“Tell me,” I said.
And he told me....
“His name was Trudo. That name after all is as good as another....
I must tell you a little about his childhood ... not much ... it is
not very important. Trudo was a sensitive child; he couldn’t compete
with the boys; he was a coward and a stay-at-home. He felt everything
so intensely that he suffered incessantly. He could not fight, he
could not play ball. And his father, whom he worshipped, died. And
his mother was practical and embittered by her struggles and her
poverty. Trudo felt he was a worm. Yes, he was vermin. Until he made
a discovery.... If you couldn’t beat others with your fists or your
skill or your leadership, you could beat them with your mind. And
that was the beginning of the end for Trudo....
“He resolutely killed all his feelings. It can be done, you know. You
become like the snail. His body is soft and fragile; but he draws it
into his shell when there is danger of attack. This is what Trudo
did. And for the rest, he studied. He became a physician and a man of
research. He developed his intellect in a truly marvelous way. And he
rose, and was well on the path toward greatness.
“I won’t bore you with the details. They are the same for everyone
who succeeds. Think of your own successes. Merely imagine Trudo at
the top of his profession, living in a very fine house near Central
Park on a chaste side street. Respectability, luxury, the waiting
room with old masters on the wall, the tiled and shining laboratory,
the cushioned library, and so on, and so on.... It is not important,
is it?
“I pause a moment to speak of his wife. She was a very fine woman,
doubtless. Of one of the old New York families. If I mentioned the
name, you’d know all about it, I’m sure. And she was religious, in
a way, though her god was rather a crude one, a sort of hybrid,
not of the sphinx variety exactly, but a good respectable American
god. I am not cynical about it either. That god has given us much
of America.... Let me describe him in a word, a line: He was a
puritan who believed in hard work, righteousness and business. And
he believed in kindness and purity. You see my wife, don’t you? She
wanted me to be honest and upright, respectable and wealthy, and at
the same time lowly and obedient--down on my knees to her deity....
She found me then an anomaly: I was honest, I was wealthy, I was
upright; but I was proud and vain and consumed in myself. I had
no love in my heart. You know there was John Brown to prove that
a puritan can love like a blast of fire. But also, as you know, a
puritan can be a peak of ice.
“Now I must tell you a great joke. My patients thought me a second
Jesus. Actually. And why? Because I was remarkably intuitive. I could
pierce direct into their souls, and so I knew just what to say and
to do to make them feel I was in full sympathy with them. Is there
anything more devilish than that? I ask you. Think. To use the art
of love to serve merely one’s ambition and one’s egotism. To wear
the mask of Christ in order to be a great doctor. Good old American
bluff, isn’t it?”
He paused, and took a puff on his cigar. It was as if he had
forgotten my presence. Indeed he did not seem to realize that he had
dropped speaking of “Trudo” and was speaking directly of himself, in
the first person.
Then he went on, his voice growing warm and poignant.
“My wife warned me, often. She said I had slain my soul, and was
headed for a great crash. She pointed out how many of our great
business-men make forced marches on success and are killed or driven
insane or into a sanitarium before they are fifty. I agreed with her.
But what could I do? The greatest tragedy of my life was the fact
that it was a comedy. I knew all the facts, but I didn’t care a snap
of my fingers. I could not feel the tragedy. I was perfectly happy on
the ice--that is, if you can call it happy. Perhaps, to put it more
honestly, I was neither glad nor sad, but busy, alert and keen.
“Then the symptoms came. I will not enter into the details.
Palpitation of the heart, for instance--a very bad symptom, as you
know. You see, I had no heart; so it was just there that the gods
began to make mischief. Ah, yes, I knew then that the gods I had
laughed at were preparing a little doomsday for me. Man does not live
by intellect alone. If thou hast two loaves of bread, sell one, and
buy hyacinths for thy soul. Lord! I said those very words to myself
at the time. But of what avail?
“Obviously there was nothing I could do--except one thing. I could
put away Mammon--I could give up my practice, my fine house, my
scientific researches. But what modern successful man can do it? It
was exactly like the rich young man who went to Jesus. And Jesus
asked him if he could give up his wealth; leave all, and follow. And
the young man could not. That was I.
“No. My pride and revolt increase, if anything. And I even became
cold toward my wife. And this killed her. I looked on her dead face,
and not even then could I break through the ice, and drop one poor
tear of pity or self-pity.
“You see, I was utterly lost. And now with my wife dead, and no
children, and no true friends, you might have thought that it would
be easy to let go of the power of the world. But not so. Not so. The
decks were cleared for action, that was all. I was going to do a
great bit of scientific writing....
“Then the lightning struck me. Oh, it was so simple, so simple. I
was walking one night on a side-street on the lower west side. And
a prostitute accosted me. I had a sudden burning curiosity. I was
curious about the psychology of prostitution. I would go with this
woman, and study her. I had no desire. I was a puritan. I did not
want to touch her. Ugh! as a physician I knew too much about the
diseases of vice....
“She took me then to her dingy hall bedroom in a cheap lodging
house. I sat on the cot; she sat on a soap-box. And in the gaslight
I saw her; a very thin woman, a little tall, and perhaps tubercular.
