Page:The elephant man and other reminiscences.djvu/100

88 a beating sound in my ears and the drop recurring like the ticking of some awful clock.

I must have become unconscious for I cannot remember the nurse entering the room. When I realized once more where I was I found that the bedclothes had been changed. There was still the round red mark on the ceiling but it was now dry.

As soon as I could speak I asked, "Is she dead?" The nurse answered "No." "Will she live?" "Yes, I hope she will, but it has been a fearful business. The operation lasted two and a quarter hours, and when the great blood vessel gave way they thought it was all over." "Was she frightened?" I asked. "No; she walked into the room, erect and smiling, and said in a jesting voice, 'I hope I have not kept you waiting, gentlemen, as I know you cannot begin without me.'"

In a week I returned home cured. My "nerves" were gone. It was absurd to say that I could not walk in the street when that brave woman had walked, smiling, into that place of gags and steel. When I thought of the trouble I had made about going to the play I recalled what had passed in that upper room. I began to think less of my "case" when I thought of hers.

The doctor was extremely pleased with my