In spite of my eyes being open the ship’s surgeon continued to view me without any change of posture or alteration of countenance. He might have been waiting to make sure that I was conscious; he scrutinised me, nevertheless, as though his eyes were gimlets, with which he could pierce into my brain. He held a volume in his hand, but on his appearing to make up his mind that I was awake he put the book into the bunk that was above me, and said, ‘You sleep well.’ ‘I have slept well to-day,’ I answered; ‘I bathed and was much comforted before I lay down.’ ‘Do you ever dream?’ he asked. ‘Never.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘My memory on this side of my recovery is good,’ I said; ‘and if I dreamt I should recollect my dreams. I have longed with passion to dream, because I have a fancy that my memory may return to me in a vision.’ ‘That is not unlikely,’ said he. He took the book from the upper bunk, drew a chair close to me, and seated himself. ‘I have been looking at you in your sleep,’ said he, ‘and I am confirmed in my first opinion--you are a young woman. Your age is four- or five-and-twenty. You smiled shortly before you awoke, and your smile was like a light thrown upon your youth hidden behind your face. Some dream must have produced that smile--but the mere phantom of a phantom of a dream, too colourless and attenuated for your mind to recollect. And your hair! Has it been coming out of late?’ ‘I have lost a great quantity. It came out in handfuls, but it no longer falls as it did.’ ‘Your hair was black,’ said he, smiling, ‘and very abundant and fine. Before your calamity--whatever it might be--befell you you were a handsome young woman, excellently shaped, with dark, speaking eyes, and a noble growth of hair. Take my word for it. And now think. Do I give you any ideas?’ I shut my eyes to think, and I thought and thought, but to no purpose. ‘No matter,’ he exclaimed; ‘do not strain your mind. Take things perfectly easy. I have been reading in several volumes I possess on cases resembling yours; and here is a book,’ he continued, ‘with some examples, two of which you shall hear, that you may take heart.’ He balanced a pair of gold glasses on his nose and read as follows, slowly and deliberately:-- ‘A young clergyman, when on the point of being married, suffered an injury of the head by which his understanding was entirely and permanently deranged. He lived in this condition till the age of eighty, and to the last talked of nothing but his approaching wedding, and expressed impatience of the arrival of the happy day.’ ‘What do you think of that?’ said the surgeon. I did not answer. ‘Do you understand it?’ said he. ‘I understand it,’ I replied, ‘but I do not see what it has to do with the memory.’