"One of the best rooms," he said before the operation, speaking as though he shouldered the responsibility of the further expense. "And a room for her near by," he added. "Everything for them! Everything!"
So there he was now, the lad, or what there was left of him, this quiet Sunday, in a pleasant room opposite the cathedral. The air was like early summer. The windows were open. He lay on his back, not seeing anything. The skin of his forehead had been torn off; there was a bandage over his eyes. And there were bruises on his body and bruises on his face, which was horribly disfigured. The lips were swollen two or three thicknesses; it was agony for him to speak. When he realized what had happened, after the operation, his first mumbled words to her were:
"They will never have me now."
About the middle of the forenoon of this still Sunday morning, when the doctor left, she followed him into the hall as usual, and questioned him as usual with her eyes. He encouraged her and encouraged himself:
"I believe he is going to get well. He has the will to get well, he has the bravery to get well. He is brave about it; he is as brave as he can be."
"Of course he is brave," she said scornfully. "Of course he is brave."
"The love of such a mother would call him back to life," he added, and he laid one of his hands on her head for a moment.
"Don't do that," she said, as though the least tenderness toward herself at such a moment would unnerve her, melt away all her fortitude.
Everybody had said he was brave, the head nurse, the day nurse, the night nurse, the woman who brought in the meals, the woman who scrubbed the floor. All this had kept her up. If anybody paid any kind of tribute to him, realized in any way what he was, this was life to her.