>After all that has beset me, all the betrayal and humiliation, all the disgrace, the death of my parents from typhus, the death of my protector William Harper from the drink, my many efforts misdirected or abandoned, my many plans gone awry. Yet, even after India I am still alive, still intact, still breathing. It is true that I am nothing now, just a surgeon on a Yorkshire whaler, but isn't to be nothing, if looked at from a different angle, not to be anything at all? Then not lost as such, but at liberty. Finally free.
