And let me tell you the master joke of the Arch-Jester.
I am going to live.
I am not going to die. I am going to live. I am quite well.
Think of it. Is it farcical, comical, tragical, or what?
This is how it has befallen. The last thing I remember of the
old conditions was Rogers packing my things, and a sudden, awful,
excruciating agony. I lost consciousness, remained for days in a
bemused, stupefied state, which I felt convinced was death, and found
particularly pleasant. At last I woke to a sense of bodily constriction
and discomfort, and to the queer realisation that what I had taken for
the Garden of Prosperpine was my own bedroom, and that the pale lady
whom I had so confidently assumed was she who, crowned with calm leaves,
"gathers all things mortal with cold, immortal hands" was no other than
a blue-and-white-vested hospital nurse.
"What the----" I began.
"Chut!" she said, flitting noiselessly to my side. "You mustn't talk."
And then she poured something down my throat. I lay back, wondering
what it all meant.
Pages:
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322