The Patient - Les Anneaux de Bicetre Author:Georges Simenon A successful man, the victim of a near-fatal stroke, reflects upon his life from a hospital bed. — . Rene Maugras, an important newspaper publisher, is struck with hemiplegia while he is having a meal at the Grand Vafour with a group of fellow V.I.P.'s. Almost resentfully he suffers the efforts of doctors and nurses to restore him to lif... more »e and function.
In the inhuman nothingness of illness and semi-consciousness he begins to understand himself and his life; he hovers on the edge of that total illumination which seems denied to the wholly conscious mind. Fragments of memory seem about to shape a significant design. Slowly he changes from a possibly dying man to a serious invalid, from an invalid to a convalescent. Eventually he is reintegrated into his usual life (the vying for power and prestige, the loving-and-wretched marriage) with a little more self-knowledge--just enough, in fact, to know that for him there is no other life.
Les Anneaux de Bicêtre (The Bells of Bicêtre); translated by Jean Stewart and retitled The Patient. « less