He ought to have said that before, she had felt it from the beginning, she declared⁠—they had killed her among them. Let us hope she recovered her strength when she went back to her husband.”

“Oh, that’s good, that’s very good! You do tell stories capitally, Herr Settembrini; every word is so plastic. And that story about the girl that went bathing in the lake, the one they gave the ‘silent sister’ to take her temperature with⁠—I have often laughed at it, all by myself. Yes, what strange things do happen. One lives and learns. But my own case is still quite uncertain. The Hofrat is supposed to have discovered a trifling weakness, places where I was infected long ago, I heard them myself when, he tapped me, and some fresh places he can hear now⁠—what a funny word ‘fresh’ is to use in such a connection! But so far there are only the acoustic indications; real diagnostic certainty we shall only arrive at when I am about again, and the X-ray and photography have taken place. Then we shall have positive knowledge.”