him. It seemed to him that it was stifling him and weighing him down. And for that he hated them.
They gave him a big dose of opium; he sank into unconsciousness; but at dinnertime the same thing began again. He drove them all away, and tossed from side to side.
His wife came to him and said, “Jean, darling, do this for my sake” (for my sake?). “It can’t do harm, and it often does good. Why, it’s nothing. And often in health people—”
He opened his eyes wide.
“What? Take the sacrament? What for? No. Besides …”
She began to cry.
“Yes, my dear? I’ll send for our priest, he’s so nice.”
“All right, very well,” he said.
When the priest came and confessed him he was softened, felt as it were a relief from his doubts, and consequently from his sufferings, and there came a moment of hope. He began once more thinking of the intestinal appendix and the possibility of curing it. He took the sacrament with tears in his eyes.
When they laid him down again after the sacrament for a minute, he felt comfortable, and again the hope of life sprang up. He began to think about the operation which had been suggested to him. “To live, I want to live,” he said to himself. His wife came in to congratulate him; she uttered the customary words and added—
“It’s quite true, isn’t it, that you’re better?”
Without looking at her, he said, “Yes.”