peating to himself:

"I am Frederick von Kammacher. This is Peter Schmidt. This is his wife,
and this is the patient."

When he looked about the room, he saw other persons, the shades of those
he had met within the last few days and on his trip across the ocean. But
he pulled himself together and swore to himself--even in the moment of
greatest danger he had not prayed--and saw that the unbidden guests in
the room were also swearing.

The farmer was sitting in the waiting-room. The physicians consulted with
one another, and Peter Schmidt and his wife urged Frederick to do the
operating. His head was a-whirl. He was hot, he trembled, but his friends
detected nothing. He asked for a large glass of wine and went about his
preparations without speaking. When Mrs. Schmidt brought the wine, he
drank it down in one gulp.

Mrs. Schmidt led the old farmer in. They had agreed that she was to do
the washing and administer the anaesthetic. She adjusted him on the
operating table, bared his body, and washed it thoroughly. Then Peter
Schmidt shaved the hair away from his armpit. The physicians exchanged
only brief words and signs. It was a matter of life and death. Success
hung by a thread.

The torpor and composure of a somnambulist had come upon Frederick, who
with his shirt sleeves rolled up was ceaselessly washing his arms and
hands and brushing his finger nails, all at the bidding of a will not his
own. He was acting in a state of will-lessness, of auto-suggestion. Yet
it was with perfect lucidity and due deliberation that he selected the
necessary instruments from the doctor's closet.

The anaesthetic was taking effect. Peter handed the instruments to
Frederick, who once again carefully and coolly examined the morbid spot,
found that the tumour might already have progressed too far, but
nevertheless, with a firm, sure touch, cut into the mass of living flesh.
He kept cursing at the insufficient light. The room was on the ground
floor with the windows giving directly upon the main street with its
heavy traffic. Contrary to expectation, the tumour lay deep, extending
between the large nerve bundles and blood vessels in the inner portion of
the brachial plexus. It had to be removed with a scalpel, a very ticklish
operation because of the proximity to the thin-walled great vein, which
at the least incision sucks in air and produces instant death. But
everything went well. The large hollow wound was stuffed with antiseptic
ga