... The Ambassador opened his mouth; but before he answered, Nicolas de Nicolay struck himself on the chest - an appalling blow, for he was a very little man- and reeling briefly in a circle with his knees bent, fell on his spine to the carpet with a thud that made his chair jump. As the others leaped to their feet, he lifted his head like a handle and said; 'I perish, mes amis. There is only one hope. The hospital!'
'You fool,' said de Seurre impatiently. 'They'd find out in five minutes. Get up. We are not children.' 'You are not children,' said Nicolas de Nicolay, sitting up to rub his bruised shoulder blades and then lying down again. 'But me, I am a child of Nature. Not for me the chastity, nor the poverty. And particularly, I do not obey.'
'That,' said M. d'Aramon, temperately amused, 'is obvious. Rise. If we must do this thing, let us do it -' 'With artistry,' said the geographer. 'With élan. And meticoulously charted.' (...)

The entire hospital was worried about Nicolas de Nicolay. In his first hour in the knight's ward he received visits from the Infirmarian, the Prior, the duty physician, the assistant duty physician and two barberotti. No one knew what was wrong with him. With two hundred other sick, wounded and dying to care for, the hospital was conscious of other calls on its conscience, but could not wrest in its nervous attention from the celebrated patient who, if harm befell him, would do the Order's reputation more harm than Dragut's galleys.
Nicolas disregarding freely all d'Aramon's strictures about moderation, plunged into display like a mountebank. He clutched his stomach, his throat, flung hash at the curtains and upset soup on the novices. He wouldn't take his medicine and shrieked for de Seurre, who came to see him at regular intervals, by every conceivable route, ...'