Yossarian owed his good health to exercise, fresh air, teamwork and good sportsmanship; it was to get awayfrom them all that he had first discovered the hospital. When the physical-education officer at Lowery Fieldordered everyone to fall out for calisthenics one afternoon, Yossarian, the private, reported instead at thedispensary with what he said was a pain in his right side.

　　“Beat it,” said the doctor on duty there, who was doing a crossword puzzle.

　　“We can’t tell him to beat it,” said a corporal. “There’s a new directive out about abdominal complaints. Wehave to keep them under observation five days because so many of them have been dying after we make thembeat it.”

　　“All right,” grumbled the doctor. “Keep him under observation five days and then make him beat it.”

　　They took Yossarian’s clothes away and put him in a ward, where he was very happy when no one was snoringnearby. In the morning a helpful young English intern popped in to ask him about his liver.

　　“I think it’s my appendix that’s bothering me,” Yossarian told him.

　　“Your appendix is no good,” the Englishman declared with jaunty authority. “If your appendix goes wrong, wecan take it out and have you back on active duty in almost no time at all. But come to us with a liver complaintand you can fool us for weeks. The liver, you see, is a large, ugly mystery to us. If you’ve ever eaten liver youknow what I mean. We’re pretty sure today that the liver exists and we have a fairly good idea of what it does whenever it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing. Beyond that, we’re really in the dark. After all, what is aliver? My father, for example, died of cancer of the liver and was never sick a day of his life right up till themoment it killed him. Never felt a twinge of pain. In a way, that was too bad, since I hated my father. Lust formy mother, you know.”

　　“What’s an English medical officer doing on duty here?” Yossarian wanted to know.

　　The officer laughed. “I’ll tell you all about that when I see you tomorrow morning. And throw that silly ice bagaway before you die of pneumonia.”

　　Yossarian never saw him again. That was one of the nice things about all the doctors at the hospital; he neversaw any of them a second time. They came and went and simply disappeared. In place of the English intern thenext day, there arrived a group of doctors he had never seen before to ask him about his appendix.

　　“There’s nothing wrong with my appendix,” Yossarian informed them. “The doctor yesterday said it was myliver.”

　　“Maybe it is his liver,” replied the white-haired officer in charge. “What does his blood count show?”

　　“He hasn’t had a blood count.”

　　“Have one taken right away. We can’t afford to take chances with a patient in his condition. We’ve got to keepourselves covered in case he dies.” He made a notation on his clipboard and spoke to Yossarian. “In themeantime, keep that ice bag on. It’s very important.”

　　“I don’t have an ice bag on.”

　　“Well, get one. There must be an ice bag around here somewhere. And let someone know if the pain becomesunendurable.”

　　At the end of ten days, a new group of doctors came to Yossarian with bad news; he was in perfect health andhad to get out. He was rescued in the nick of time by a patient across the aisle who began to see everything twice.

　　Without warning, the patient sat up in bed and shouted.

　　“I see everything twice!”

　　A nurse screamed and an orderly fainted. Doctors came running up from every direction with needles, lights,tubes, rubber mallets and oscillating metal tines. They rolled up complicated instruments on wheels. There wasnot enough of the patient to go around, and specialists pushed forward in line with raw tempers and snapped attheir colleagues in front to hurry up and give somebody else a chance. A colonel with a large forehead and horn-rimmed glasses soon arrived at a diagnosis.

　　“It’s meningitis,” he called out emphatically, waving the others back. “Although Lord knows there’s not the slightest reason for thinking so.”

　　“Then why pick meningitis?” inquired a major with a suave chuckle. “Why not, let’s say, acute nephritis?”

　　“Because I’m a meningitis man, that’s why, and not an acute-nephritis man,” retorted the colonel. “And I’m notgoing to give him up to any of you kidney birds without a struggle. I was here first.”

　　In the end, the doctors were all in accord. They agreed they had no idea what was wrong with the soldier whosaw everything twice, and they rolled him away into a room in the corridor and quarantined everyone else in theward for fourteen days.

　　Thanksgiving Day came and went without any fuss while Yossarian was still in the hospital. The only bad thingabout it was the turkey for dinner, and even that was pretty good. It was the most rational Thanksgiving he hadever spent, and he took a sacred oath to spend every future Thanksgiving Day in the cloistered shelter of ahospital. He broke his sacred oath the very next year, when he spent the holiday in a hotel room instead inintellectual conversation with Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife, who had Dori Duz’s dog tags on for the occasionand who henpecked Yossarian sententiously for being cynical and callous about Thanksgiving, even though shedidn’t believe in God just as much as he didn’t.

