Chapter 36 Thirty-six

The next week was a nightmare.Stroeve went to the hospital twice a day to inquire about his wife's condition, but Blanche still refused to see him.In the first few days he returned from the hospital feeling more relieved and full of hope, for Blanche seemed to be getting better every day, as they told him; The symptoms did occur, and the patient seemed hopeless.The nurse was very sympathetic to Stroeve, but could find no words of consolation.The patient just lay motionless on the bed, did not say a word, and stared into the air with his eyes, as if he was looking at the approach of death.It looked like the poor woman had but a day or two to live.One evening, very late, Stroeve came to see me.Before he could speak, I knew he was coming to inform me of the patient's death.Stroeve was exhausted physically and mentally.In the past, he always talked to me endlessly, but this day he didn't say a word, and he lay down on my sofa exhausted as soon as he entered the room.I felt that no words of consolation would help, so I simply let him lie there in silence.I wanted to read, but I was afraid he would think me heartless, so I sat by the window and smoked my pipe in silence, till he would speak again.

"You are too kind to me," he said at last, "and there is no one who is not kind to me." "Stop talking nonsense," I said awkwardly. "In the hospital just now they told me I could wait. They brought me a chair and I sat outside the ward. When she was unconscious they told me to come in. Her mouth and chin Both were burned by the acid. It was heartbreaking to see her lovely skin covered in scars. She died so peacefully that I didn't know she was dead until the nurse told me." He was too tired to even cry.He lay on his back limply, as if the strength of his limbs had been exhausted, and he fell into a drowsy sleep after a while.It was the first time in a week that he had fallen asleep on his own without taking sleeping pills.Nature is sometimes cruel and sometimes kind to people.I covered him with a blanket and turned off the light.He was still awake when I woke up the next morning.He didn't even turn over all night, and his gold-rimmed glasses stayed on the bridge of his nose.