Time for your medicine, eh?”  
“No,” I explained, “he means that he is in the sev-
enth circle of Dante's Hell.”  
At that instant he entered on a period of noisy delir-
ium. Wild and prolonged howls burst from his throat; he 
was being chewed unceasingly by “Dis”; each howl sig-
nalled the meeting of the monster's teeth. I explained 
this to the doctor. “No,” said he, “he is perfectly uncon-
scious.”  
“Well,” said I, “he will howl about eighty times 
more.”  
Doctor Kershaw looked at me curiously, but began 
to count.  
My calculation was correct.  
He turned to me, “Are you a woman?”  
“No,” said I, “I am my husband's colleague.”  
“I think it is suggestion. You have hypnotized him?”  
“Never: but I can read his thoughts.”  
“Yes, I remember now; I read a very remarkable 
paper in Mind two years ago.”  
“That was child's play. But let me go on with my 
work.”  
He gave some final instructions to the nurse, and 
went out.  
The suffering of Arthur was at this time unspeak-
able. Chewed as he was into mere pulp that passed over 
the tongue of “Dis,” each bleeding fragment kept its own 
identity and his. The papillae of the tongue were ser-
pents, and each one gnashed its poisoned teeth upon 
that fodder.  
And yet, though the sensorium of Arthur was abso-
lutely unimpaired, indeed hyperaesthetic, his conscious-
ness of pain seemed to depend upon the opening of the 
mouth. As it closed in mastication, oblivion fell upon him 
like a thunderbolt. A merciful oblivion? Oh! what a mas-
ter stroke of cruelty! Again and again he woke from 
nothing to a hell of agony, of pure ecstasy of agony, 
until he understood that this would continue for all his