After a temporary and comparative lull, which lasted until the end of December, the disease began to progress again, and almost every week brought a fresh alarming symptom. It was especially during the night that the pain, treacherously, reappeared. After dropping asleep fairly early, he would begin to breathe with difficulty and then awake in an indescribable state of anguish; perspiration drenched his head, neck, and chest, several towels often being required to dry him. His breathing was hard; during bad attacks, the wheezing of his bronchial tubes was terrifying. He would sit up, his hands clenched, his face blue and contracted by suffering, his darkened lips apart, his eyes dilated--the face of a man on the rack. He gasped like a suffocating man; at last a tearing cough supervened, followed by expectoration, and the attack gradually subsided. For a time we were able to relieve him without the use of narcotics. As long as there was a ray of hope--not of recovery, but of a bearable life and further work--he wished at all costs to avoid the influence of narcosis. He breathed fumes of pyridin or ether, he smoked Escouflaire cigarettes, and inhaled various other things. In order to sleep after an attack, he ate a few biscuits, and I sprinkled his head with a menthol solution, with which I damped his temples and forehead. That eased him, and sometimes he slept again for a few hours. But how many were the nights of insomnia and suffering! How many times did he call for death as a deliverer, and say that he _resigned_ himself to live for my sake only! And in spite of the martyrdom he endured, he always had gentle words, a caress, a consolation even! He constantly returned to the thought that he had nothing to complain of, that he had had a large share of happiness and good fortune in having accomplished his task, and even arrived at the development of the natural death-instinct. All those who saw him every day knew that he was courageous and patient, every one admired his serenity, but no one could realise the _degree_ of his courage and patience, for no one had seen and lived through those miserable nights. Often, even, when asked how he was, he said "not bad!" after a terrible night, saying to me afterwards in explanation, "Why grieve them, since it cannot be helped?" At the beginning of our stay in the Institute, he was not yet quite bedridden. After his morning toilet, he would lie for some hours on a sofa, reading almost continuously, newspapers, scientific reviews, and many works in connection with the book he had planned on the sexual function, of which he wrote only the introduction and a few lines of the first chapter.[34]