"Good God, only tell me one thing: do they know of it yet or not?

What if they know it and are only pretending, mocking me while I am

laid up, and then they will come in and tell me that it's been

discovered long ago and that they have only... What am I to do now?

That's what I've forgotten, as though on purpose; forgotten it all

at once, I remembered a minute ago."

He stood in the middle of the room and gazed in miserable

bewilderment about him; he walked to the door, opened it, listened;