Some Facts about Her [pp. 278-285]

SOMIE 74 C7'S ABOUT' HER.
Who was this phantom of my brain, or
was it a real assailant? Could it have
been Death with whom I wrestled in
that silent, deadly and unwitnessed
struggle? Alone, on the frozen river,
was it the natural instinct which supported me in a battle where the implacable Angel sought to bereave the halflifeless clay of its immortal tenant?
Who can tell?
I was badly frozen. By the application
of friction to the injured parts, the frost
was gradually extracted from all but the
right hand, which resisted every effort.
A fortnight after, mortification commenced to creep over the black and
swollen surface, and an amputation became necessary.
Thanks to the improvidence of my
employers, the station only boasted an
incomplete medicine chest, and the
amputating tools were recruited from a
carpenter's box.
Convalescence was not the least of
my troubles, and for a long time I lay
completely helpless in a bunk, the sides
of which were coated with hoar-frost
and admitted the wind, and at times
even the fine snow found its way through
the numerous crevices; not the smallest
item of discomfort being coarse and improper diet. It soon became apparent
that-from want of proper instruments,
or surgical instruments of any kindthe amputation had been performed in
an incomplete manner, and another and
more skillful one became necessary.
At Honolulu this was ably performed;
but the already-mutilated and almost
lifeless remainder of the unfortunate
hand dangling at my side will be a lasting and mournful memento of my night
on the Steppes.
SOME FACTS ABOUT HER.
HEN I was twenty-one years
old, I was a student in Philadelphia. I had labored tediously through
half of my allotted term at College.
With a strong love for art, my father's
preference and imperative orders had
forced me to adopt his own profession,
that of medicine, utterly against my
own inclination. As a matter of course,
I had few acquaintances and fewer
friends among my college class-mates.
I lived and moved and had my actual
earthly being in a pleasant circle of artists and lovers of art, into which I had
been casually thrown and cordially received soon after my first arrival in the
city. My residence was in a building devoted chiefly to studios, but containing
several apartments besides, which were
nominally, when empty, to rent to any
responsible people, but which were almost always occupied as rooms in such
a building almost always will be, by
those who have some sort of interest,
near or remote, in the tastes and professional habits of the majority of the
occupants.
The lessee of the house, Mrs. Wilton, was the elderly widow of a landscape
painter, who when he died had left more
reputation than fortune behind him; and
to all of us permanent dwellers she was
house mother and a friend as well;
especially to those of us living, as I
did, in her own immediate domain, the
uppermost floor of the five which made
the building.
We used to have pleasant times
there. This upper floor was a little
colony of some twenty members, almost
all by itself in the heart of a great city.
Entirely so but for the kindred points
at which it touched its neighbors on the
floors below. Coming home at night
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