close his final lecture of the year to the senior medical class. For
a moment he faced these young men aggressively. With his shaggy white
beard, his wiry gray hair, his bulky body, he looked more like some
good-natured Santa Claus than a surgeon who was famous on two continents
for his stoicism as well as his skill. It was tradition that he should
say what he was about to say to each graduating class.
“Shentlemen,” he began in his rough guttural, which still retained the
trace of an accent. “Shentlemen, you are about to enter a brofession
which will be very jealous of you. It demands all—everything. You will be
tempted by many false gods—by women, by gold. Peware! Let your work be
your religion, your wife, and your reward. So you will be goot surgeons.
Shentlemen, I wish you success.”
As he turned to leave the platform, he was greeted with noisy and hearty
cheering.
“Raus mit der ladies!” shouted some one.
The cry was taken up with a will, but when another voice broke through
with: “Hoch Schriftman!” the one hundred throats strained themselves
to the utmost in a final effort to give expression to their genuine
appreciation of the man.
But Schriftman, indifferent alike to their jests and plaudits, had
already jammed his silk hat on the back of his head and was hurrying down
stairs to where his machine waited to whisk him to the hospital.
He timed his day as by a stop watch. He rose at seven, gave himself
until eight to finish his solitary breakfast, and, hurrying off to the
medical school, remained there until eleven. He was at the hospital from
eleven-thirty until three. From three-ten until five he kept his office
hours. He generally dined alone in his apartments after this and gave
up his evenings to consultations, to the preparation of papers, and to
study. It was a long evening, for he seldom retired until two. More
often than not he was called to the hospital after this and finished
his sleep there. The doctors’ quarters were as much home to him as the
three book-cluttered rooms which led from his office. And yet there were
men—young men, too—who envied Schriftman, and when tempted by bright eyes
and warm cheeks quoted to themselves his famous epigram:
“It costs too much to love.”
As his machine drew up before the big gray building, a young interne
hurried out, opened the door, and then fell back respectfully to give
to his senior the place of honor by Schriftman’s side. In answer to
questions which went to their mark like arrows, Burrell covered the
progress of every case since the day before and turned to the new patient
in Ward 27.
“Female, age eight. Mother an actress, died of pneumonia; father a
bicycle rider, killed in an accident. Family history negative.”
And so with a dozen other medical details Burrell led up to the result
of his preliminary examination and to the laboratory report. He made no
diagnosis except in connection with her weak heart. But to Schriftman
it was not the faulty heart but the chronic pain in the back which was
significant. As he removed his hat and gloves before going to the ward,
he pressed his cross-examination deeper. It was evident to Dr. Burrell
that it was to be the rare good fortune of this female, age eight, to
prove an interesting case to Schriftman.
In the meanwhile the lass in question lay stretched out on her back,
watching with hectic interest the hurried movements of the head nurse.
There wasn’t very much of Gretzel left; just a shriveled body, a thin
mouth, a straight, sensitive nose, a pair of blue eyes, and a wealth of
light hair. But the eyes were quite perfect. So deep and clear, so timid
and yet so wise were these that as they peered out of the haggardness
of their surroundings they gave the effect of a maid within a maid. It
was as though some other soul, unrelated to this pain-racked body, were
peering through the mask of her gaunt features. The eyes were younger
and fresher and stronger than the rest of her. At present they were
unusually alert.
In contrast to the isolated boarding-house room from which they had
brought her, life here fairly buzzed. The plaints and groanings of her
fellow patients, the shadow-like movements of the nurses, the constant
coming and going of the young doctors on their unknown errands, the
catlike tread of life through the night, the undercurrent of suspense,
and her own helplessness in the midst of it kept her on guard. The
nurses, drawn to her at once, tried to reassure her, but to little
purpose, because Gretzel believed nothing of what they whispered. People
had lied to her all her life. When her father had told her she would soon
be well and that then he would take her far out into the country, he had
lied. When her father was killed, her mother had lied to her, saying that
daddy had only gone away for a little while to prepare a home for them
both. Then her mother had died and every one had lied about that. They
said that she had gone to join daddy and that some day she would send for
Gretzel. Finally the landlady had lied when she had been hurried off into
the ambulance. This woman had assured Gretzel that she might possibly
find her mother at the hospital. She hadn’t found her mother—the nurses
had never heard of her mother. So now, with her thin lips tight together,
she listened, believing nothing, but kept her eyes wide open ready for
what might happen next.
