...of illness

I knew that the last weeks of Tabor's life were his last weeks when Tabor fell silent. The phrase, in this case, was not a cliche. I saw him fall. And his eyes would fix on some nothing beside me and seem to glaze. One hand on my arm, he would suddenly peer into emptiness like Rilke's panther, the hand gripping me as if he wanted to take me along. I can't see the past, he told me. I'm blind. When he did speak he spoke slowly, mechanically, wearily turning a crank. My one -ruth, he said, I -un -uth. Hissreee -ass -ree -ages, -ree. And very slowly he would pull one finger away from the rest, and then another, until he held three. A chancre, I made out he said, a sore, the source of the event. This was followed by a pause, a false calm. Then that sore or irritation would break out everywhere. Quibbles, quarrels, strikes, riots. This second stage was divided from the third as the first was: by an interval of peace. Then the disturbance which had been on the surface would sink inside the situation, and the nation would begin to come apart from within. And I would watch him shake and his eyes dim. That extraordinary seeing was gone.

[The Tunnel, Gass, W. H.]