This is what our cousins across the pond would call a bottle story: that is, all the action takes place in one location, in this case a Scottish sanatorium. All the patients are under pressure due to the illness, which effects various characters in different ways. Major Templeton, is relaxed about it. He knows he’s going to die, but he’s had a grand life: ladies, gambling, shooting and so on. Mr. Chester on the other hand is resentful and angry and constantly asks, why me? And is also harsh with his wife, because she is going to live.
All of life is to be found in this story. Romance, laughter, death, confessions, rivalry, anger, mental cruelty and so on. I discover something new in this story every time I read it. The narrator Ashenden (a thinly disguised Maugham), is sent to the sanatorium to recover from Tuberculosis. During the months he is there he observes his fellow patients and records their lives. Mr. Chester, who feels it is unfair he should be ill as he has lived a clean life; the gentle courtship between Miss Bishop and the rakish Major Templeton and the ongoing feud between McLeod and Campbell.
“‘First time they’ve let you get up, is it?’ said McLeod.
‘Yes.’
‘Where’s your room?’
Ashenden told him.
‘Small. I know every room in the place. I’ve been here for seventeen years. I’ve got the best room here and so I damned well ought to have. Campbell’s been trying to get me out of it, he wants it himself, but I’m not going to budge; I’ve got a right to it, I came here six months before he did.’”
Collected in Collected Short Stories vol.3. Vintage, 2002
A Personal Anthology 