"Quite true, Frank.

What with the purgings and the semi-starvation and sleeplessness and, worst of all, the regret gnawing at my soul and the incessant torturing self-reproaches, I got weaker and weaker; my clothes hung on me; I could scarcely move.

One Sunday morning after a very bad night I could not get out of bed.

The warder came in and I told him I was ill." "'You had better get up,' he said; but I couldn't take the good advice.
"'I can't,' I replied, 'you must do what you like with me.' "Half an hour later the doctor came and looked in at the door.

He never came near me; he simply called out: "'Get up; no malingering; you're all right.