I am at any one's mercy; I have lost thirty friends in a day. The
thirty-first is in bed No. 11.
This is bad: hospital cannot shelter this life we lead, No. 11 and I. He
is a prisoner, and I have my honour, my responsibility towards him; he
has come into this room to be cured, not tormented.
Even my hand must not meet his--no, not even in a careless touch, not
even in its "duty"; or, if it does, what risk!
I am conspired against: it is not I who make his bed, hand him what he
wishes; some accident defeats me every time.
Now that I come to think of it, it seems strange that the Sisters should
be my enemies. Don't we deserve sympathy and pity, No. 11 and I? From
women, too....
Isn't there a charm hanging about us? Aren't we leading magic days? Do
they feel it and dislike it? Why?
I feel that the little love we have created is a hare whose natural fate
is to be run by every hound. But I don't see the reason.
We can't speak, No. 11 and I, only a whispered word or two that seems to
shout itself into every ear. We don't know each other.
Last night it was stronger than I. I let him stand near me and talk. I
saw the youngest Sister at the far end of the ward by the door, but I
didn't move; she was watching. The moment I took my eyes from her I
forgot her.... That is how one feels when one is desperate; that is how
trouble comes.
Later, I stood down by the hatch waiting for the tray of fish, and as I
stood there, the youngest Sister beside me, he came down, for he was up
and dressed yesterday, and offered to carry the tray. For he is
reckless, too....
She told him to go back, and said to me, looking from her young,
condemning eyes, "I suppose he thinks he can make up for being the cause
of all the lateness to-night."
"Sister...." and then I stopped short. I hated her. Were we late? I
looked at the other trays. We were not late; it was untrue. She had said
that because she had had to wrap her barb in something and hadn't the
courage to reprove me officially. I resented that and her air of
equality. Since I am under her authority and agree to it, why dare she
not use it?
As for me, I dared not speak to her all the evening. She would have no
weapons against me. If I am to remember she is my Sister I must hold my
hand over my mouth.
She would not speak to me, either. That was wrong of her: she is in
authority, not I.
It is difficult for her because she is so young; but I have no room for
sympathy.
At moments I forget her position and, burning with resentment, I
reflect, " ... this schoolgirl...."
To-day I walked down to the hospital thinking: "I must be stronger. It
is I who, in the inverted position of things, should be the stronger. He
is being tortured, and he has no release. He cannot even be alone a
moment."
But at the hospital gates I thought of nothing but that I should see
him.
In the bunk sat the eldest Sister, writing in a book. It passed through
my head that the two Sisters had probably "sat" on my affairs together.
I wondered without interest what the other had told her. Putting on my
cap, I walked into the ward.
Surely his bed had had a pink eiderdown!
I walked up the ward and looked at it; but I knew without need of a
second glance what had happened.
His bed was made in the fashion in which we make an empty bed, a bed
that waits for a new patient. His locker was empty and stood open,
already scrubbed. I smiled as I noticed they hadn't even left me that to
do.
No one volunteered a word of explanation, no one took the trouble to say
he had gone.
These women.... I smiled again. Only the comic phrase rang in my head
"They've properly done me in! Properly done me in...."
I went downstairs and fetched the trays, and all the time the smile was
on my lips. These women.... Somehow I had the better of the Sister. It
is better to be in the wrong than in the right.
His friends looked at me a little, but apparently he had left no message
for me.
Later I learnt that he had been taken to another hospital at two, while
I came on at three.
Once during the evening the eldest Sister mentioned vaguely, "So-and-so
has gone."
And I said aloud, after a little reflection, "Yes ... in the nick of
time, Sister."
During the evening I realized that I should never see him again. It was
here in this ward the thing had grown. The hare we had started wouldn't
bear the strain of any other life. He might write, but I shouldn't go
and see him.
"He must be wild," I thought with pity.
The feeling between us would die anyhow; better throw in my strength
with the Sister's and help her hurl it now towards its death. I looked
at her bent head with a secret triumph.