Chapter 4 | 45
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o the vomit stains didn’t show very clearly and unlocked the doorand stepped out into the hall. I knew it would be fatal if I looked at Emily Ann or anybody else soI fixed my eyes glassily on a window that swam at the end of the halland put one foot in front of the other. The next thing I had a view of was somebody's shoe. It was a stout shoe of cracked black leather and quite old, withtiny air holes in a scalloped pattern over the toe and a dull polish,and it was pointed at me. It seemed to be placed on a hard greensurface that was hurting my right cheekbone. [kept very still, waiting for a clue that would give me some notionof what to do. A little to the left of the shoe I saw a vague heap ofblue cornflowers on a white ground and this made me want to cry.It was the sleeve of my own bathrobe I was looking at, and my lefthand lay pale as a cod at the end of it. “She’s all right now’ The voice came from a cool, rational region far above my head.For a minute I didn’t think there was anything strange about it, andthen I thought it was strange. It was a man’s voice, and no men wereallowed to be in our hotel at any time of the night or day. “How many others are there?” the voice went on. I listened with interest. The floor seemed wonderfully solid. It wascomforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther. “Eleven, I think,” a woman’s voice answered. | figured she mustbelong to the black shoe. “I think there’s eleven more of ‘um, butone’s missin’ so there’s oney ten.” “Well, you get this one to bed and I'll take care of the rest.” I heard a hollow boomp boomp in my right ear that grew fainterand fainter. Then a door opened in the distance, and there werevoices and groans, and the door shut again. Two hands slid under my armpits and the woman's voice said,“Come, come, lovey, we'll make it yet,’ and I felt myself being halflifted, and slowly the doors began to move by, one by one, until wecame to an open door and went in. The sheet on my bed was folded back, and the woman helped me 46 | The Bell Jar lie down and covered me up to the chin and rested for a minute inthe bedside armchair, fanning herself with one plump, pink hand.She wore gilt-rimmed spectacles and a white nurse’s cap. “Who are you?” I asked in a faint voice. “I’m the hotel nurse” “What's the matter with me?” “Poisoned,” she said briefly. “Poisoned, the whole lot of you. Inever seen anythin’ like it. Sick here, sick there, whatever have youyoung ladies been stuffin’ yourselves with?” “Is everybody else sick too?” I asked with some hope. “The whole of your lot,” she affirmed with relish. “Sick as dogs andcryin’ for ma” The room hovered around me with great gentleness, as if thechairs and the tables and the walls were withholding their weightout of sympathy for my sudden frailty. “The doctor’s given you an injection,” the nurse said from thedoorway. “You'll sleep now.” And the door took her place like a sheet of blank paper, and then alarger sheet of paper took the place of the door, and I drifted towardit and smiled myself to sleep. Somebody was standing by my pillow with a white cup. “Drink this? they said. I shook my head. The pillow crackled like a wad of straw. “Drink this and you'll feel better.” A thick white china cup was lowered under my nose. In the wanlight that might have been evening and might have been dawn Icontemplated the clear amber liquid. Pads of butter floated on thesurface and a faint chickeny aroma fumed up to my nostrils. My eyes moved tentatively to the skirt behind the cup. “Betsy,” Isaid. “Betsy nothing, it’s me’ I raised my eyes then, and saw Doreen’s head silhouetted againstthe paling window, her blonde hair lit at the tips from behind likea halo of gold. Her face was in shadow, so I couldn’t make out herexpression, but I felt a sort of expert tenderness flowing from the
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