"The light burned dimly and steadily and he had the feel that it was a sick-room."
"A black screen was drawn across his mirror of inner vision, and fancy lay in a darkened sick-room where entered no ray of light."
"This is the world of the sick-room, both a physical space abounding with strange tonics and brews, bleedings and leeches, curanderas and barber-surgeons, and saints and virgins, as well as a cultural space complete with its own structures of meaning."