Agatha Christie The Hollow Chapter I At 6:13 a.m. ... - bzelbublive.info

what a doctor's life is--the self-sacrifice, the dedication of oneself to helping pain andsuffering--the desire to serve others. It's such a noble life--and I'm so proud of theway you give your time and energy and never spare yourself--" ォTサ JohnChristow interrupted her. "Hasn't it ever occurred to you that I like doctoring--that it'sa pleasure, not a sacrifice! Don't you realize that the damned thing'sinteresting!" But, no, he thought, Gerda would never realize a thing like that! If hetold her about Mrs. Crabtree and the Margaret Russell Ward she would only seehim as a kind of angelic helper of the Poor with a capital P. "Drowning in treacle,"he said under hisbreath. "What?" Gerda leaned towards him. He shook his head. If he wereto tell Gerda that he was trying to "find a cure for cancer," she would respond--shecould understand a plain sentimental statement. But she would never understandthe peculiar fascination of the intricacies of Ridgeway's Disease--he doubted if hecould even make her understand what Ridgeway's Disease actually was.(Particularly, he thought with a grin, as we're not really quite sure ourselves! Wedon't really know why the cortex degenerates!)But it occurred to him suddenlythat Terence, child though he was, might be interestedin Ridgeway's Disease. He had liked the way that Terence had eyed him appraisinglybefore stating: "I think Father does mean it . . ." Terence had been out of favourthe last few days for breaking the Cona coffee machine--some nonsense abouttrying to make ammonia . . . Ammonia? Funny kid, why should he want to makeammonia? Interesting in a way . . . Gerda was relieved at John's silence. Shecould cope with driving better if she were not distracted by conversation. Besides, ifJohn was absorbed in thought, he was not so likely to notice that jarring noise of heroccasional forced changes of gear. (She never changed down if she could help it.)There were times, Gerda knew, when shechanged gear quite well (though never with confidence), but it never happened ifJohn f\^7 were in the car. Her nervous determination to do it right this timewas always disastrous, her hand fumbled, she accelerated too much or not enough,and then she pushed the gear lever quickly and clumsily so that it shrieked inprotest. "Stroke it in, Gerda, stroke it in," Henrietta had pleaded once, years ago.Henrietta had demonstrated. "Can't you feel the way it wants to go--it wants toslide in--keep your hand flat till you get the feeling of it-- don't just push itanywhere--feel it." But Gerda had never been able to feel anything about a gearlever. If she was pushingit more or less in the proper direction it ought to go in! Cars ought to be made so thatyou didn't have that horrible grinding noise. On the whole, thought Gerda, as shebegan the ascent of Mersham Hill, this drive wasn't going too badly. John was stillabsorbed in thought--and he hadn't noticed rather a bad crashing of gears inCroydon. Optimistically, as the car gained speed, she changed up into third, andimmediately the car slackened. John, as it were, woke up. "What on earth's the