Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Quartier Latin
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amazing, almost uncanny luck. Already I had learned
to know the structure of the marvellous machinery
which is the human body, the harmonious working
of its cogs and wheels in health, its disorders in
disease and its final breaking-down in death.
Already I had become familiar with most of the
afflictions which chained the sufferers in the wards
to their beds. Already I had learned to handle
the sharp edged weapons of surgery, to fight on
more equal terms the implacable Foe, who, scythe
in hand, wandered His rounds in the wards,
always ready to slay, always at hand any hour of
the day or of the night. In fact He seemed to
have taken up His abode there for good in the
grim old hospital, which for centuries had
sheltered so much suffering and woe. Sometimes
He came rushing through the ward, striking right
and left, young and old, in blind fury like a
madman, throttling one victim with the slow grip of
His hand, and tearing away the bandage from
the gaping wound of another till his last drop of
blood had oozed away. Sometimes He came on
tiptoe, silent and still, closing with an almost
gentle touch of His finger the eyes of another
sufferer, who lay there almost smiling after He
had gone. Often, I who was there to hinder His
approach did not even know He was coming.
Only small children at their mother’s breast knew
of His presence and started in their sleep with a
sharp cry of distress as He passed by. And as
often as not one of the old nuns, who had spent a
lifetime in the wards, saw Him coming just in
time to put a crucifix on the bed. At first, when
He stood there, victorious, on one side of the bed
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