Shining eyes and glowing cheeks. And she was very poor.”
He groaned, and stopped. Then he whispered:
“Now the story begins.... I began questioning her, when suddenly she
burst out on me:
“‘But you are not a human being. You are terrible. I feel as if the
Devil himself were in this room.’
“I was startled. I asked her:
“‘Who are you? Where do you come from?’
“‘I am a Russian,’ she said, ‘and a Jewess. My name is Losha.’
“‘But are not you in league with the Devil also?’
“‘No,’ she cried defiantly, rising before me and clenching her fists.
‘I am driven by need and loneliness; but you are only vain and
learned. You are a lost soul.’
“‘Yes.’ I admitted in my honest way, ‘I _am_ lost. What’s to be done
about it?’
“‘You know you are lost,’ she cried, ‘and yet ask me that? Oh, this
is terrible. This is the eternal damnation they talk about....’
“‘That doesn’t help me,’ I said. ‘Talk has never helped me. I can
talk myself.’”
She stared at me, and leaned toward me.
“‘You are right. Only an infinite love could help you.’
“That was the way we talked. And suddenly I forgot that I was the
questioner and had a great desire to tell her about myself. I
told everything, just as I have told you. It was amazing enough;
an ignorant sick woman of the gutter, one whose body was common
merchandise, and who had no life of her own, and I, the learned
scientist, the respectable and wealthy doctor.
“Three times I went to see her. And at the third the lightning passed
through me. She was weeping when I entered and would not rise from
the bed. Her face was buried in her hands.
“‘Why are you crying, Losha?’ I asked.
“‘I weep,’ she said, ‘because you are to be pitied more than I am. We
are both prostitutes. But the Devil in me is a god, and you have no
god.’
“I stood, silent, but quite calm. Then she rose slowly and flung her
arms about my neck. I had not expected it. She whispered passionately:
“‘I love you. I love you. I love you.’
“‘Why do you love?’ I asked.
“‘Because I am your lost soul.’
“And I saw the truth. I saw that what lay buried in me was not only
divine love, but also the great beast, and that this woman was both.
And first I felt a burning steal through my body, a hot and primal
fire, the smoky breath of hell itself, and for the first time I could
remember, I had the horrible cannibal lust to tear a human body limb
from limb. But while I was convulsed with this, something strangely
other came up and mingled with the lust. It was as if I saw the
Christ. It was holy and ecstatic and divine.... Yes, yes, yes, it was
love....
“You can imagine an earthquake that raises some monstrous buried
formation to the surface and buries what it finds there. That
happened to me.... It was like a conversion. But in my conversion
both Christ and the beast came up and tore asunder the great Dr.
Farraday--the fine intellect, the high-minded ego....
“In short, I went suddenly mad, and gave a great shriek, tearing off
my clothes and foaming at the mouth. I called Losha ‘the goddess’ and
prostrated myself before her. Then I shrieked aloud for the torture
and agony and had something very like a fit of epilepsy.
“She was terrified. She finally put me to bed, and soothed me. She
nursed me tenderly. I would lie quiescent for hours, in a fever. Then
the spell was on me. I saw great beasts, kings and gods. I was ground
by terrible passion and ecstasy. It was a death....”
He paused; then smiled sadly....
“You can imagine the sequel. I could not return to my house. It was
all ended. All my interest in my work, my position, my power and
place in the world, had vanished. Everything, but the emotions that
swept me, was quite unreal. And so I ruined myself.
“I married Losha. It seemed a simple matter. And we opened a little
stationery shop and kept it together.... And then I began to draw:
I became an artist. I was alive from head to foot, and yet quite
tormented--tormented by these terrible passions and ecstacies, these
perverted and glorious impulses which for years had festered in my
darkness, and which, when they came upon me, came more like monsters
than divinities....
“What can I say of Losha? She was the one woman whom I never knew. My
intuition failed me. I never understood. Was she ugly or beautiful?
stupid or wise? base or noble? I cannot tell. I only could know her
simple and undivided love, which never forsook me. It was those fires
in which I became as ashes.
“As ashes, ashes.... One cold morning she coughed a great big racking
spasm.... Then she whispered to me:
“‘Trudo, I love you.’
“And she died.... I closed the shop.... I did not need the shop. I
needed only my own soul, which began to dawn in me like the sun in
spring.... And being quite insane, I came here....”
We were silent. He fussed about among his papers and murmured: “I
suppose it isn’t much of a story.”
I smiled at him, but said nothing. Then he showed me a portrait he
had made of Losha.
She was dark and thin, even gaunt, and a look almost of madness in
the eyes.... The tears rolled down the Doctor’s cheeks....
A little later I said goodby to him. We stood, facing each other and
he held my hand.
“I am insane,” he said, “do not forget that. And out there--”
he waved his other hand in the direction of New York, “live the
sane ones. Losha is dead, and Dr. Farraday is dead. You know the
ancients,” he smiled quaintly, “thought the insane were close to the
gods. But that’s a fable, isn’t it?”