Nearer and nearer to her came Fate in the person of
Schriftman—Schriftman the silent, who could skirt with his knife the
fringe of the soul itself. His progress through the ward was accompanied
with more awe than that of a sovereign through his court. To the huddled
group of internes at his back he stood for the highest goal in their
profession; to those patients who knew him he stood as the literal
arbiter of life and death. When those clear eyes—as brilliantly hard as
glacial ice—were upon them, when those quick, mobile fingers fluttered
over their bruised bodies, they breathed slowly and prayed. For they knew
it was given to him to do things possible to no other man. But though
many an eye warmed at sight of him, though many an arm pleaded toward
him, though many lips trembled gratitude at his approach, he rigidly
preserved his impersonality. He had neither smile nor jest. His eyes
never warmed; they only lighted.
Gretzel saw him as he entered the ward opposite her. She shrank beneath
the clothes with only her eyes showing and studied the man. She liked his
size first of all. She had a weakling’s reverence for physical strength.
The broad shoulders, the long, heavy arms appealed to her at once. Then
she liked his whiskers. They reminded her of pictures of Santa Claus.
Finally, she liked his deep bass voice. It seemed to her that a man with
a voice like that must tell the truth. She wasn’t sure of this, but the
longer she listened to it and the nearer it came, the less afraid she
grew. She ventured the tip of her nose above the bedclothes, then her
mouth, and finally her chin. By the time the group reached her side she
was facing them all, in the open.
For a moment Schriftman stood over her and met her gaze. He had never
felt his soul so searched as it was during the next few seconds. And yet
the silent questions asked of him were simple. Gretzel sought only to
know if he were a man to tell the truth and if she could trust him with
her tender, sensitive body. She had fought the boarding-house doctor
tooth and nail from the beginning. Not only had he lied to her but he had
hurt her brutally. Now she wished to know if she must be on her guard
with this other. So for a moment her excited big eyes rested on his,
which were like candles burning in a frosty room. Then quite simply and
unafraid she shoved down the bedclothes and, turning over on her face,
exposed her throbbing back.
Dr. Burrell caught the nurse’s eye. The latter gave a gulpy sort of smile
and turned away. With a grunt Schriftman bent over the thin frame. His
fingers, which at times seemed endowed with five senses, played up and
down her spine, to the right, to the left, then back again up and down.
Though at times he stopped to probe deep, he did not hurt her much. It
seemed to her that some of the strength of his broad back ran out of his
finger tips and for a moment checked the biting ache which had gnawed at
her for a twelvemonth. Once, at a certain spot, he made her cringe, but
she understood that this was not done intentionally.
Schriftman, his brow knitted, called for Burrell’s stethoscope. He placed
it over Gretzel’s wobbly heart and listened. One of his big hands lay on
the coverlet. Suddenly he felt his thumb in the clutch of a warm, tight
grip. He found it difficult to listen after this, for the sturdy pound of
his own heart became curiously intermingled with this other jerky beat.
Extricating his thumb, he glared at Burrell.
“Transfer this patient to a private ward,” he ordered.
In the luxurious seclusion of a room to herself, with everything to eat
that her fickle palate craved, with bright-colored German picture books
to look at, with a nurse whose sole duty it was to attend to her alone,
Gretzel felt like an invalid princess. But all these things were as
nothing compared with the joy of the frequent visits of the big doctor
himself. Had it not been for him Gretzel would have looked with suspicion
on the whole arrangement; she would have lain awake all night worrying
about what might grow out of this. She had learned that every sweet was
only a mask of something bitter—like her pills. Whenever anyone had been
especially nice to her at home, it was sure to be followed by something
terrible. When her father died, her mother had brought her a doll, and
when her mother died the landlady had brought her an apple.
