A Gradual Joy Author:Isabel Miller General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1953 Original Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you ca... more »n select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: 8 Then rr Was spring. The ward screens were put up, and the windows opened. There was this spring smell, wet ground and young plants. Radios took to playing waltzes. Jim was sitting beside Clement's bed, making common vernal remarks about how nice the weather was. Clement hardly listened. "Seton, I'm restless," he said. "I'm going to blow my stack. Believe me." Jim looked at him, and believed him. His forehead was damp. His hands were clenched. "I've been hanging here, my God -- you remember when I came in -- six months. Six months. They can talk about our Inquisition all they want to, but we never did anything like this to anybody." "Would you rather burn up?" Jim said. "Damn you, I'm not going to get in an argument now. We burned them up for the good of their souls, anyway. What's a leg? Crummy god damned "eg. I told them I don't want it. I told them, cut it off, cut it off, I don't want it, just let me go." "It's practically O. K. now. Henrietta saw your X-rays." "Yeah, and they're gonna cut it open again, start the whole thing over. Seton, let me out." "Oh -- I can't," Jim said. Clement grabbed his hand. "They took me to X-ray me, didn't they? What's the difference?" He looked at Jim and saw the refusal on his face. "Oh, God, you won't do it," Clement said, and he turned his head and wept. "Listen, Clement, listen, I can't right now," Jim said. "Shut up and get the hell away," Clement said. "I mean, the nurse would see me now. But when she goes to lunch, I'll take you out." Clement turned. "You will? Really?" "Sure," Jim said. "She'll go at twel...« less