I thought it better to let nascent
remorse and nascent admiration work out their own natural effects
unimpeded. For I could see our enemy was beginning to feel some sting
of remorse. Some men are below it. Sebastian thought himself above it. I
felt sure he was mistaken.
Yet even in the midst of these personal preoccupations, I saw that our
great teacher was still, as ever, the pure man of science. He noted
every symptom and every change of the disease with professional
accuracy. He observed his own case, whenever his mind was clear enough,
as impartially as he would have observed any outside patient's. "This is
a rare chance, Cumberledge," he whispered to me once, in an interval of
delirium. "So few Europeans have ever had the complaint, and probably
none who were competent to describe the specific subjective and
psychological symptoms. The delusions one gets as one sinks into the
coma, for example, are of quite a peculiar type--delusions of wealth and
of absolute power, most exhilarating and magnificent. I think myself
a millionaire or a Prime Minister. Be sure you make a note of that--in
case I die. If I recover, of course I can write an exhaustive monograph
on the whole history of the disease in the British Medical Journal.
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