But this was different. When she felt Schriftman’s hand close over hers
she knew that now no more harm could come to her. He was big enough
to take quick revenge on anyone who should hurt her. The consequent
relaxation of her tense nerves brought even some surcease of pain, so
that at night she frequently slept two or three hours at a time. But
the best thing about these naps was the excitement of waking up and
finding this shaggy-bearded Santa Claus by the side of her bed. It might
be eleven at night or two in the morning or four in the morning that
he came, but always he came between the dusk and the dawn. Always his
greeting was the same:
“How it goes, kleine mädchen?”
Always she answered:
“I’m partickly comfy, Mister Santy.”
Then he would seat himself by the bed, she would take a tight grip on his
thumb, and they were off in a jiffy to some glorious German fairyland.
The wonder was where the Herr Doctor found these stories. They certainly
were not in any of his scientific treatises and he had read nothing else
for forty years.
If he made them up as he went along, then he must have had more
imagination than anyone ever suspected. It was to be noted, however,
that in these stories the heroine could trace her beauty, her charm, as
well as the success of all her adventures, to the fact that she was very
particular to eat as much as possible of whatever was brought to her.
“Und so,” as he informed her one night, “if you would be a princess, you
must eat und you must sleep. Ach—so you will become gr-ross und r-rosy
und peautiful.”
“Me?” Gretzel questioned doubtfully.
She had never been ambitious in that direction.
“You are peautiful already inside,” answered Schriftman. “It does not
need much after that to be peautiful outside—choost some fat und some
proteids.”
“Sum fat an’ sum protydids,” murmured Gretzel, as though committing it to
memory.
This was a new idea to her—this possibility of being beautiful. For
herself she didn’t care, but if Santy wished it, then it was worth trying
for. She became a little bit jealous of these German princesses. But a
new thought disturbed her.
“It’s so hard to be beau-ti-ful when your back aches you,” she sighed.
“Ach,” replied the doctor with a frown, “dot iss true. But when we are
gr-ross und are r-rosy—so perhaps the ache will go.”
Gretzel quickly searched his eyes. She had been told before that this
ache might go. It had always been a lie. Now Santy himself had told her.
On the whole, she was sorry he had told her this. With all her confidence
in him she could not believe that such a thing was possible. And if it
were not possible, then—he must be like the others.
He had risen to go, and was bending over her as tenderly as a mother.
She reached up a thin hand and drew down his shaggy head until her lips
rested against his ear.
“I’m partickly comfy,” she assured him anxiously. “Let the ache be.”
He kissed her lips.
“Mein kleine mädchen,” he trembled. “Ach, mein kleine mädchen.”
It was three o’clock in the morning when he left her, but he routed
Burrell out of bed and made him sit up until half-past four, while
he discussed everything under the face of the sun except that which
was disturbing him. Burrell, dog-tired, listened patiently, but when
Schriftman finally explained himself, he gave a start.
“Dot case in Ward A,” Schriftman blurted out, dropping into a broad
dialect, as he always did when deeply moved. “I t’ink Richards iss der
man to do dot—hein?”
“To do Gretzel?” exclaimed Burrell.
Schriftman nodded, looking up at Burrell from beneath his wiry eyebrows.
“Why, doctor,” cried Burrell, “there’s just one man in the world to do
that operation—and that’s you!”
Schriftman’s head sank.
“Richards is a great operator,” admitted Burrell, “but he hasn’t your
nerve. And, good Lord, it’s going to take a man of iron to do that
operation without ether.”
Schriftman winced. Burrell ran on excitedly.
“Why, you yourself said she didn’t have a chance in ten, but without
you—why, it wouldn’t be a chance in a hundred.”
Burrell was pleading. He was pleading with his heart in the plea, for
he was pleading for Gretzel’s life. The operation had been the talk of
the hospital for three weeks. The girl’s heart was too weak to stand an
anesthetic, and even with the local application of cocaine the operation
was bound to be brutal. Everyone knew there was just one Schriftman—just
one man with the brains, the hand, and the nerve to do it. This wasn’t
a task for an ordinary surgeon; it was a task for a surgical machine.
Burrell had been waking up lately in a cold sweat trying to find out how
he could avoid assisting. Without ether—good heavens! there was only one
Schriftman; only one man who could keep his hand steady with Gretzel’s
poor body quivering beneath it.
Moreover, there wasn’t another man who had the skill to give the lass
even a show for her suffering. Speed is what would count, and there was
no such nimble fingers in the world as Schriftman’s.
