The sight had something inexplicably sinister about it,
and she was terrified and cried out, upon which the woman laid down
her cards and came across the room, shading the candle with her hands.
Coming nearer and nearer across the great space of the room, she stood
at last above Rachel's head and said, "Not asleep? Let me make you
comfortable."
She put down the candle and began to arrange the bedclothes. It struck
Rachel that a woman who sat playing cards in a cavern all night long
would have very cold hands, and she shrunk from the touch of them.
"Why, there's a toe all the way down there!" the woman said, proceeding
to tuck in the bedclothes. Rachel did not realise that the toe was hers.
"You must try and lie still," she proceeded, "because if you lie still
you will be less hot, and if you toss about you will make yourself more
hot, and we don't want you to be any hotter than you are." She stood
looking down upon Rachel for an enormous length of time.
"And the quieter you lie the sooner you will be well," she repeated.
Rachel kept her eyes fixed upon the peaked shadow on the ceiling, and
all her energy was concentrated upon the desire that this shadow should
move. But the shadow and the woman seemed to be eternally fixed above
her. She shut her eyes. When she opened them again several more hours
had passed, but the night still lasted interminably.
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