“Dear me! Really!”
“I have rushes of heat to the face: look, there’s a constant trembling in my eyelid.”
“Capital! We call that a trismus.”
The doctor goes into an explanation, which lasts a quarter of an hour, of the trismus, employing the most scientific terms. From this it appears that the trismus is the trismus: but he observes with the greatest modesty that if science knows that the trismus is the trismus, it is entirely ignorant of the cause of this nervous affection, which comes and goes, appears and disappears—“and,” he adds, “we have decided that it is altogether nervous.”
“Is it very dangerous?” asks Caroline, anxiously.
“Not at all. How do you lie at night?”
“Doubled up in a heap.”
“Good. On which side?”
“The left.”
“Very well. How many mattresses are there on your bed?”