Burrell was on his feet.
“Gretzel’s life is literally in your hands, doctor,” he exclaimed
impulsively. “God give her strength to bear the ordeal.”
“Amen,” muttered Schriftman.
During the next few weeks Gretzel seemed actually to grow slightly plump
and rosy, but almost in the same proportion Schriftman grew wan and pale.
He realized that Burrell had told the truth; if the child was to have
a fighting chance for life, then he must do the operation. But was it
possible to make the kleine mädchen understand that what he did he did
for her own dear sake? Could he make her realize that the hand she
grasped so confidently would not willingly cause her brutal pain? Ach—the
honest trust of those blue eyes!
There came a morning when Gretzel was given no breakfast. She protested
to the head nurse.
“Santy will be very mad on me if I don’t eat my egg,” she declared.
“I think he will forgive you this time, dear,” answered the nurse.
“Why?” Gretzel asked pointedly.
“Because—because—”
“I ain’t beau-ti-ful yet,” Gretzel interrupted with a glance at her thin
arm.
The nurse threw herself on her knees by the side of the girl. She kissed
that thin arm again and again.
“Yes, you are beautiful and wonderful,” she half sobbed. “Don’t ask me
questions, Gretzel. _Please_ don’t ask me questions.”
Gretzel placed her hand on the nurse’s head. She didn’t like to see
anyone worried. And because, here, she herself seemed always to be the
cause of worry she answered reassuringly the only comforting thing she
could think of:
“I’m partickly comfy.”
Whereupon the nurse rose swiftly and hurried out of the room.
Santy favored Gretzel with an unexpected visit this same morning. He came
in shortly after the nurse had left, and Gretzel explained to him at once
that she had not had her egg.
“So?” Schriftman answered nervously.
He seated himself on the edge of the bed. He placed his hand firmly on
her shoulder.
“Kleine mädchen,” he faltered, “if you were mein own kleine mädchen I
could not loff you more.”
She put her arms around his neck.
“Dear, dear Santy,” she cooed.
“So,” he said, “so you must neffer forget dot.”
He drew a little away from her. What he had to say he said looking fair
into her blue eyes.
“To-day,” he said, “we must make der ache go—poof—foreffer!”
He snapped his fingers.
“The ache,” she questioned anxiously.
“Foreffer,” he assured her. “Und if it hurts you when it iss going—”
She smiled up into his face. She grasped his thumb.
“I ain’t skeered of bein’ hurted with you, I guess.”
He held his breath a moment. He couldn’t say any more after that.
So it was Burrell who was forced to prepare the maid for what was to be
done. He did it as well as he knew how, but he made a bungling job of it.
He left her gasping for breath with all the old fear in her eyes. The
thing she could not understand was what had become of Santy. She called
for him again and again.
The best Burrell could think of to tell her was that the Herr Doctor had
gone to save a little girl from death and that he would come back as soon
as he could.
Schriftman was depending upon the disguise of his operating robes to
prevent Gretzel from recognizing him. But he had forgotten to reckon
with the fact that she might wonder at his apparent desertion of her
at this the gravest crisis in her life. Burrell’s explanation did not
help very much. When they lifted her gently to the stretcher and carried
her through the corridors to the high-vaulted amphitheatre, Santy was
nowhere to be seen. Pale, dumb, dazed, Gretzel looked everywhere for him
in vain.
Burrell in an ante-room assisted Schriftman into his sterilized surplice.
He adjusted the mask over the surgeon’s beard and the white cap over his
hair, leaving only his eyes exposed. Then he helped him into his rubber
gloves. He himself was white and loose in all his joints, but Schriftman,
though white, was like a marble statue. He was rigid and inhumanly cold.
He moved about with the quick certainty of motion of an automaton. He
gave his orders in a voice that clicked like an instrument. Burrell could
not help admiring such self-control, but at the same time it made him
shudder.
When all was ready Schriftman walked noiselessly in to the amphitheatre.
Gretzel was lying face down with an interne stationed at either side of
her head. A nurse stood ready near the glittering array of instruments.
Schriftman scarcely breathed as he approached, but he had no sooner
reached the girl’s side than she forced up her head. For a heartbeat she
stared wildly at the sheeted figure. Then she gave a glad, confident cry:
“Santy! Santy!”
