I Was Very Ill Indeed At The Moment When My Dinner Was Served, And
My Soul Sickened At The Sight
Of the food; but I had luckily the
habit of dispensing with the attendance of servants during my meal,
and
As soon as I was left alone I made a melancholy calculation of
the quantity of food which I should have eaten if I had been in my
usual health, and filled my plates accordingly, and gave myself
salt, and so on, as though I were going to dine. I then
transferred the viands to a piece of the omnipresent Times
newspaper, and hid them away in a cupboard, for it was not yet
night, and I dared not throw the food into the street until
darkness came. I did not at all relish this process of fictitious
dining, but at length the cloth was removed, and I gladly reclined
on my divan (I would not lie down) with the "Arabian Nights" in my
hand.
I had a feeling that tea would be a capital thing for me, but I
would not order it until the usual hour. When at last the time
came, I drank deep draughts from the fragrant cup. The effect was
almost instantaneous. A plenteous sweat burst through my skin, and
watered my clothes through and through. I kept myself thickly
covered. The hot tormenting weight which had been loading my brain
was slowly heaved away. The fever was extinguished. I felt a new
buoyancy of spirits, and an unusual activity of mind.
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