I jump up, stumble outside and demand:
"Where is the doctor? Where is the doctor?"
As I catch sight of the white apron I seize hold of it: "Come quick, Franz Kemmerich is dying."
He frees himself and asks an orderly standing by: "Which will that be?"
He says: "Bed 26, amputated thigh."
He sniffs: "How should I know anything about it, I've amputated five legs to-day"; he shoves me away, says to the hospital-orderly "You see to it," and runs off to the operating room.
I tremble with rage as I go along with the orderly. The man looks at me and says: "One operation after another since five o'clock this morning. You know to-day alone there have been sixteen deaths—yours is the seventeenth. There will probably be twenty altogether——"
I become faint, all at once I cannot do any more. I won't revile any more, it is senseless, I could drop down and never rise up again.
We are by Kemmerich's bed. He is dead. The face is still wet from the tears. The eyes are half open and yellow like old horn buttons.
The orderly pokes me in the ribs. "Are you taking his things with you?" I nod.