"I don't say that in any of these things I find a substitute for reading, but since I can't and mayn't read....
"I am thinking, you know, of the beds down the right-hand side of the ward.
"There's Mr. Wicks, now: he has his back to the road with the trams on it.
"Do you see anything in that?
"I do. But then I have the advantage of you; my position is horizontal.
"Mr. Wicks's position is also ... strictly ... horizontal. It seems to me that if he could see those trams, mark Saturdays and Sundays by the increase of passengers, make little games to himself involving the number of persons to get on and off (for the stopping-place is within view: I know, for I looked) it might be possible to draw him back from that apathy which I too, as well as you, was ceasing to notice.
"Mr. Wicks, Sister, not only has his back to the road with trams on it, but for eleven months he has had his eyes on the yellow stone of the wall of the German ward; that is, when they are not on his own bedrail....
"But if his bed were turned round to range alongside the window...? For he is a man with two eyes; not one who can write upon a stone wall with his thoughts.
"And yet ... it would be impossible! There's not a ward in the hospital whose symmetry is so spoilt.