"That is what you heard at his bedside?" I said.
"Literally and exactly what I heard," he answered--"except that the
repetitions are not transferred here from my short-hand notes. He
reiterated certain words and phrases a dozen times over, fifty times
over, just as he attached more or less importance to the idea which they
represented. The repetitions, in this sense, were of some assistance
to me in putting together those fragments. Don't suppose," he added,
pointing to the second sheet of paper, "that I claim to have reproduced
the expressions which Mr. Candy himself would have used if he had been
capable of speaking connectedly. I only say that I have penetrated
through the obstacle of the disconnected expression, to the thought
which was underlying it connectedly all the time. Judge for yourself."
I turned to the second sheet of paper, which I now knew to be the key to
the first.
Once more, Mr. Candy's wanderings appeared, copied in black ink; the
intervals between the phrases being filled up by Ezra Jennings in
red ink. I reproduce the result here, in one plain form; the original
language and the interpretation of it coming close enough together in
these pages to be easily compared and verified.
"... Mr. Franklin Blake is clever and agreeable, but he wants taking
down a peg when he talks of medicine. He confesses that he has been
suffering from want of sleep at night. I tell him that his nerves are
out of order, and that he ought to take medicine. He tells me that
taking medicine and groping in the dark mean one and the same thing.
This before all the company at the dinner-table. I say to him, you are
groping after sleep, and nothing but medicine can help you to find it.
He says to me, I have heard of the blind leading the blind, and now I
know what it means. Witty--but I can give him a night's rest in spite of
his teeth. He really wants sleep; and Lady Verinder's medicine chest is
at my disposal. Give him five-and-twenty minims of laudanum to-night,
without his knowing it; and then call to-morrow morning. 'Well, Mr.
Blake, will you try a little medicine to-day? You will never sleep
without it.'--'There you are out, Mr. Candy: I have had an excellent
night's rest without it.' Then, come down on him with the truth! 'You
have had something besides an excellent night's rest; you had a dose
of laudanum, sir, before you went to bed. What do you say to the art of
medicine, now?'"