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98 him, hating you possibly, just because you are the nearest creature to him. His gratitude is apt to be a myth. So long as he yet suffers, he does not appreciate what you are doing for him, for why should he thank you while you make him no better? And if you can cure him, what then? Nobody can remember very clearly a very sharp pain once over. Hence he will underrate your services. You can much better appreciate your moderate trouble in helping him than he can afterwards appreciate the very great and agonizing trouble from which you saved him. One forgets in part one’s greatest anguish, one’s most dangerous diseases. The worst troubles are not favorable to clear memory. Above all, however, his memory will be weak for what you did in his case. He will shock you afterwards by having failed to notice that you took any serious trouble in his behalf at all. But, if he was sick and you nursed him, he will remember very well how you harassed him as you nursed him. He will remember a creaking door or an ill-cooked steak, when he forgets your cups of cold water, your sleepless nights, your toil to secure silence when he needed it, your patience when he complained, your sacrifice of all other present aims in life on his account. All that he will forget, not because he is a bad man, but because he is an ordinary creature whom pain debased and corrupted, so that he became hardly a fit companion for an elevated and refined soul like yours. He is only human. If you were an average man yourself, you would treat your friends that aided you in your worst suffering after much the