A Burnt Out Case
Greene GrahamWhen the boat reaches its ultimate point—a leper colony run by Catholic missionaries—Dr. Colin and the priests invite Querry to stay. Settling in at the colony, Querry asks only for solitude.
“So you thought you could just come and die here?” Dr. Colin asks him.
“Yes, that was in my mind,” he responds. “But chiefly I wanted to be in an empty place, where no new building or woman would remind me that there was a time when I was alive, with a vocation and a capacity for love.”
Querry explains to Dr. Colin that he is figuratively like the lepers—the burnt-out cases—who lose their toes and fingers to the disease, but, once mutilated, no longer suffer pain. “The palsied suffer, their nerves feel, but I am one of the mutilated, doctor,” Querry says.