In Chapter 1, the narrator illustrates Hana's nightly routine, which involves reading to the bed-bound and severely injured English patient. Hana’s reading appears to aid the patient in recovery, even if only mentally. To enhance the poetic quality of Hana's tending towards the English patient, Ondaatje utilizes a simile in the narration:

She reads to him from whatever book she is able to find in the library downstairs. The candle flickers over the page and over the young nurse’s talking face, barely revealing at this hour the trees and vista that decorate the walls. He listens to her, swallowing her words like water.

The simile "swallowing her words like water" evokes the image of words and language having the power to revive a spirit as if they were physical sustenance. The English patient, a burn victim, is massively dehydrated in a literal sense, but also in a metaphorical sense. Readers learn early in the novel that trauma from war and violence oppresses the English patient, to the point that he does not remember his own name or nationality. However, Hana's reading acts as a source of gentle replenishment, and he eagerly awaits the moments in each day when she will soothe him with her words.