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I followed up the conversation as well as my imperfect knowledge of the
language would allow, and caught a glimmering of her position with regard
to ill-health; but I did not even then fully comprehend it, nor had I as
yet any idea of the other extraordinary perversions of thought which
existed among the Erewhonians, but with which I was soon to become
familiar. I propose, therefore, to make no mention of what passed
between us on this occasion, save that we were reconciled, and that she
brought me surreptitiously a hot glass of spirits and water before I went
to bed, as also a pile of extra blankets, and that next morning I was
quite well. I never remember to have lost a cold so rapidly.

This little affair explained much which had hitherto puzzled me. It
seemed that the two men who were examined before the magistrates on the
day of my arrival in the country, had been given in charge on account of
ill health, and were both condemned to a long term of imprisonment with
hard labour; they were now expiating their offence in this very prison,
and their exercise ground was a yard separated by my fives wall from the
garden in which I walked. This accounted for the sounds of coughing and
groaning which I had often noticed as coming from the other side of the
wall: it was high, and I had not dared to climb it for fear the jailor
should see me and think that I was trying to escape; but I had often
wondered what sort of people they could be on the other side, and had
resolved on asking the jailor; but I seldom saw him, and Yram and I
generally found other things to talk about.

Another month flew by, during which I made such progress in the language
that I could understand all that was said to me, and express myself with
tolerable fluency. My instructor professed to be astonished with the
progress I had made; I was careful to attribute it to the pains he had
taken with me and to his admirable method of explaining my difficulties,
so we became excellent friends.

My visitors became more and more frequent. Among them there were some,
both men and women, who delighted me entirely by their simplicity,
unconsciousness of self, kindly genial manners, and last, but not least,
by their exquisite beauty; there came others less well-bred, but still
comely and agreeable people, while some were snobs pure and simple.

At the end of the third month the jailor and my instructor came together
to visit me and told me that communications had been received from the
Government to the effect that if I had behaved well and seemed generally
reasonable, and if there could be no suspicion at all about my bodily
health and vigour, and if my hair was really light, and my eyes blue and
complexion fresh, I was to be sent up at once to the metropolis in order
that the King and Queen might see me and converse with me; but that when
I arrived there I should be set at liberty, and a suitable allowance

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