This fantastic drawing shows a giant bird of prey hovering over a resting patient. Robert contrasts the vitality and movement of the bird with the weakness and inertia of the patient. Both figures are long and curved; the convex shape of the hawk’s belly fits within the concave shape of the reclined patient. The contrast is reminiscent of Goya’s “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,” where bats, owls and other nocturnal creatures, hover over a sleeping figure. Where Goya’s image is crowded and chaotic, Robert’s drawing is stark and simplified, almost clinical in its presentation. The hawk is a hunting bird and appears to be examining the figure for signs of life. In his nightmarish delirium, the patient imagines the forces of nature have turned against him, just as cancer cells turn against the body. Hawk may be meant as a parody of Robert’s earlier, more hopeful, Sparrow.