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"You can’t help She’s beyond help" Ianmoment, and for the first time in Ian’s life, Hart couldn’t look back at him

"Get out," Ian said "I don’t want you here if I have to say good-bye to her"

Hart re for a few moments,’ then turned around and quietly walked from the room

Over the next week, Ian left the bedroo the bell Beth tossed in the bed, her face pink and sweating, groaning when anything touched her side Ian slept on the bed next to her, or on the chair beside it when Beth becaet Ian to sleep in the next room, to let a maid or Katie or himself nurse Beth while he rested, but Ian refused Ian had read every book in Hart’s vast library and plenty of to away every modern view offestering wounds,the patient quiet and fed The doctor brought leeches, which did help with the swelling a little, but Ian didn’t like his oils and oint liquids He wouldn’t let the doctor near Beth with them, which led to the doctor’s loud-voiced complaints to an unsy away any evils that seeped from it He bathed her face in cool water, fed her spoonfuls of broth, forcing them into her when she tried to turn her face away He had Curry bring in ice, which he pressed against the cut to stop the swelling, and used more ice to cool down the water hich he bathed her forehead Ian wished he could h every , but he feared jarring the wound open again He braided her hair to take the heat off her neck, fearing he’d have to cut off her beautiful tresses if the fever didn’t break

The doctor clucked his tongue and proposed experilands and other such wonders He was developing them in conjunction with specialists in Switzerland, and if he could save the sister-in-law of the Duke of Kilan, he said, it would make his name

Ian ran him off with threats of violence

By the sixth day, the fever still had not co hers, and tasted fear He was going to lose her

"Is this what love feels like?" he whispered to her "I don’t like it, my Beth It hurts too much"

Beth didn’t respond Her eyes were cracked open under swollen lids, a blue glitter that saw nothing He hadn’t been able to feed her today

Ian felt sick, his sto, and he had to leave the rooe Her breathing was hoarse and a struggle, her skin painfully hot

She’d coo, and just as suddenly, she was departing it The sense of loss terrified him He’d never felt it before, not even with all the loneliness and fear he’d experienced at the asylum That fear had been self-preservation; this was an e in this dark rooht memories back to him Ian’s perfect recall played them all clearly, little dimmed by the seven years between now and his years at the asylu supervised walks in the garden, where astick followed him about The sheepherder, Ian had always called him, ready to beat patients back indoors if necessary

When other physicians or distinguished guests visited, Dr

Edwards would give grand lectures, while Ian was made to sit on a chair next to the podium Dr Edwards would have Ian learn the name of every member of the audience and recite them back, have him listen to a conversation between two volunteers and repeat it perfectly A blackboard would be brought out, and Ian would solve complex mathematical problems in seconds Doctor Edwards’s trained seal, Ian called hihty resent his brain Notice how he avoids your eyes, which shows declined trust and lack of truthfulness Note how his attention wanders when he is spoken to, how he interrupts with an inappropriate co to do with the topic at It and This is arrogance taken to the point of hysteria--the patient can no longer connect with people he dees, cold baths, exercise, electric shock to sties The treatentlemen He has calmed considerably since he first came to me

If Ian had "calmed," it was because he’d realized that if he suppressed his rages and abrupt speeches, he’d be left alone He’d learned to become an automaton, a clockwork boy that moved and talked in a certain way To violate the pattern h the body, beatings every night When Ian becaain, his tormentors left him alone They at least let him read books and take lessons with a tutor Ian’sput in front of it He ressed froher calculus within a year He read a book every day and could recite huge passages froe in music and learned pieces he heard played, but never how to read music The notes and staffs were so much black-and-white ic, ethics, and philosophy He could mouth the phrases from Aristode, Socrates, Plato, but not understand or interpret them