I Become An Ailing Dickensian Orphan

Today is my second full day of a fever-cold combination that has thoroughly outdone my previous achievements in the category, as far as I can remember. While I feel full of energy most of the time, I sometimes feel very warm and perspiry or a little dizzy, my mind is working quickly (I can't say unusually quickly, because "quickly" doesn't describe its usual state anyway), my throat and head sometimes hurt, I cough and sneeze, and my temperature at one point reached 39.4 degrees Celsius. J., for once, made orphan jokes about me, and not vice versa.

But because of the energy, the nice sunny weather, my healthy appetite, the presence of every necessary comfort and remedy, the contrast to more painful physical and emotional ailments, and at least a week of excellent sleep beforehand, the illness is quite bearable. Also, the increased speed at which my neurons are firing mean that my memory, concentration, and ability to play the piano are all unquestionably in good shape, and I've been able to think matters over with greater distance and objectivity than usual. Sometimes, admittedly, the matters had best go unthought-of. I was thinking yesterday evening what would happen if I went blind; the day before yesterday I was worried that I might develop pneumonia. The things that perhaps more reasonably worry me is that I haven't clearly found out how serious the illness is (I think I'm exaggerating its importance), that my mind may be a little aberrant without my knowing it (for example, I've felt like crying and tried not to start because I feared that I wouldn't be able to stop), and that I am worried that people are angry at me (I would have tried to clear this up yesterday already, but I didn't feel clear-minded and strong enough to do it). I was with my uncle and aunt in the countryside until yesterday evening so I've felt rather disorientated too. Besides, I find losing my voice very unpleasant.

Anyway, it was nice today, though. I slept soundly, had a bath, lay down in the living room, played pieces by Mozart and Chopin and Schumann and Bach and Beethoven fairly slowly and quietly, read another chapter of Waverley, ate brunch with Papa, and talked a lot with T. and Ge. There are, it seems, many people in Ge.'s and Gi.'s classes who have colds. But in this family so far only J., Mama, and I have been stricken; Mama went to work anyway, and J. to school. The real event of the day was a work meeting to which Papa went, at a company that converts old computers and computer parts into new ones to be used for specific technical purposes.

Hopefully the next time I post, I will be cured! Then, instead of describing my symptoms for the benefit of a reluctant audience, I might write about Waverley. In the countryside I took a look at the Decameron too, and was much disappointed to find that it is perhaps 90% about women cheating on their husbands, which for some reason I find neither hilarious nor interesting except in a transient sensationalist way (I'm trying to put this as snobbily as possible). So I read too little of it to be able to discuss it. I did read the short tale of the woman who roused a king from his apathetic modus regendi by asking him to give her some of his power to bear the unbearable. Given the clearly violent nature of the regenerated king's rule, I don't know if the ending is meant to be good or not. Perhaps it is simply realistic.