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my friend told me and afterwards from others, that he wanted
courage. It was just that he couldn't make up his mind. He put it off
from day to day.
He had lived on the island for so long and had always settled
his accounts so punctually that it was easy for him to get credit; never
having borrowed money, before, he found a number of people who
were willing to lend him small sums when now he asked for them. He
had paid his rent regularly for so many years that his landlord, whose
wife Assunta still acted as his servant, was content to let things slide
for several months. Everyone believed him when he said that a
relative had died and that he was temporarily embarrassed because
owing to legal formalities he could not for some time get the money
that was due to him. He managed to hang on after this fashion for
something over a year. Then he could get no more credit from the
local tradesmen, and there was no one to lend him any more money.
His landlord gave him notice to leave the house unless he paid up the
arrears of rent before a certain date.
The day before this he went into his tiny bedroom, closed the
door and the window, drew the curtain and lit a brazier of charcoal.
Next morning when Assunta came to make his breakfast she found
him insensible but still alive. The room was draughty, and though he
had done this and that to keep out the fresh air he had not done it very
thoroughly. It almost looked as though at the last moment, and
desperate though his situation was, he had suffered from a certain
infirmity of purpose. Wilson was taken to the hospital, and though
very ill for some time he at last recovered. But as a result either of the
charcoal poisoning or of the shock he was no longer in complete
possession of his faculties. He was not insane, at all events not insane
enough to be put in an asylum, but he was quite obviously no longer
in his right mind.
"I went to see him," said my friend. "I tried to get him to talk,
but he kept looking at me in a funny sort of way, as though he
couldn't quite make out where he'd seen me before. He looked rather
awful lying there in bed, with a week's growth of grey beard on his
chin; but except for that funny look in his eyes he seemed quite
normal."
"What funny look in his eyes? "