At the end of the room, in the dark jumble of those blind men who look straight before them and the mutes who cough, I only see the nurse, because of her whiteness.
She goes from one shadow to another, and stoops over the motionless.
She is the vestal virgin who, so far as she can, prevents them from going out.
I turn my head on the pillow.

In the bed bracketed with mine on the other side, under the glow which falls from the only surviving lamp, there is a squat manikin in a heavy knitted vest, poultice-color.

From time to time, he sits up in bed, lifts his pointed head towards the ceiling, shakes himself, and grasping and knocking together his spittoon and his physic-glass, he coughs like a lion.

I am so near to him that I feel that hurricane from his flesh pass over my face, and the odor of his inward wound.
* * * * * * I have slept.

I see more clearly than yesterday.