“Good God!” I cried, “you are not trying to tell me that I'm going to live?”
“Why, of course I am!” he exclaimed, brutally delighted. “If nothing else kills you, you'll live to be a hundred.”
“Oh, damn!” said I. “Oh, damn! Oh, damn!” and the tears of physical weakness poured down my cheeks.
“Ce sont des droles de gens, les Anglais!” I heard him whisper to the nurse before he left the room.
Belonging to a queer folk or not, I found the prospect more and more dismally appalling according as my mind regained its clarity. It was the most overwhelming, piteous disappointment I have ever experienced in my life. I cursed in my whimpering, invalid fashion.
“But don't you want to get well?” asked the wide-eyed nurse.
“Certainly not! I thought I was dead, and I was very happy. I've been tricked and cheated and fooled,” and I dashed my fist against the counterpane.
“If you go on in this way,” said the nurse, “you will commit suicide.”
“I don't care!” I cried—and then, they tell me, fainted. My temperature also ran up, and I became lightheaded again. It was not until the next day that I recovered my sanity. This time Lola was in the room with the nurse, and after a while the latter left us together. Even Lola could not understand my paralysing dismay.
“But think of it, my dear friend,” she argued, “just think of it. You are saved—saved by a miracle. The doctor says you will be stronger than you have ever been before.”