've got what you asked for," it said. "You wouldn't take a holiday when you could, and now you've got to. You're just broken down."
This sounded so alarming that Dodo had to make a joke.
"I'm not going to break up, am I?" she asked.
"Of course you're not. Not a chance of it."