　　“I’m probably just as good an atheist as you are,” she speculated boastfully. “But even I feel that we all have agreat deal to be thankful for and that we shouldn’t be ashamed to show it.”

　　“Name one thing I’ve got to be thankful for,” Yossarian challenged her without interest.

　　“Well...” Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife mused and paused a moment to ponder dubiously. “Me.”

　　“Oh, come on,” he scoffed.

　　She arched her eyebrows in surprise. “Aren’t you thankful for me?” she asked. She frowned peevishly, her pridewounded. “I don’t have to shack up with you, you know,” she told him with cold dignity. “My husband has awhole squadron full of aviation cadets who would be only too happy to shack up with their commandingofficer’s wife just for the added fillip it would give them.”

　　Yossarian decided to change the subject. “Now you’re changing the subject,” he pointed out diplomatically. “I’llbet I can name two things to be miserable about for every one you can name to be thankful for.”

　　“Be thankful you’ve got me,” she insisted.

　　“I am, honey. But I’m also goddam good and miserable that I can’t have Dori Duz again, too. Or the hundreds ofother girls and women I’ll see and want in my short lifetime and won’t be able to go to bed with even once.”

　　“Be thankful you’re healthy.”

　　“Be bitter you’re not going to stay that way.”

　　“Be glad you’re even alive.”

　　“Be furious you’re going to die.”

　　“Things could be much worse,” she cried.

　　“They could be one hell of a lot better,” he answered heatedly.

　　“You’re naming only one thing,” she protested. “You said you could name two.”

　　“And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways,” Yossarian continued, hurtling on over her objection.

　　“There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else He’s forgotten all aboutus. That’s the kind of God you people talk about—a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited,uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary toinclude such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world wasrunning through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to controltheir bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?”

　　“Pain?” Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife pounced upon the word victoriously. “Pain is a useful symptom. Pain is awarning to us of bodily dangers.”

　　“And who created the dangers?” Yossarian demanded. He laughed caustically. “Oh, He was really beingcharitable to us when He gave us pain! Why couldn’t He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of Hiscelestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person’s forehead. Anyjukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn’t He?”

　　“People would certainly look silly walking around with red neon tubes in the middle of their foreheads.”

　　“They certainly look beautiful now writhing in agony or stupefied with morphine, don’t they? What a colossal,immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look atthe stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. It’s obvious Henever met a payroll. Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shippingclerk!”

　　Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife had turned ashen in disbelief and was ogling him with alarm. “You’d better nottalk that way about Him, honey,” she warned him reprovingly in a low and hostile voice. “He might punish you.”

　　“Isn’t He punishing me enough?” Yossarian snorted resentfully. “You know, we mustn’t let Him get away withit. Oh, no, we certainly mustn’t let Him get away scot free for all the sorrow He’s caused us. Someday I’m goingto make Him pay. I know when. On the Judgment Day. Yes, That’s the day I’ll be close enough to reach out andgrab that little yokel by His neck and—“Stop it! Stop it!” Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife screamed suddenly, and began beating him ineffectually aboutthe head with both fists. “Stop it!”

　　Yossarian ducked behind his arm for protection while she slammed away at him in feminine fury for a fewseconds, and then he caught her determinedly by the wrists and forced her gently back down on the bed. “Whatthe hell are you getting so upset about?” he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. “I thoughtyou didn’t believe in God.”

　　“I don’t,” she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. “But the God I don’t believe in is a good God, a just God, amerciful God. He’s not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be.”

　　Yossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. “Let’s have a little more religious freedom between us,” heproposed obligingly. “You don’t believe in the God you want to, and I won’t believe in the God I want to. Is thata deal?”

　　That was the most illogical Thanksgiving he could ever remember spending, and his thoughts returned wishfullyto his halcyon fourteen-day quarantine in the hospital the year before; but even that idyll had ended on a tragicnote; he was still in good health when the quarantine period was over, and they told him again that he had to getout and go to war. Yossarian sat up in bed when he heard the bad news and shouted.

　　“I see everything twice!”

　　Pandemonium broke loose in the ward again. The specialists came running up from all directions and ringed himin a circle of scrutiny so confining that he could feel the humid breath from their various noses blowinguncomfortably upon the different sectors of his body. They went snooping into his eyes and ears with tiny beamsof light, assaulted his legs and feet with rubber hammers and vibrating forks, drew blood from his veins, heldanything handy up for him to see on the periphery of his vision.

　　The leader of this team of doctors was a dignified, solicitous gentleman who held one finger up directly in frontof Yossarian and demanded, “How many fingers do you see?”

　　“Two,” said Yossarian.

　　“How many fingers do you see now?” asked the doctor, holding up two.

　　“Two,” said Yossarian.

　　“And how many............