Page:The elephant man and other reminiscences.djvu/82

70 is more annoyed than if he had the headache himself, which seems to me irrational. He is often very sarcastic about my symptoms, and this makes me worse. Once or twice he has been sympathetic and I have felt better, but he says that sympathy will do me harm and cause me to give way more. I suppose he knows because he is always so certain. He says all I have to do is to cheer up, to rouse myself, to pull myself together. He slaps himself on the chest and, in a voice that makes my head crack, says, "Look at me! I am not nervous, why should you be?" I don't know why I am nervous and so I never try to answer the question. From the way my husband talks I feel that he must regard me as an impostor. If we have a few friends to dinner he is sure to say something about "the deplorable flabbiness of the minds of some women." I know he is addressing himself to me and so do the others, but I can only smile and feel uncomfortable.

I have no wish to be nervous. It is miserable enough, heaven knows. I would give worlds to be free of all my miseries and be quite sound again. If I wished to adopt a complaint I should choose one less hideously distressing than "nerves." I have often thought I would sooner be blind than nervous, and that then my husband