How full of good life is!
I had to wait for Jaffe a few minutes.
A nurse showed me into a small room in which old numbers of magazines lay about.
On the window ledge stood some flowerpots with creepers.
It was always the same magazines in brown wrappers, and always the same dismal creepers; they are only to be found in doctors' waiting rooms and hospitals.
Jaffe came in.
He was wearing a snow-white overall that still showed the creases from the ironing.
But as he sat down facing me I saw on the inside of his right sleeve a little spurt of bright red blood.
I had seen a lot of blood in my time—but this tiny spot suddenly affected me more sickeningly than any number of blood-soaked bandages.
My mood of hopefulness vanished.
"I promised to tell you how things stand with Fraulein Hollmann," said Jaffe.
I nodded and looked at the tablecloth. It had a bright, plush pattern.
I stared at the interlacing hexagons and had the crazy feeling that everything would go all right if only I could hold out and not have to blink before Jaffe resumed speaking.
"She was six months in the sanatorium two years ago.
Did you know that?"
"No," said I, and continued to look at the tablecloth.
"It improved after that.
I have examined her thoroughly now.
She must absolutely go in again this winter.
She can't remain here in the city."
I still gazed at the hexagons.
They swam into one another and started to dance.
"When must she go?" I asked.
"In the autumn.
By the end of October, at the latest."
"It wasn't a passing haemorrhage then?"
"No."
I raised my eyes.
"I don't need to tell you, probably," Jaffe went on, "that it is a quite unpredictable disease.
A year ago it seemed to have stopped, the patch had healed, and it was to be assumed would remain so.
Just as they have now broken out again, so they may unexpectedly come to a halt again.
I'm not merely saying that—it really is so.
I have myself seen many remarkable cures."
"And worsenings, too?"
He looked at me.
"That too, of course."
He started to explain the details.
Both lungs were affected, the right less, the left more so.
Then he broke off and rang for the nurse.
"Bring me my portfolio, please."
The nurse brought it.
Jaffe took out two large photographs. He drew off the crackling envelopes and held them to the window.
"You will see better this way. These are the two X rays."
I saw the vertebrae of a backbone on the transparent, grey plate, the shoulder blades, the collar bones, the sockets of the upper arm and the flat arch of the ribs.
But I saw more than that—I saw a skeleton.
Dark and ghostly it rose up out of the pale, confused shadows of the photograph.
I saw Pat's skeleton.
Pat's skeleton.
With the forceps Jaffe traced out the various lines and colourings on the plate and explained them.
He did not notice that I was no longer looking.