Page:The elephant man and other reminiscences.djvu/89

Rh knew what was coming. It was to tell me that I wanted rousing and that all I had to do was to get out of myself. He said I was not to think about myself at all, which is very good advice to a person who feels on the point of dissolution. He told my husband afterwards, in strict confidence, that if I was a poor woman and had to work for my living I should be well directly. He went farther and said that what would cure me would be a week at the washing tub—at a laundry, I suppose. My husband imparted these confidences to me as we drove home from the doctor's and said what a shrewd, common-sense man he was. My husband quite liked him.

Another doctor I went to was very sympathetic. He patted my hand and was so kind that he almost made me cry. He said he understood how real and intense my sufferings were. He knew I must have gone through tortures. He gave me a great many particulars as to how I was to live and said I was never to do anything I did not like. I wanted to come and see him again, but he insisted that I must go abroad at once to break with my sad associations and afford my shattered nerves a complete rest. He gave me a letter to a doctor abroad which he said contained a very full and particular account of my case.