It isn't, but I am glad it seems so to him.
The boy is at his worst. Whenever we come near him he lifts his eyes and asks, "What are you going to do now?"
But to whatever we do he submits with a terrible docility.
Lying there propped on his pillow, with his small yellow face staring down the ward, he is all the centre of my thoughts; I am preoccupied with the mystery that is in his lungs.
Five days ago he was walking on his legs: five days, and he is on the edge of the world—to-night looking over the edge.
There is no shell, no mark, no tear.... The attack comes from within.
The others in the ward are like phantoms.
When I say to-morrow, "How is the boy?" what will they say?
The sun on the cobwebs lights them as it lights the telephone-wires above. The cocks scream from every garden.