‘Yes.’

‘And struck another one and bounced again?’

‘Yes.’

‘And struck another one and bounced yet again?’

‘Yes.’

‘And broke the boulders?’

‘Yes.’

’That accounts for it; she is thinking of the boulders.  Why didn’t you tell her I got hurt, too?’

’I did.  I told her what you told me to tell her:  that you were now but an incoherent series of compound fractures extending from your scalp-lock to your heels, and that the comminuted projections caused you to look like a hat-rack.’

’And it was after this that she wished me to remember that there was nothing the matter with me?’

‘Those were her words.’

’I do not understand it.  I believe she has not diagnosed the case with sufficient care.  Did she look like a person who was theorising, or did she look like one who has fallen off precipices herself and brings to the aid of abstract science the confirmation of personal experience?’

‘Bitte?’

It was too large a contract for the Stubenmadchen’s vocabulary; she couldn’t call the hand.  I allowed the subject to rest there, and asked for something to eat and smoke, and something hot to drink, and a basket to pile my legs in, and another capable person to come and help me curse the time away; but I could not have any of these things.

‘Why?’

‘She said you would need nothing at all.’

‘But I am hungry and thirsty, and in desperate pain.’

’She said you would have these delusions, but must pay no attention to them.  She wants you to particularly remember that there are no such things as hunger and thirst and pain.’

‘She does, does she?’

‘It is what she said.’

’Does she seem o be in full and functional possession of her intellectual plant, such as it is?’

‘Bitte?’

‘Do they let her run at large, or do they tie her up?’

‘Tie her up?’

’There, good-night, run along; you are a good girl, but your mental Geschirr is not arranged for light and airy conversation.  Leave me to my delusions.’

II

It was a night of anguish, of course—­at least I supposed it was, for it had all the symptoms of it—­but it passed at last, and the Christian Scientist came, and I was glad.  She was middle-aged, and large and bony and erect, and had an austere face and a resolute jaw and a Roman beak and was a widow in the third degree, and her name was Fuller.  I was eager to get to business and find relief, but she was distressingly deliberate.  She unpinned and unhooked and uncoupled her upholsteries one by one, abolished the wrinkles with a flirt of her hand and hung the articles up; peeled off her gloves and disposed of them, got a book out of her hand-bag, then drew a chair to the bedside, descended into it without hurry, and I hung out my tongue.  She said, with pity but without passion: