Just as Isabelle had completed her packing on Sunday afternoon, a message
came to her from Dr. Renault through Margaret. "We need another woman,--two
of our nurses have been called away and a third is sick. Will you give us
some help?"
"I am going up myself for the night," Margaret added. "They are badly
pushed,--six new cases the last three days."
So the night found Isabelle under the direction of Mrs. Felton, the little
black-haired woman whose "case" the doctor had analyzed for her. It was a
long night, and the next morning, all the experienced nurses being needed
at an operation, Isabelle went on. The day was full and also the next two.
The hospital force was inadequate, and though the doctor had telegraphed
for help there would be no relief for a week. So Isabelle was caught up in
the pressing activity of this organism and worked by it, impelled without
her own will, driven hard as all around her were driven by the
circumstances behind her. Dr. Renault abhorred noise, disorder, excitement,
confusion of any kind. All had to run smoothly and quietly as if in perfect
condition. He himself was evident, at all hours of day or night, chaffing,
dropping his ironical comments, listening, directing,--the inner force of
the organism. One night the little nurse dropped asleep, clearly worn out,
and Isabelle sent her to bed. The ward was quiet; there was nothing to be
done. Isabelle, pacing to and fro in the glass sun parlor to keep herself
awake, suddenly became aware of the stillness within her. It was as if some
noisy piece of machinery had ceased to revolve without her having noticed
it. It was possible for her in this quiet moment to realize this: for the
first time in five days she had not thought of herself. For five days she
had not consciously thought! Doubtless she would have to pay for this
debauch of work. She would collapse. But for five days she had not known
whether she felt ill or well, was happy or distressed. Excitement--to be
paid for! She shrank from the weary round of old thought that must come,
the revolution of the wheels within. For five days she had not thought, she
had not cared, she had not known herself! That must be the opiate of the
poor, driven by labor to feed and clothe themselves; of the ambitious,
driven by hope and desire.... She must work, too; work was a good thing.
Why had Potts not included it in his panaceas? ...
Later when she walked back into the still ward, she thought she heard a
stifled breathing, but when she went the rounds of the cots, all was still.
It was not until nearly morning that she noticed something wrong with a
little boy, observing the huddled position of the limbs drawn up beneath
the blanket. She felt of his face--it was cold. Frightened, she hurried to
the bell to summon the night doctor. As she reached it Renault entered the
ward and with a warning hand brought her back to the cot. He put his
fingers swiftly here and there on the child's body.
"Where is Mrs. Felton?" he demanded severely.
"She was so worn out I persuaded her to get some rest. Have I neglected
anything?--is anything wrong?"
"The child is dead," Renault replied, straightening himself and covering up
the little form.
"Oh, I have--done something wrong!"
"It would have made no difference what you did," the doctor replied dryly.
"Nothing would have made any difference. There was the millionth part of a
chance, and it was not for him."
As they stood looking down at the dead face, it seemed to Isabelle that
suddenly he had become a person, this dead child, with his lost millionth
of a chance,--not merely one of the invalids sleeping in the room. For this
brief moment when life had ceased to beat in his frail body, and before
decay had begun, there was an individuality given him that he had never
achieved in life.
"Poor little fellow!" Isabelle murmured softly. "He must have suffered so
much." Then with that common consolation with which the living evade the
thought of death, she added, "He has escaped more pain; it is better so,
perhaps!"
"No--that is wrong!"
Renault, standing beside the bed, his arms folded across his breast, looked
up from the dead child straight into the woman's eyes.
"That is false!" he cried with sudden passion. "Life is GOOD--all of
it--for every one."
He held her eyes with his glance while his words reverberated through her
being like the CREDO of a new faith.
* * * * *
When another nurse had come to relieve Isabelle, she left the ward with the
doctor. As they went through the passageway that led to the house, Renault
said in his usual abrupt tone:--
"You had better run home, Mrs. Lane, and get some sleep. To-morrow will be
another hard day."
She wheeled suddenly and faced him.
"How dare you say that life is good for any other human being! What do
_you_ know of another's agony,--the misery that existence may mean, the
daily woe?"
Her passionate burst of protest died in a sob.
"I say it because I believe it, because I _know_ it!"
"No one can know that for another."
"For animals the account of good and evil may be struck, the pains set
against the satisfactions that life offers. When we judge that the balance
is on the wrong side, we are merciful,--put the creature out of its misery,
as we say. But no human being is an animal in that sense. And no human
being can cast his balance of good and evil in that mechanical way--nor any
one else for him!"
"But one knows for himself! When you suffer, when all is blank within and
you cry as Job cried,--'would God it were morning, and in the morning would
God it were night!' then life is _not_ good. If you could be some one else
for a few hours, then you might understand--what defeat and living death--"
Oh, if she could tell! The impulse to reveal surged in her heart, that deep
human desire to call to another across the desert, so that some one besides
the silent stars and the wretched Self may know! Renault waited, his
compelling eyes on her face.
"When you have lost the most in your life--hope, love! When you have killed
the best!" she murmured brokenly. "Oh, I can't say it! ... I can never say
it--tell the whole."
Tears fell, tears of pity for the dead child, for herself, for the
fine-wrought agony of life.
"But I know!" Renault's voice, low and calm, came as it were from a shut
corner of his heart. "I have felt and I have seen--yes, Defeat, Despair,
Regret--all the black ghosts that walk."
Isabelle raised her eyes questioningly.
"And it is because of that, that I can raise my face to the stars and say,
'It is good, all good--all that life contains.' And the time will come when
you will repeat my words and say to them, 'Amen.'"
"That I could!"
"We are not animals,--there is the Unseen behind the Seen; the Unknown
behind the Observed. There is a Spirit that rises within us to slay the
ghosts, to give them the lie. Call upon it, and it will answer.... For
Peace is the rightful heritage of every soul that is born."
"Not Peace."
"Yes,--I say Peace! Health, perhaps; happiness, perhaps; efficiency,
perhaps. But Peace always lies within the grasp of whomsoever will stretch
out his hand to possess it." ...
As they stopped at the house door and waited in the deep silence of the
dark morning, Renault put his hands on Isabelle's shoulders:--
"Call to it, and it will come from the depths! ... Goodnight."
There in the still dawning hour, when the vaulted heavens seemed brooding
close to the hills and the forests, these two affirmations of a creed rang
in Isabella's soul like the reverberating chords of some mystic promise:--
"Life is good ... all of it ... for every one!" And, "Peace is the rightful
heritage of every soul. It lies within the grasp of whomsoever will stretch
out his hand to possess it."
It was still within her.