Read Online The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - Free Book Online Page A

now.”
    The voice came from a cool, rational region far above my head. For a minute I didn’t think there was anything strange about it, and then I thought it was strange. It was a man’s voice, and no men were allowed to be in our hotel at any time of the night or day.
    â€œHow many others are there?” the voice went on.
    I listened with interest. The floor seemed wonderfully solid. It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther.
    â€œEleven, I think,” a woman’s voice answered. I figured she must belong to the black shoe. “I think there’s eleven more of ’urn, but one’s missin’ so there’s oney ten.”
    â€œWell, you get this one to bed and I’ll take care of the rest.”
    I heard a hollow boomp boomp in my right ear that grew fainter and fainter. Then a door opened in the distance, and there were voices and groans, and the door shut again.
    Two hands slid under my armpits and the woman’s voice said, “Come, come, lovey, we’ll make it yet,” and I felt myself being half lifted, and slowly the doors began to move by, one by one, until we came to an open door and went in.
    The sheet on my bed was folded back, and the woman helped me lie down and covered me up to the chin and rested for a minute in the bedside armchair, fanning herself with one plump, pink hand. She wore gilt-rimmed spectacles and a white nurse’s cap.
    â€œWho are you?” I asked in a faint voice.
    â€œI’m the hotel nurse.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter with me?”
    â€œPoisoned,” she said briefly. “Poisoned, the whole lot of you. I never seen anythin’ like it. Sick here, sick there, whatever have you young ladies been stuffin’ yourselves with?”
    â€œIs everybody else sick too?” I asked with some hope.
    â€œThe whole of your lot,” she affirmed with relish. “Sick as dogs and cryin’ for ma.”
    The room hovered around me with great gentleness, as if the chairs and the tables and the walls were withholding their weight out of sympathy for my sudden frailty.
    â€œThe doctor’s given you an injection,” the nurse said from the doorway. “You’ll sleep now.”
    And the door took her place like a sheet of blank paper, and then a larger sheet of paper took the place of the door, and I drifted toward it and smiled myself to sleep.
    Somebody was standing by my pillow with a white cup.
    â€œDrink this,” they said.
    I shook my head. The pillow crackled like a wad of straw.
    â€œDrink this and you’ll feel better.”
    A thick white china cup was lowered under my nose. In the wan light that might have been evening and might have been dawn I contemplated the clear amber liquid. Pads of butter floated on the surface and a faint chickeny aroma fumed up to my nostrils.
    My eyes moved tentatively to the skirt behind the cup. “Betsy,” I said.
    â€œBetsy nothing, it’s me.”
    I raised my eyes then, and saw Doreen’s head silhouetted against the paling window, her blonde hair lit at the tips from behind like a halo of gold. Her face was in shadow, so I couldn’t make out her expression, but I felt a sort of expert tenderness flowing from the ends of her fingers. She might have been Betsy or my mother or a fern-scented nurse.
    I bent my head and took a sip of the broth. I thought my mouth must be made of sand. I took another sip and then another and another until the cup was empty.
    I felt purged and holy and ready for a new life.
    Doreen set the cup on the windowsill and lowered herself into the armchair. I noticed that she made no move to take out a cigarette, and as she was a chain smoker this surprised me.
    â€œWell, you almost died,” she said finally.
    â€œI guess it was all that caviar.”
    â€œCaviar nothing! It was the crabmeat. They did tests on it and it was chock-full of ptomaine.”
    I had a vision of the