Schriftman without replying nodded a signal, and the internes gently
forced Gretzel back again. But Burrell slumped to the floor like an empty
grain sack and was of no more use to anyone.
For twenty-four hours after the operation Schriftman sat outside
Gretzel’s door and received five-minute reports on her condition. Then
when he realized that she bade fair to tide over the first terrible
shock, he returned to his lonely room and slept. He was exhausted as
he had never before been, and when he woke up he was still exhausted.
Something seemed to have gone from him. He made his morning hospital
visit to everyone except Gretzel, but his mind was loose and vague. So a
week passed, and they told him that while the maid was free from pain and
was making a good recovery, she shrank from everyone who approached her.
“Und she neffer asks for Santy—hein?” he questioned the nurse.
The nurse lowered her eyes.
“No,” she admitted gently.
He waited another week with the success of his wonderful operation his
only consolation. There was no doubt now but that in time Gretzel would
really be as gross and rosy as any of the princesses he had pictured to
her. For a long time yet he must watch that weak heart, to be sure, but
with care and patience much might be done even with that. If only she
would let him, he would make that his life work. He wanted to make her
his legal daughter; he wanted to buy a little house in the country and
take her there; he wanted to make her a real fairyland princess.
“Und she neffer asks yet for Santy—hein?”
“No,” answered the nurse.
“So,” he murmured, turning away his head. He waited a moment. Then he
asked:
“You speak somedimes off me?”
“Yes,” answered the nurse.
He did not press her further, and so she was saved from telling him that
at the mere mention of his name the maid shrank away in terror.
Schriftman waited until Gretzel’s temperature was normal—until for the
first time in her life she slept soundly through the night. He himself
had been sleeping less than one hour in the twenty-four. His clothes hung
pitifully loose about his once firm body. As Burrell said, he was proving
the truth of his own epigram: his love was costing him much—too much.
There came a day when Schriftman could stand it no longer; when he could
fight himself no longer. He stole to the door of Gretzel’s room while she
was at breakfast. The nurse had seen him coming and was running down the
corridor as fast as she could run. She heard the maid’s shriek of terror
and forced both hands over her ears.
Schriftman clutched at his heart. He grew ten years older in a minute as
he saw the girl shrink away. She did not cry out again, but she kept her
head hidden beneath the bedclothes.
“Kleine mädchen,” he trembled. “Don’t do dot. See, I vill go! I vill go
und neffer again vill I scare you!”
She did not move.
“Goot-pye, kleine mädchen!” He trembled· “Goot-pye, leedle brincess.”
As he backed toward the door there was something in his voice that
made Gretzel peek out over the bedclothes. The detail that riveted her
attention was his wasted form. He looked to her as though he had been
sick. It recalled to her all the misery of her own long sickness—all the
ache of those long nights now gone forever. She saw pain written in his
eyes, and she who knew so well the horror of pain suddenly forgot in her
wider sympathy all her personal fears of the man. Her little mother’s
heart grew big with pity. With her own ache gone and the ache in him
so manifest, she felt the stronger of the two. There was no longer any
reason why she should be afraid of him. It was he who looked afraid.
She sat up in bed and studied him a moment as he cowed away from her.
Then she reached for her egg.
“Santy,” she said, “come here.”
Like a blind man, he obeyed.
“Now,” she said firmly, “you mus’ eat an egg. So you will be gross an’
rosy.”
Schriftman does not operate any more; he is too busy obeying his
daughter’s orders for one thing. But he does lecture, and last year he
concluded his speech to the senior medical class with these words: “It
costs much to love, ach, yet, but—not too much.”
LADYBIRD
By Edith Barnard
It began on a very beautiful morning in early June. The roses in the
rectory garden were all a-bloom, great white clouds were floating as near
to earth as they dared, songbirds were busy with nests and nestlings, and
the very young rector came out of his house to enjoy it all. It had been
his house for only a few weeks; he was so young as a rector that this
was his first charge, and so young as a man that he longed to lay aside
his clerical suit and go swimming or fishing. He was both old enough and
young enough, however, to enjoy every cloud and blossom and song; he was
far from those monotonous years of middle life when one day is much like
another.