I spent two weeks in a hospital in Terni, sometimes semi-conscious but when perkier I was making notes:

"During the day, there are visits and pleasant chatter of gossip affectionate utterances just rolling on and on, seemingly through the night, sometimes a bit loud but an overall reassuring continuous murmur of voices, like the background of a Fellini movie.

The nighttime snoring sounds are a different, more serious matter.

the Diabetic Lady in the bed next to mine snores in a spectacular, dramatic way, there is the whole spectacle: screams for help, resigned whimpers, desperate gasps, snarling...choked, strangled sounds, pleading then triumphant, sudden exclamations after a long silence, full of unutterable pain or surprise, a gurgling narrative of some unknown story, stopping and starting, soft whistles and sudden roars.

She sleeps unperturbed on one side all night long through this abstract, heart-wrenching grotesque pantomime of Kantor-like horror and suffering with no words, just sounds."