There were times when I felt that I could bear no more. It was the Emergency Ward which almost broke me. I stood one night beside a man who had been caught in a flywheel, and whose body felt like jelly. I wanted him to die quickly, not to go on breathing. Oh, stop breathing. I can’t stand it. Die and stop suffering. I can’t stand it. I can’t.
ATTRIBUTION:
Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958), U.S. novelist. My Story, ch. 12 (1931).
