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A Japanese miscellany - University of Oregon

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In a <strong>Japanese</strong> Hospital 301<br />

Quickly the ends <strong>of</strong> the fractured bone are<br />

brought into place with a clear snap; — ban-<br />

dages and cotton and plaster-<strong>of</strong>-Paris, and yet<br />

more bandages, are rapidly applied by expert<br />

hands ; —<br />

the face and little hands are sponged.<br />

Then the patient, still insensible, is wrapped in a<br />

blanket and taken away. . . . Interval, between<br />

entrance and exit : twelve minutes and a half.<br />

Nothing is commonplace as seen for the first<br />

time; and the really painless details <strong>of</strong> the in-<br />

cident — the stifling <strong>of</strong> the cry, the sudden numb-<br />

ing <strong>of</strong> will, the subsequent pallid calm <strong>of</strong> the little<br />

face — so simulated tragedy as to set imagination<br />

wandering in darksome ways. ... A single<br />

wicked blow would have produced exactly the<br />

same results <strong>of</strong> silence and smiling rest. Count-<br />

less times in the countless ages <strong>of</strong> the past it must<br />

have done so ; —<br />

countless times passion must<br />

have discerned, in the sudden passionless beauty<br />

<strong>of</strong> the stricken, the eternal consequence <strong>of</strong> the<br />

act. . . . Till the heavens be no more they shall<br />

not awake, nor he roused out <strong>of</strong> their sleep.<br />

" Till the heavens be no more" — but after ?<br />

Thereafter — perhaps : yet never again the<br />

same. . . .

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