A dull, dumb
anguish lay behind him, already half effaced; and the words of a psalm
familiar at school and college ran idly through his mind: "My soul hath
escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler."
"Where am I?" Not in a hospital. Hospital ceilings are not adorned with
wreaths and festoons in raised stucco, or with medallion groups of winged
children playing with torches, or bows and arrows.
"I have a gem like that one," he thought, sleepily.
"A genius with a torch."
Then for a long time he was only vaguely conscious of more light than
usual in the room--of an open window somewhere--of rustling leaves
outside--and of a chaffinch singing....
Another couple of days passed, and he began to question the kind woman
whom he had come to regard as a sort of strong, protective force between
him and anguish, without any desire to give it a name, or realize an
individual. But now he saw that he had been nursed by hands as refined as
they were skilful, and he dimly perceived that he owed his life mainly to
the wholly impersonal yet absorbed devotion of two women--gentle,
firm-faced, women--who had fought death for him and won. Just a
professional service for a professional fee; yet his debt was
measureless. These are the things, he feebly understood, that women do
for men; and what had been mere hearsay to his strong manhood had become
experience.
Actually a ray of sunshine had been allowed to penetrate the shaded room.
He watched it enchanted.
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