It is a thoroughly well believed theory, that during the
continuance of the plague you can't be ill of any other febrile
malady--an unpleasant privilege that! for ill I was, and ill of
fever, and I anxiously wished that the ailment might turn out to be
anything rather than plague. I had some right to surmise that my
illness may have been merely the effect of the hot wind; and this
notion was encouraged by the elasticity of my spirits, and by a
strong forefeeling that much of my destined life in this world was
yet to come, and yet to be fulfilled. That was my instinctive
belief, but when I carefully weighed the probabilities on the one
side and on the other, I could not help seeing that the strength of
argument was all against me. There was a strong antecedent
likelihood in FAVOUR of my being struck by the same blow as the
rest of the people who had been dying around me. Besides, it
occurred to me that, after all, the universal opinion of the
Europeans upon a medical question, such as that of contagion, might
probably be correct, and IF IT WERE, I was so thoroughly
"compromised," and especially by the touch and breath of the dying
medico, that I had no right to expect any other fate than that
which now seemed to have overtaken me.
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