‘Since yesterday morning I haven’t had a moment’s peace, not a break in my sufferings, very varied, and all horrible – but most of all they make me frightened – no fever, and no headache – but all the same DEATH is always There! – and so near!’ (JL X, 864). By including this extract from d’Arblay’s diary in her narrative Burney allows the reader to gain momentary direct access to the suffering patient’s private thoughts – thoughts at complete odds with her own conception of his condition, defiantly flying the flag of hope. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, it recalls Tolstoy’s fictional depiction (access being no problem) of Ivan Ilych’s thoughts, or perhaps rather of his deepest fears: ‘It kept coming back, facing him and looking at him, while he sat there rigid, the fire went out of his eyes and he began to wonder whether It was the only truth’ (‘It’ being death itself).