my failure was not entirely owing to a congenital curse ( it seemed my lot in life to sit at the bedsides of troubled people ) ; it resulted too from the painful memory of another bereft boy who lay comfortless in a strange bed night after night , consigned to a little alcove , set aside and forgotten for hours , like an unwanted heirloom bequeathed by a distant relation , too vulgar to display but too valuable to discard .