Next morning Lizzie woke me and offered me a glassful of dark liquid: “Your medicine” she said and half asleep still, I told her to leave the breakfast tray on the table by my bed and then drained the glass she offered to me. The taste awoke me: the drink had made my whole mouth and throat dry: I sprang out of bed and went to the looking-glass, yes! yes! the pupils of my eyes were unnaturally distended: had she given me the whole draught of belladonna instead of a black draught? I still heard her on the stairs but why waste time in asking her. I went over to the table, poured out cup after cup of tea and drained them: then I ran down to the dining-room where my sister and father were at breakfast. I poured out their tea and drank cups full of it in silence: then I asked my sister to get me mustard and warm water and met my father’s question with a brief explanation and request. “Go to Dr. Richards and tell him to come at once: I’ve drunk the belladonna mixture by mistake; there’s no time to lose.” My father was already out of the house! My sister brought me the mustard and I mixed a strong dose with hot water and took it as an emetic; but it didn’t work. I went upstairs to my bedroom again and put my fingers down my throat over the bath: I retched and retched but nothing came: plainly the stomach was paralysed. My sister came in crying. “I’m afraid there’s no hope, Nita”, I said, “the Doctor told me there was enough to kill a dozen men and I’ve drunk it all fasting; but you’ve always been good and kind to me, dear, and death is nothing.”
She was sobbing terribly, so to give her something to do, I asked her to fetch me a kettle full of hot water; she vanished downstairs to get it and I stood before the glass to make up my accounts with my own soul. I knew now it was the belladonna I had taken, all of it on an empty stomach: no chance; in ten minutes I should be insensible, in a few hours dead: dead! was I afraid? I recognized with pride that I was not one whit afraid or in any doubt. Death is nothing but an eternal sleep, nothing! Yet I wished that I could have had time to prove myself and show what was in me! Was Smith right? Could I indeed have become one of the best heads in the world? Could I have been with the really great ones had I lived? No one could tell now but I made up my mind as at the time of the rattlesnake bite, to do my best to live. All this time I was drinking cold water: now my sister brought the jug of warm water, saying, “It may make you throw up, dear” and I began drinking it in long draughts. Bit by bit I felt it more difficult to think, so I kissed my sister, saying, “I had better get into bed while I can walk, as I’m rather heavy!” And then as I got into bed I said, “I wonder whether I shall be carried out next feet-foremost while they chant the Miserere! Never mind, I’ve had a great draught of life and I’m ready to go if go I must!”
At this moment Dr. Richards came in: “Now how, how in Goodness’ name, man, after our talk and all, how did ye come to take it?” His fussiness and strong Welsh accent made me laugh: “give me the stomach pump, doctor, for I’m full of liquid to the gullet”, I cried. I took the tube and pushed it down, sitting up in bed, and he depressed it; but only a brownish stream came: I had absorbed most of the belladonna. That was nearly my last conscious thought, only in myself I determined to keep thinking as long as I could. I heard the Doctor say: “I’ll give him opium—a large dose”, and I smiled to myself at the thought that the narcotic opium and the stimulant belladonna would alike induce unconsciousness, the one by exciting the heart’s action, the other by slackening it....
Many hours afterwards I awoke: it was night, candles were burning and Dr. Richards was leaning over me: “do you know me?” he asked and at once I answered: “Of course I know you, Richards”, and I went on jubilant to say: “I’m saved: I’ve won through. Had I been going to die, I should never have recovered consciousness.” To my astonishment his brow wrinkled and he said, “drink this and then go to sleep again quietly: it’s all right”, and he held a glass of whitish liquid to my lips. I drained the glass and said joyously: “Milk! how funny you should give me milk; that’s not prescribed in any of your books.” He told me afterwards it was Castor-oil he had given me and I had mistaken it for milk. I somehow felt that my tongue was running away with me even before he laid his hand on my forehead to quiet me saying: “There please! don’t talk, rest! please!” and I pretended to obey him; but couldn’t make out why he shut me up! I could not recall my words either—why?
A dreadful thought shook me suddenly: had I been talking nonsense? My father’s face too appeared to be dreadfully perturbed while I was speaking.
“Could one think sanely and yet talk like a madman? What an appalling fate!” I resolved in that case to use my revolver on myself as soon as I knew that my state was hopeless: that thought gave me peace and I turned at once to compose myself. In a few minutes more I was fast asleep.
The next time I awoke, it was again night and again the Doctor was beside me and my sister: “Do you know me?” he asked again, and again I replied: “Of course I know you and Sis here as well.”
“That’s great”, he cried joyously, “now you’ll soon be well again.”
“Of course I shall”, I cried joyously, “I told you that before: but you seemed hurt; did I wander in my mind?”
“There, there”, he cried, “don’t excite yourself and you’ll soon be well again!”